A clean slate

[pars]

Hello. I'm a new guy here.

It all started with buying a small aquarium for my 3 year old daughter as a "potty prize"...
Next thing I know I'm buying Dr.Bronx's 125 gallon reef tank...(Clearly a well thought out decision...)

We've kept freshwater tanks over the years but are new to salt and reef. So I've been reading like crazy and now I'm completely confident that I don't know much.

The tank is going to be set-up in the basement...I'm in the way early stages of finishing it. So I really have a blank slate to work with here. The tank is going to be the backdrop behind a bar on the side of a media room. Plumbing and drain/vent pipes not too far away. I'm hanging the boxes for the electrical runs today. Plan is to add some new circuits to the basement and I think the set up will likely get its own run. R/O will hopefully be right next to the tank.

Anything else that I should be thinking about in this pre-construction phase?
What would you all do if you could set up your fish room from scratch?

Looking forward to getting started...
Thanks.

 

[Neoz]

First welcome to the forum :wavehand: ! Always nice to have newer members then me . Congrats on the tank. You'll like that size.

If I had a clean slate the first issue I would resolve is to have more room behind the tank. Like a seperate fish room. That would be great. Also to have a bigger sump. Go with the biggest sump you can. One with a refugium. Wish I had one. Have you thought about were your going to place your sump? I know Jerry ran his under the tank. But you have options with a clean slate.

Thats about it from me but I'm the new guy. I'm sure the pro's will ring in soon and give you some helpful tips. Good Luck and happy building.

 

[pimpinitup6969]

I would also have a seperate room behind the aquarium to house the sump, refuge, r/o, drums for mixing salt and topping off, etc

 

[frankandmaura]

Need a connection for RO/DI water and a drain in the floor would be GREAT if you can swing it.

I am in Vestal too, towards the Apalachin end of Front Street. Let me know if there is anything I can do. BTW...if you have a blank slate and want to set up something permanent my set-up is pretty cool. It is in the wall behind our bar.

I can't take any credit for it though, it was there when we bought the house

Only thing I wish I had was a drain in the floor near the tank.

 

[nwrogers]

Whenever I need inspiration for anything reef related I always browse the past tank of the month section on the reef keeping online magazine website...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/past.php

I always liked knowing that the tanks I was modeling mine after had proved themselves to be successful over long period of time. Here are a few nice sump rooms that could give you some ideas...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-04/totm/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-10/totm/index.php

I also like to checkout melev's website. He always has good ideas on there...

http://www.melevsreef.com/280g/280g_sump.html

http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html

Good luck and welcome to STRS!!

 

[drbronx]

Nice to finally see you on our forum. Welcome aboard. You will receive lots of friendly guidance and input so that you can benefit from all the mistakes that we have all made along the way. And by the way, you made a brilliant decision regarding your choice of set-ups so you are well on your way.

It sounds like you already have a nice set-up for your tank in terms of availability of water, electrics etc. I like Nate's advice to research successful set-ups and model their systems as guides. However we must all balance our ideals against pragmatic considerations and constraints such as cost, energy utilization, time etc.