My 500 + gallon system. Last 13 years to now. Build, Aquascaping & more. Lots of pics

slief said:
It's been along time since I posted an update to this thread. Up until very recently the tank had been in cruise control with not much new to update. Livestock was all doing well and coral all doing well. We very recently made a decision to sell our home & move Montana and finally found a home this last December that we really like on a great 1.58 acre riverfront property in a killer location. We flew out there December 21st to check it out. We put our offer in on December 23 and found out Christmas Eve just as our plane landed back in LA (still on the tarmac) that our offer was accepted. It was the best Christmas gift ever! I already had our house out here on the market. New Year's Eve we got an offer on the house here that we couldn't refuse but the buyers did not want the tank. Livestock was sold very quickly and within a handful of days the tank was drained and removed from the wall and construction began to reassemble the fish room back into a bedroom.

This weekend we pack up the house, load the truck and drive off into the sunset to our new riverfront home in Montana just outside of Whitefish. It's long been my dream (over 30 years of dreaming) to move to Western Montana and it seems as though dreams do come true. Back in the early 80's I went to boarding school in Western Montana and I've wanted to move there ever since. This place has a great river (Stillwater river) running right through the back yard. There is lower Stillwater lake 1000' up stream and we are in the middle of the Stillwater national forest yet we have an airport, Costco, Walmart, Best Buy etc all with 25-30 minutes from us in Kalispell Mt. A ski resort in Whitefish is 15 minutes away and Glacier National Park 35 minutes away. Terrific fly fishing for big native trout and pike in my backyard and a lake packed with all kinds of fish basically next door. Cost of living is a fraction of what it is out here which will put years back on my life due to stress reduction and I get to enjoy 4 real seasons.

I've got my dream property but the house is kind of a nightmare but I knew that going in. It's a fixer upper that was priced right. The property owner is carrying us for a couple years and we put a very minimal down payment. The upside is that once we finish the remodel, we will be in a VERY equitable position on the place.The house was foreclosed on a year and a half ago and left empty for the last year and a half so it needs a lot of work. A realtor bought it last year with the plans of doing it but decided not to and put it on the market.

I flew out there this last week and remove walls drywall ceilings insulation etc. to begin the process of a full remodel and get it ready for our move in. A lot of progress was made during the 6 days I was out there but the remodel will take me several months or more to complete as I will be doing most of the work myself. There will likely be a reef tank in the future but it will be at least a year out & it likely won't be as large due to the floor plan and crawl space below the house instead of a concrete slab foundation.

I will remain active on the forum and will be here daily as I always enjoy helping others and I will continue to work for Royal Excluvis as well as my other aquarium related endeavors. You can subscribe to my Youtube channel to see what I am doing in Montana (including the remodel) and follow along on some of my new adventures out there of which there will be many.

Below is the final video of my reef tank. A video showing my new back yard as well as a picture of the house both taken this last week.

So this is my final video on my reef tank. This was taken a couple weeks ago.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G0uOTOeV8fU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Here is a video I took last week showing our new backyard. I love the snow in case you were wondering.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yPvcsoWZ8jw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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What a sweet place you have in Montana! #goals
 
So sad to see it go! It's really rare that a home reef lasts 13 whole years; you've achieved what every reefer strives for!

Congrats on the new house. It's gonna be beautiful. Whenever you get your next reef going, please post a link to it's build thread on this thread, so everyone who has admired this tank can go enjoy the journey of your next one, too!
 
JLynn said:
So sad to see it go! It's really rare that a home reef lasts 13 whole years; you've achieved what every reefer strives for!

Congrats on the new house. It's gonna be beautiful. Whenever you get your next reef going, please post a link to it's build thread on this thread, so everyone who has admired this tank can go enjoy the journey of your next one, too!
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Thank you very much! Believe it or not, this thread was started 10 years ago so the tank was actually up here since 1997. Well over 20 years now. I definitely will post updates in the future when I set up a new tank. I will post in this thread and start a new thread for the new build.
 
pmrossetti said:
Good luck Scott!
Simi Valley will never be the same! :)

Did Jim go with you? :D
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Thank you very much!! Loving Montana! Heading out in and our or so to do some ice fishing on the lake next door. Got my fishing gear, ice tent, heater, auger, drill and chairs packed up in the trailer sled and the snowmobile ready to go. Should be bringing back dinner fresh from he lake! Will be targeting perch and pike today.
 

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Hey [MENTION=225253]slief[/MENTION] hope all is well bud. I have been missing your post. Big fan as always. Do you still have your tank? would love to see an update.
 
Hellsangelbx said:
Hey [MENTION=225253]slief[/MENTION] hope all is well bud. I have been missing your post. Big fan as always. Do you still have your tank? would love to see an update.
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Thanks! Sadly, the tank, livestock and equipment was sold in January as we sold our home and move to North Western Montana. I am out of the reef hobby for the time being after 30+ years of having salt running through my veins and house.
 
Bummer I was always a big fan. Hopefully you’ll get back into it.looking forward for a new [MENTION=225253]slief[/MENTION] build and what you would use as equipment starting from scratch now
 
Hellsangelbx said:
Bummer I was always a big fan. Hopefully you'll get back into it.looking forward for a new [MENTION=225253]slief[/MENTION] build and what you would use as equipment starting from scratch now
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Thanks.. Truth is there isn't much I'd change since everything was working so well and my live stock was thriving. Once we are done with our remodel here, I will likely revisit a reef tank but I have lots of work ahead of me. In the mean time, I setup an Aquaponics system. That's running an Apex and Profilix P4 for monitoring and control and I have another Apex in our hen house for monitoring and some control.
 
There is something freeing not having a reef system at home. I've been "reef free" for 13years but lived vicariously and spending my clients $ up until 2018 when hung up the buckets and hoses for a full time eng position across the country from ON to AB (Canada).

We were going to buy a house and considered building a reef system this summer but the oil $ crashed and Cv-19 hit.

We moved back to ON, bought a house and doing renos...considering a reef system but missing the freshwater side and will probably build a pond and palaudarium instead of going reef...less to worry about when we want to take off for the weekend/week/extended holiday when the Cv-19 dust settles to the new normalcy.

Helping a colleague that broke his leg with his clients until he's...uhm...back on his feet again...

Its tough getting the reef bug out of the head and veins...always on the fence pulling the trigger to build a system.
 
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