SC Aquarium 120 Build

[LotsaTanks]

So won the SC Aquarium 120 at MAX's raffle in Costa Mesa. Beautiful well made tank! And thanks to the very nice owner of Crystal Dynamics Aquarium (who had lovely tanks displayed at MAX), we were able to get it home as we hadn't brought a truck to MAX (didn't expect to win a tank)! Started the build around April.

After recruiting our kids to help move the stand and tank inside, we PVC plumbed the overflows and returns.

 

[LotsaTanks]

Added sand, rock and water

Added sand, rock and water

Found some live sand and rock from local reefer. Filled the tank with water and waited a couple days for the water to clear up.

 

[LotsaTanks]

Changed rock work

Changed rock work

We used a combo of some live rock and dry rock to aquascape. The original rock structure had the shelf at the top and shaded too much of the rock below it. So we re-did the rock work using waterfall foam and underwater epoxy to glue everything together. The foam was really messy but did the job.

 

[LotsaTanks]

Added Lighting

Added Lighting

After much research into lights we went with two AI Hydra 26 HD's. Since we have a hood on the tank, the AI mounting kits didn't look like they would fit very well.

So off to Home Depot for a DIY solution and found rails that hold shelves in various sizes, the 47.5" rails were perfect for our tank. The hydras screwed onto them perfectly. And the best part was that it cost a total of $15 for 2 rails. The lights are really neat, programmable and each color is adjustable. A quick call to tech support helped figure out the easy set mode for timing. Pretty cool!

The tank has cycled and livestock is in frag/temporary tanks (combo of hydroponic tray, feed tub, acrylic tank plumbed together) being quarantined. A couple more weeks and it'll be added to the display.

 

[uvijaya]

I love it, very nice display!

 

[uvijaya]

Lucky you for winning it too!

 

[Devaji108]

another very nice SC build in progress.
lucky you!