400 gallon saga, Zach's reef reboot V2.5

zachrabbit15

New member
Ok, well things have changed and these changes lead to this tank build. Some of you have seen my my other build and been following along. That saga has taken a hard right. So this build started with a 360 gallon acrylic (84x32x30tall) with black back and sides, decided I wasn't in love with the black side and found a 340 acrylic peninsula tank (96x32x24tall) was happy for about 1 day. Was perusing some local adds for some more live rock and lo and behold my dream tank came up. A 96x32x30 glass tank with external coast to coast overflow. After some quick talking with the wife, I am now the new owner of said glass tank and 150gallon custom sump.

New tank is low iron on the front and sides with a 6ft external over flow. Tank is drilled for a closed loop in the back with 4 1.5" bulkheads. still unsure if they will be used or plugged.

Acrylic Sump is 60x24x24 and baffled to 12" with the center section being 36x24x12tall. Since I am running a external skimmer, this area will be converted to deep sand bed/calupa fuge.

I have a old 187 that the top cracked in several places that will be cut down to 55x24x22tall and turned into a display refugium and hold a few none reef safe fish. Was originally going to make a sump out of it.

Last in my frag tank 48x20x12tall and is exactly that a frag tank.

The 400 will be going in the living room on a steal stand with beauty panels to hide the plumbing and closed loop if I go that route. Everything else will be going in the garage/fishroom. Rough guess is a total volume around 800 gallons.

Current list of equipment:

Glass tank 96x32x30tall
System sump 60x24x24tall
Refugium 55x24x22tall
Frag tank 48x20x12
Skimmer Reef Octopus Diablo 300ext
Calcium Reactor Reef Octopus 3000 with Carbon Doser regulator
Bio Pellet reactor Reef Octopus BR-140
Ozone system Enoly Ozac-plus200/Ozonetech Air dryer
Artica 1/2 chiller
Apex Classic Gold with 4 EB8s, 2 DOS, ATK kit
Return pump is Reeflo Hammerhead
7-stage RO filter 200gpd with booster pump
2 Ledgle 300watt LEDs (frag tank)
2 48" T5HO retrofit kits (frag tank)

List of equipment still needed:
Second Apex at the tank to control lights and gyres.
Lights, originally was going to do all T5s but like the looks of T5/LED combo. Still working that out.
Circulation, still leaning towards 2 Gyre 280s, one on each end and programmed similar to how BRS did theirs
Live rock, I have about 100lbs in the 100gallon temp tank, would like to get another 200lbs, along with a few 100lbs of sand/crushed coral.

Build is going to take the better part of this coming year to get up and going. Plan is to get stand and tank in the house by March with supports added to the flooring. In the mean time will get garage fishroom laid out and up and going, plumbing from garage to under the tank roughed in and ready. If everything goes as planned maybe ready to attach the 400 to the sump room by mid summer. This is all dependent on time and $$$ for more live rock and lights. So corals for main by this time next year


Thats it for right now, will be bringing the tank home in a couple weeks along with starting the garage area. Wish me luck!!
 
Best of luck and tagging along for your adventures! Got your fish list selected?


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Small update, ended up buying out the rest of a fellow reefers system. Kevin had a very successful 500 or so gallon system and all the equipment minus tanks and Skimmer came from him. He had been running CT Lites 270watt G3 leds, color and par were very good in his tank and convinced me to go that route also. Another plus is they use a standalone Bluetooth controller, that will free up the Apex to do other task. I will be running 5 over the 400 spaced about every 1.5". I was also able to buy another 100+lbs of pukani rock and 50lbs of shelf rock. That just leaves me with getting the tonga branch from BRS.

All in all tanks moving along faster than planned, but still going to take a bit to get floors done and stand welded up.

As for my fish list, wrasses/wrasses/wrasses/gobies/gobies/gobies/anthis/cromis. I like the look of a busy tank with lots of smaller fish schooling if possible and darting in and out of the rockwork.
As for big fish Maculcepis/Dusemira/Sohol/Clown tangs, pyramid butterflys treo, declevis butterfly, regal and goldflake angels. Those would make the short list
 
Some updates on my really slow build. Lights purchased, will be running 5 CT Lite G3 units over the display. I was lucky and Kevin sold me his three and the controller and picking two more up from Oceans By Design. The deep sand bed/Calupa fuge will be lit with two 90watt red/blue hydroponic lights and frag tank will be run of the two modded Ledgle black boxes. Converting the old 187 into a frag tank after picking up a 60x24x24 acrylic tank to use for the display fuge. That fuge will be lit with 3 90watt 6500k flood lamps and a couple T5ho retrofits that came from my planted tank that was just taken down. Also picked up a second Hammerhead pump and plan to use it on the closed loop already drilled into the tank.

Tank is coming home this weekend and fishroom build to start the following weekend. Have decided to farm the stand build out to a local welding shop I used to work for. All and all moving along way quicker than anticipated!!!
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Tank is home!!
 
Liking that tank. Overflows like that really appeal to me. I would use the CL for flow since the holes are there already it makes it easy. Maks for a cleaner look with no power heads in the tank. Do 2 Sea Swirls for the sump return. On a large tank the CL and Sea Swirls make getting a great flow easy. You can use SQWD on the CL to further randomize the flow.
 
Picked up a couple barrels for my water mixing station! 130 gallons each, 2ft diameter and 7 ft tall). Should make doing monthly 100gallon water changes easier!!
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