der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
I want it to look like a window into the ocean, not a two dimensional painting that happens to move a bit.
I also want there to be a sense of mystery, or the unknown/unseen. As is typical in a Japanese-style garden, you don't see the whole picture at once. You have to walk around a corner, or look beyond the obvious, to see elements of the design that aren't visible at first. In this spirit, the tank is going to be a peninsula, with one main viewing panel facing our living/dining room. The short end and other long side will be facing hallways that serve bedrooms, a bathroom, and the front door. These sides will NOT be full-sized glass, but just have narrow viewing panes in them - the idea being that as you enter the house, or come in to the living space from the bedrooms in the morning, you get a first glimpse of the tank, but don't see the whole thing until you walk around the corner.
That was a major factor for going with plywood. With glass, the whole tank is visible all the time (though I suppose you could cover part of it.) I think one of the mistakes we make as reef keepers is to try to expose everything, and put everything up front. While it's a nice way to show off corals, it makes even large tanks feel trite, IMHO - because you can take it all in at once. It makes a tank feel smaller than it really is. Meanwhile, with a plywood tank, you literally won't be able to see the whole thing at once. It'll be harder to take it all in with a single glance, and more plausible to imagine that it extends beyond the visible portion, off into the distance, some unknown amount. That's the sort of feeling I'm going for.
Similar concept with the lighting. I'm sick of MH or T5 rigs where it's either all on or all off. Or, at best, you can turn a few lamps on at a time. Even still, you get very unnatural changes in light in the morning and evening. Plus, all the light is coming straight down, all of the time. With LED lighting, it'll be easier to create much more dramatic lighting - gradual increases in intensity, angled lighting in the morning and evening, simulating the sun and moon traveling across the sky, dimming the lights occasionally in the afternoon to simulate cloud cover, etc. Even if none of that makes a difference to the livestock, IMHO it will create a dramatic appearance that's hard to get with traditional lighting (in other words, I think it's cool, so I'm doing it.
)In the end, I want the tank to feel like it was designed by an interior designer or architect, not like it was some hobby project tacked on to the house. I'm honestly not really interest in fad corals, or even which corals and fish end up in the tank, or how fast they grow, etc. Instead, with this tank, I'm trying to step back and design from a big picture perspective.
Ok, enough DWIZ babble for now.
W! Where exactly in WNY are you from again? I'd love to see this bad boy in action someday, and maybe donate a frag or two as well! 
