Planning a split tank build

[papania]

Hello,

My wife and I are planning on buying a house in the next year so she gave me the green light to start planning my new tank.

We wanted to upgrade to a large tank but her and I are torn between agressive/not coral safe and coral safe tank.

We are trying to envision a 200-300gal tank that we somehow make two sides to it to have the best of both worlds but still make it look natural.

We were thinking maybe doing a in-wall corner tank that has a natural looking wall/divider in the middle but still had the water on the same system.

Is this idea crazy, and are there better ones I may not be thinking about.

Thanks
Steve

 

[THS]

Sounds good.
I had this crazy idea to get a crazy dee tank (3'-4' deep) and putting a glass divider across it, so it was like to long tanks back to back. Then have FO in the front half, and corals in the back. Sounds crazy, but if somebody makes it happen, it will be incredible.

 

[rwb500]

a much better plan is to just have two tanks plumbed to the same sump. lots of ways to do this but the best is a sump in the basement. That way you can have the two tanks pretty far away from each other. If the sump is just a few feet below the tanks you cant separate the tanks by more than about 5-10 feet because obviously a drain line cant be horizontal.

I'm imagining a 180g tank on each side of a wall with a sump between the two on floor level. pretty sweet.

 

[Steve175]

I have 2 250G (one dedicated SPS and known reef safe fish and the 2nd with "with caution" fish [Emperator, Triggers, etc]) plumbed into a filtration room with an additional 1000G (including a big 'fuge and a 220G frag tank). I LOVE my system and highly encourage your plans. You can make it work and it will be COOOOOLLLL

 

[papania]

I think I might like the idea of having two 125gal tanks separate but sharing the same sump. Lighting won't be cheap...

 

[bsagecko]

I would really recommed going at least dual 180g unless the 125gal are custom footprint....most predator tanks really start at 180g and most reef tanks you need 2ft deep for space..

 

[BigAl2007]

I would really recommed going at least dual 180g unless the 125gal are custom footprint....most predator tanks really start at 180g and most reef tanks you need 2ft deep for space..

Great advice!! It's not a big difference going from say 125ish to 180 cost wise.

I think I might like the idea of having two 125gal tanks separate but sharing the same sump. Lighting won't be cheap...

Only expensive on the Coral tank because the other can have "Normal" lighting since you're working with photosynthetic coral in it.

Sounds like an AWESOME project and exactly what my wife and I are planning for our next house as well.

 

[papania]

For the non reef tank, what lighting would be sufficient?

 

[rwb500]

anything, really. The best would be a low power LED fixture.