The my wife wanted to kill me 336 gallon

[bchbum189]

Well for all of those who remember, originally the tank was going to a 420 something gallon L shaped tank. This was the plan before we moved into the house and without furniture in the room seemed great. Fortunately we had a chance to spend a few months in the house before the tank and realized that the L would really take up to much room. So i knocked the L portion of the tank off and went with the following:
96"x30"x27"tall custom Sp Aquatics tank with external "Calfo" style overflow
60x20x20 custom SP Aquatics sump
Bubble King Supermarin 250
2-400watt Ice cap with 15k XM bulbs
2-250 watt ice cap with 15k XM bulbs
4-54watt T5 actinics
2- MP40 Vortechs with a 3rd to be added
Reeflo Snapper to be replaced with the Super Dart
Penductors on all returns
Currently 100mg ozone, but will come off once ZeoVit gets started

All of my old livestock thats been living in 2 100 gallon rubbermaid tubs for months and months
Pics are worth more than words so here it goes:
Construction

 

[bchbum189]

 

[bchbum189]

for first 2 shots i only had 2 of the 4 lights running, but you can see the progression from day one to day 3

wrangled all these guys up, there was 3 when i put them in several months ago

 

[bchbum189]

keeping it going with all the fish pics

 

[EnderG60]

very nice so far, just one mistake. XM-15k's are some of the worst performing bulbs there are. you would have been better off using xm 20k's.

 

[bchbum189]

ive always really liked the color they gave off, and i have always seen good color growth out of my corals. Would a diff bulb do better, probably. Come bulb replacement time im going to the AI LED's just didnt want to swing them on start up

 

[TandN]

Looks sweet are you really gonna put all those RBTA's in there ?

 

[chrissreef]

"The my wife wanted to kill me 336 gallon "

That's funny, it's about the size of a casket... :wink:

 

[bchbum189]

no not putting any of those bubble tips in, they are just what i pulled from the rock bins.

I do have a nice large neon green carpet sitting in a bowl in the sump waiting for it to attach to the rock so i can move it to the display

 

[mcliffy2]

Looks nice. Two thumbs up on the open aquascape.

 

[bchbum189]

the far right corner will be one more island once i break another system down and move some of that rock over, but that will be it for rocks, i really like the island with swim betweens, fish seem to agree

 

[Bax]

Very very nice bchbum.

And FWIW I use and like the XM 15 ks too ... to each his own!

 

[Brandan]

Wow, the teeth on the overflow make the tank look super long. Tank looks great.

 

[Boostin S14]

Why not put the BRTA's in?

 

[bchbum189]

because they run around like a bunch of little 5 year olds destroying or atleast annoying everything they touch along the way. Have this gorgeous superman that had a rbta wedged deep in a crack right beneath it so every day it would inflate and cover some of the superman inhibiting its growth for months, drove me nuts!

 

[chippy70]

Yeah your aquascape is great.

I notice you are on a timber floor did you have to beef up the floor framing?

Roger

 

[bchbum189]

yeah its hardwood, there is 6 concrete footers under the house under this tank

 

[stunreefer]

Looks great thus far, congrats! :thumbsup:


This is a death-sentence in my house:

:lol:

 

[eskymick]

I love your aquascape !!! It looks interesting and totally natural .. just as pleasing to the eye as the tank occupants.

 

[bchbum189]

well tank passed its true first test, we went out of town for over a week and had wifes sister watch it whos never had a tank before, and came home to everything still running and alive!