My 540G Inwall Display Build Thread

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

The purpose of this thread is to share my knowledge with others and more importantly receive knowledge from others, whoever said it was better to give than receive, they were crazy!



My goal with this tank is to have a mixed reef with 70% dominance of sps. I also like a lot of fish. I plan to have some schooling fish as well as some big boys. Another major goal is to make the tank as environmentally friendly as possible.



Tank

I picked up the tank about 6 weeks ago from ATA in LA. Tank measures 120"X34.5"X30" and is 1" acrylic on all sides with 3/4" on top and bottom. It also has an external end mounted overflow box. Tank will be in a wall that is already 34.5" wide, which separates my living room and master bedroom. It will be viewable from both sides.



Stand

The stand will be made of 2x2 and 2x3 steel. The light rack will be steel as well and connected to the stand.



Filtration

The tank is set to go on a wall that is right next to the exterior wall of the house. I will be building a shed in the side yard of my back yard to hold all the filter equipment. I currently have about 6-8 tanks waiting to be sumps, QT, and so on.



Skimmer

Volcano type skimmer built by Bill Wann (so I was told) already onsite



Lighting

I'm still not 100% decided on lighting but right now the plan is 3 large solar tubes, (2) 400W Halides in Lumenarcs and some T5 for color offset of the solar tubes.



Circulation

1 or 2 VFD wavemakers on closed loops. Wavyseas for the returns from the sump.



Here are a few pictures of the living room side.


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Here are a few pictures on the bedroom side. The tank will take up the full length of the cubbies.

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Here is where the shed will go.

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[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

I'm hoping to order the steel for the stand this week. Early next week the pad for the shed gets poured and the AC unit gets moved out of the way. I will try to get the google sketch up of the stand posted soon.

 

[jgs107]

this is going to be one awesome build.any pics of the skimmer you said was allready on site

 

[jon56048]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13150493#post13150493 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jgs107
this is going to be one awesome build.any pics of the skimmer you said was allready on site

yes please post some pic's

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

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[seamonkey2]

holly cow Batman, thats one big skimmer!!!

 

[jgs107]

wow that skimmer looks awesome.are you going to feed it with an air pump.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

Yep, it came with an alita air pump.

 

[dew2loud1]

Sweet skimmer, definitely an early bill wann/spazz with the tall cone, measure the diameter of the neck, only looks like about 6", may want to consider getting scott (spazz) to make you an 8-10" neck, it will help the skimmer out a lot.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

Yep, it is a 6" neck. I will PM scott and see what he has to say. Thanks

 

[Bax]

Now THAT'S a skimmer!

 

[Brandan]

Tank looks great. How big are the openings in the top?

 

[kirkaz]

Great looking project Ryan....Curious why you went with ATA as opposed to Tenecor here in the Valley?

 

[jgs107]

looks great

 

[TandN]

Sounds great best of luck with it

 

[ReefThuz]

very nice! looking forward to seeing more pics of this project.
rs

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13155966#post13155966 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Brandan
Tank looks great. How big are the openings in the top?

18x17

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13156232#post13156232 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kirkaz
Great looking project Ryan....Curious why you went with ATA as opposed to Tenecor here in the Valley?

Tenecor was twice the price, otherwise I would have used them.

 

[corals b 4 bills]

Is the cat box reef related? Do you run Carbox in the box? Just kidding (add He-He here), Digg'n the tank, Bang'n on the Skimmer..........Hello! look at the size of your crib. Man my little 1,400 Sq. footer goes for $1,000.000 bucks here in california, if your house was here....Fogetta-bowdit. Anyway I'll be watching your build because in two or three months I will be doing my 225 as well and I would like to use (steal) as many Ideas of your as possible and call them my own . I just welded my own stand last month and of course 2x2 was over build, but I'm a contractor how can 1/8" of anything hold up 3,000 lbs? Here's a pic of mine. BTW who will be welding up yours? Keep up the good work.

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[jumpfreak26]

Very cool idea with the double in wall setup, pretty cool your exterior wall is like 5 feet from the tank, will make plumbing easier