My New 75 Gallon Reef Pics Included!

[aquawolf]

This is a new 75 gallon reef set up that I put together on Saturday, April 1 2006. The system consists of a 75 gallon reef ready aquarium, cpr cy294, home made acrylic refugium, Coralife Aqualight Pro 48" Dual 150 MH and Dual 96 Actinic. Now on to the pictures.

Here is an overall tank view with the actinics on:

Here is a picture of the CPR CY294 in action:

Here is a picture of the refugium:

Here is a picture of the Aqualight Pro retrofitted into the canopy:

And here is a full tank shot with the Metal Halides on:

Now before anybody begins a flame war against me, you need to know that I used 80 lbs of Pink Fiji live sand and that all of the live rock and livestock came out of my 90 AGA that was setup for a little over a year. So my disclaimer is: "Under normal circumstances you cannot have a tank that looks like this in less than one week!"

I am still a newbie and probably will be one forever. I have learned a lot from this site and wanted to share my latest experience with everyone here.

This is what a little over one years worth of lurking turned into and I have many people on here to thank for it.

 

[REEFKEEPA]

No Dude!
That is KILLER!

 

[bonbon]

very nice
good job

 

[aquawolf]

Thanks for the compliments! I am extremely pleased with the way it turned out.

By the way, I also have to give props to all the fellow reefers who sold me equipment on this forum. If you need something, be sure to check the selling forums here first!

 

[FormulatedFire]

awesome dude could you post some more pics of ur refuge and sump i'm looking for some ideas myself

 

[PatMayo]

Why did you go from a 90 to a 75? Most folks go the opposite direction.

Regards,

Pat

 

[Reef_|<eeper]

Very Nice looking tank. The Halides light it up quite nicely!

 

[aquawolf]

Glad you like it FormulatedFire

You can find out more about the CPR CY294 at Marine Depot, http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CR1365 . Even though it is rated for a 500 gallon tank, I got a deal on it that I couldn't refuse (reef central selling forum) so I used some silicon to temp seal one side and am keeping the other pump in reserve in case the current one dies.

For the refugium, I got the idea from Marc on Melev's Reef, http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/side/sump_model_i.html , and used it as my first attempt at building something out of acrylic. That was pretty cool, although I will admit I had to use Weld-On 16 a while after I used the Weld-On 3.

Anyway, my model is 12 inches wide by 10 inches deep and 23 inches high. I split the drain line coming from the tank and have a gate valve so I can control the flow to the fuge section. I drilled 2 1 inch bulkheads for drainage into the sump. I put 2 in case one gets clogged for some reason the other should take over until I find and fix the problem.

 

[aquawolf]

Pat,

Reef_|>eeper hit the nail on the head. I was running the Aqualight Pro set up on my 90 gallon AGA, but was not happy with the light penetration the 150's were giving me. My 90 had a Marineland Tidepool wet/dry underneath it, and I had been wanting to get rid of that for quite a while. I was also running an 18 inch HOB CPR Aquafuge which was totally jammed with Caulerpa.

So, by adding the larger skimmer/sump section and the larger refugium, I am basically right at the same amount of water that I was running in my 90 set up.

So far my corals are all adjusting well, including a few SPS frags I received from a friend.

 

[Reeftoker]

Looks beautiful , your tank makes we want to set up anoother softy tank.

 

[aquawolf]

Thanks Reeftoker!

I'll try to take some close up shots to show the livestock and corals and add them to this thread a little later.

 

[Recife]

hey aquawolf, did you have the canopy custom made? It looks great.

 

[XOrionFE]

That looks awesome. I hope I can get mine to look that good in a year. Of course getting there is a large part of the fun.

Very nice!

 

[aquawolf]

Recife, the canopy came with the tank and stand. I bought it from a guy here on Reef Central who was moving and had never put any water in it. I believe both the stand and canopy are custom though because my refugium is 23" tall and I still have about 3-4" of clearance above that and you normally don't get stands that tall.

Thanks for the comments!

XOrionFE, the best advice I can give is to be patient and continue to check the selling forum on this site. You never know when you will find an awesome deal on live rock, livestock, corals, or equipment. A little here and a little there and then, finally, it all comes together.

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

aquawolf my pal, thanx for the heads up brother, your reef looks awesome i just love it...its really good to hear from you...

 

[aquawolf]

Thanks ChAoTiCrEeFeR4u! I thought you might like to see how I "fixed" your old set of lights to fit them inside the canopy.

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

yeah, i thought that was pretty handy of you...

 

[aquawolf]

I received a few PM's asking for more details on the setup so I am going to try to answer them all here.

The tank was reef ready, pre-drilled with 1 inch drain and 3/4 inch return. I used the Megaflow Overflow kit for the plumbing in the built in overflow section and it is very quiet.

The return system is being driven by a Mag 7 pump and is forced through the Y nozzle that came with the Megaflow kit.

For extra flow in the main tank I used Gorilla Glue and mounted the brackets for 3 Maxijet 1200's to Mag Float 125's. This got rid of all of the suction cups (which I had fail on me before in my 90) and gives me the freedom to move the power heads around a little if need be. The 3 power heads are connected to a Red Sea Wavemaster Pro that I have set on Turbulent Reef.

I believe this answers all of the questions. If I missed yours, please post it here so everyone can see it and I will be happy to answer you.

 

[aquawolf]

A little bump for the Friday crew.

 

[Alexj716]

DUDE! sweet tank!