A Reef in the Sky...scaper

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Acrotrdco

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Alright, it's pretty obvious that this thread is inspired by Andrew's most famous thread "A Reef in the Sky", being a neighbour and local

hobbyist I'm sure he wouldn't mind :wavehand:

Background

Living in the crowded suburbs of Hong Kong, my apartment located on the 21st floor of a residential skyscaper, is relatively small and the

only room I could fit an aquarium would be the over-sized window sill measuring some 2'x7', here's some images of my current living room,

and my current 20g tank.

I've always wanted to build a large SPS dominated tank like most of the experienced folks here, but due to my limited budget, at this point

of time all I could build is a 55g SPS dominated tank, an upgrade from my current 20g nano-reef.

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Looking out from my window and this is what you'll see:

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And this is my current tank, a 20g nano-reef:
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Design Phase

Working with the limited space I've got, the only possible way to put a 55G tank is to utilize some of the space on the over-sized window

sill. However, even with a 55g tank, it weights from 500 lbs and I worried if the window sill can actually sustain such a weight, therefore

a special stand must be made to distribute some of the weight to the floor instead of having the sill take on the full weight.

This is what I've come up with (Yep using the same tools Andrew used to design his tank):
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The tank and stand alone would look something like this:
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Display Tank and Stand

Since I'll be reusing the current 28" sump (also placed on the window sill), and most of the current equipments I'm using on my 20g, I'll only need to build a new display tank with the special stand.

The DT and stand would have the following dimension:

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Craftmanship and Material

The new DT will be made using PPG Starphire ultra clear (low-iron) glass, made by the same vendor who made Andrew's tank.

Holding a piece of the sample glass and you can see how clear it is.

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The new DT will be rim-less, using the so-called "closed injection" method to make sure no silicone sealent is visible from the edges, as seen on the following photos taken on a local reefer's tank built with this technique from the same vendor:

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Looking from the side of his tank, you can even see through the entire 6' glass panel!

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My new tank and stand are currently being built, so please wait patiently until I've got some updates! :)
 
Hi Howard!!!

I thought your current tank looked familiar!! Great to see the new project up and running!!

Looking forward to the updates buddy!

Andrew
 
Equipment

I'll be re-using most of my current equipments:

Filtration: NP Biopellets (1st and 2nd Generation), using a small BM reactor.
Skimmer: BM 150 Pro
Flow: 2x EcoTech Marine's Vortech MP10w ES (currently using 1x MP10, will be upgrading the driver to ES as well as adding another one).
Lighting: Maxspect G2-160w LED
Water Cooler: Teco TR10
Return Pump: Upgrading from NewJet 1700 to NewJet 3000 (3000 L/h or ~ 790 gallon/h)
Calcium Reactor: Nil - will be using dosing pump instead.
Dosing pump + additives: BM 3+4 heads dosing pump, dosing Ca (Kent Turbo Calcium), KH (Sodium Bicarbonate), Mg (Kent Tech-M), Sr (Kent), Trace Element (Seachem), K (Brightwell) and other KZ additives (SP, Xtra, Spur2, B-Bal, etc.)
pH Meter: American Marine pH meter
Computer: Nil - will be adding one later when budget allows.

Current Tank

These are some photos of the corals that I'll be transferring to the new tank, hopefully they'll all survive the move (finger crossed)!

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Hi Howard!!!

I thought your current tank looked familiar!! Great to see the new project up and running!!

Looking forward to the updates buddy!

Andrew

Hi Andrew!

Nice to have you here, too! :celeb1:

My tank is nothing compared to yours, but here it is anyway haha! :lmao:

p.s. we're doing lots frag swaps lately, let me know if you're interested so I could send you the info.
 
Aquascape

Since I'll be using all the live rocks (with SPS already attached) from the current nano-reef tank in this new tank, I'll need to design some base rocks for my new tank, then attach the old live-rocks using coral epoxy underwater in the new tank.

I've been looking around for aquascape ideas, and I like the simplistic / minimalist approach so the aquascape of my new tank will be nothing more than 2-3 small columns.

Some of the base rocks I've made so far:

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great aquascape. i can see some zoanthus and brains and bubbles growing in the shadows areas XD

Thanks, and that's exactly the idea when I design the aquascape :lolspin:

I've got plenty of ric's right now, some acans and zoa's but I've plan to add more, so I can put them to in the shadow areas and to the sides.

My collection of ric's - I'm running out of room to put them and they're currently under direct light from my LED fixture so they aren't really happy. As soon as my new tank is up I'm gonna put them under some shadow. :D

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Looks like this will be an awesome project! Which is why you should change the name of this thread. I'm sure you could come up with something a little more creative.

subscribed!

You Hong Kong reefers are setting the bar very high
 
Nice project! Can't wait to see this. May I have the name of the render program you used after sketchup?
 
Very nice. I was inspired by Andrew and Sonnys tanks so it's good to see another setup based on such tanks. I will be following this tank very closely.
 
Great looking nano-tank! I am sure the new tank will be much better! Looking forward to the bulid.
Jack

Current tank looks great, Im sure the new one will be even better!

This looks like it will be a nice build, tagging along.

very nice looking tank, great job!! thanks for sharing.

Well planned out,waiting to see it completed.

Thanks guys :)

Looks like this will be an awesome project! Which is why you should change the name of this thread. I'm sure you could come up with something a little more creative.

subscribed!

You Hong Kong reefers are setting the bar very high

Well I didn't come up with this title to "ride the wave" generated by Andrew's thread, as a matter of fact, I've been thinking of the thread title for quite a while, since I'm living on a residential skyscaper, with my tank placed on the over-sized window sill, overlooking the river, so the title should be associated to that.

Also since my tank built is really inspired by Andrew's tank, I want to somehow bring up that in the thread title as well, so that's why I ended up picking this name.

My tank is no where nearly as sophisticated as Andrew's or some other HK reefer's...

Just an example, this is the what I called the super sump, belongs to one of our local reef club members, he's really one of the folks who's setting the bar REALLY high LOL ...
supersump.jpg


Nice project! Can't wait to see this. May I have the name of the render program you used after sketchup?

I used Hypershot, same as Andrew, but that program is discontinued and now renamed to Bunkspeed Shot.

You can look it up here:
http://www.bunkspeed.com/shot/

Very nice. I was inspired by Andrew and Sonnys tanks so it's good to see another setup based on such tanks. I will be following this tank very closely.

Thanks again, I'll be updating as often as I could, right now I'm waiting for my tank to arrive, hopefully before the end of November, so I could have the new tank up before Christmas! :lmao:
 
Just an update, sort of.

Some more photos of the corals in my nano-reef tank that I'll be transferring to the new tank:

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Anyone know what species this is? It came as a small frag growing on a colony of a different species acropora I've bought, and have slowly grow to this size, but I've never seen anything like this before. I'd probably post it on the SPS ID forum as well.
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Toothbrush like polyps
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Fire Coral! ugh we get those in our beaches and it stings like hell. BTW thats the prettiest I've seen.
Great pictures!
 
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