The Ultimate Eight Foot Softie Reef

[InsaneClownFish]

Marc, that's the problem with being in a new house. I literally don't have "a" garden house laying around- or parts of any kind for that matter. My plan was to go out and pick up washers tomorrow- the irritating part is not having this stuff on hand.

 

[wilmonkey5]

tagging along for the ride.

this is gonna be a killer tank :uzi: :rolleye1:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

wilmonkey5- Good to have you along. Hopefully the tank is killer and I keep from "killing" my livestock

I liked the quality of the Aquamedic Sunbeam so much I ordered a second one:

Just ordered 4 of the 60" Tek2 Reflectors and bulbs from ReefGeek.

 

[MADtanks]

sweet!

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Thanks Rich! Oh btw I forgot to send you a pm. Build me a nice sump and you can have the tank and stand The buyer for the pendant fell through, so build me an awesome sump and you can have all three

Picked up the washer today, and the RO/DI and washing machine are now connected properly. I'm soaking the rock in RO water for 4-5 days to release any excess organics and ammonia before I start a cycle with salt.

 

[MADtanks]

lol i wish man, lol member i am saving to build my own tank and sump at the moment lmao....

Thanks though

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Rich, somewhere down the road I hope to setup the old cube in our office. Right now I can only concentrate on one tank

I spent quite some time working on the room today. We got a pretty decent deal on a couple of 60" Mitsubishi DLPs so I bought one for the tank room and one for the kid's playroom. I swear it's not me that's been complaining about saving money!

As you can see from the picture, I also hung the light. More on that in a minute....
I used I hooks, black steal cable and tensioners to help reinforce these cheap coffee tables so that they are now workable as stands. Since the satellite feed comes in behind the fish tank, I tacked up the coaxial around the doorframe.

The Sunbeam came with a very nice hanging kit:

I hope this picture gives a good feel of how the tank will be viewed from the sofa.

I cut off the excess cable, but I left a good 12" for adjustments, so I used zip ties to hold up the extra wire:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

No wet stuff yet, but I do think this lil room is coming together nicely.

 

[keegoaz]

damn nice tv haha cant wait to see the tank

 

[MADtanks]

I like that light man its nice.... are you going to put some clip on reflectors?

 

[hellssephiroth]

reflectors would be a nice idea, really gets all that light down in there instead of wasting it

 

[InsaneClownFish]

keegoaz- Thanks for the compliment- I like it

MADtanks and hellssephiroth- I have 4 60" Tek 2 Reflectors on their way from Reef Geek. The reason I got such a smokin deal on these lights is because I bought them directly from Aqua-Medic without the reflectors.

There was a mix up with their shipment from Germany. The 2', 3', and 4' foot units all shipped with reflectors. The 5' units shipped arrived with no reflectors.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Got the other set of lights hung tonight. The bulbs and reflectors should be here tomorrow.

 

[wilmonkey5]

i like how the couch is facing the soon to be tank and not that monster of a tv

 

[InsaneClownFish]

wilmonkey5- Reef > TV

Received my Tek2 reflectors and bulbs from ReefGeek today.

The colors aren't accurate, but I'm going to try out Grim's suggestion:
Front
Aquamedic Ocean Blue
Giesemann Pure Actinic
KZ Fiji Purple
ATI Aquablue Special

Started cycling the rock in the 44 Brute:

Rock Pee Pee left over in the 33 Brute:

Rollin right along :rollface:

 

[CoralKingdom]

ill be watching this one

 

[Chihuahua6]

"Rock pee pee" that's funny and a good way to describe it.

 

[keegoaz]

when is this tank gonna come i cant wait to see this thing

 

[JustinReef]

Looks great so far! I really love the dimensions of this tank. Pretty close to what I want next

One question I have is how do you think the flow will work all coming from just the one end of the tank?

I ask because I set up my 6' tank with just 2 Koralia 4's on one end of the tank which is the overflow (just like your tank) and it didn't really work out. My tank is a room divider so I wanted no equipment on the one end but I had to move one of the K4's over. Have you thought much about this? Just curious because I still really want to eliminate that K4 from the far end of my tank. I am going to try a vortech and see if thats enough. My tank is only softies too, so I don't need crazy flow.

can't wait to see how this build goes!

 

[InsaneClownFish]

keegoaz - Tank will ship on October 20th. Anticipation!


justinpsmith - I'm loving your lagoon tank. I have the same concerns about pushing flow to the other side of the tank. I've talked with a fellow reefer who was telling me about reefers who created one large pile of rock in the center of a long tank and were able to have the flow "whip" around the island from one side.

This is similar to what I wanted to accomplish. I also have the advantage with a very shallow tank, so the flow will work somewhat differently and not be as dispersed. James himself suggested I try it out for awhile since my new focus would just be softies.

Truth be told I will probably add some flow in the first few months. I've looked into the new Koralia Magnum series 5, 6, 7, 8. They create massive amounts of flow for low wattage.
They're a bit pricey atm, so I'm waiting to see what my exact needs will be. I think if I added a 6 it might be enough to push across the tank.

Time will tell