tommyboynj
New member
This will be a sloooow build and fully documented. A little background. I currently have a 93 cube which is about a year old. This was stocked from my 75 which I broke down when my wife and I moved a piano into the home and the only place it could go was where the 75 was sitting. This tank had been up for about 4 years and was doing pretty well.
When we moved into our home 5 years ago we knew that eventually we would out grow the existing space. However, we had plenty of space to build out and the neighborhood was great. About six months ago we decided to take the plunge and move forward with exploring the idea of of the addition. We met with multiple contractors and made the decision to move forward and enlisted the services of an architect. The plan was to put about 800 sq/ft on the back of the existing ranch to include an additional living space, bedroom, bathroom, laundry room and, you guessed it, a fish room.
After a long wait for permit approval from my town we finally begun work this week. My deck has been demoed and the mason will start the foundation tomorrow. Work should be completed by early December worst case.
The new tank will sit in the new living space with the dedicated fish room directly behind it. The current plan is to have at least a 180g display supported by a 100g rubbermade sump and separate fuge. After running biopellets for several years I recently went back to algae and rock in my sump and my tank has exploded with micro fauna and looks so much healthier. For this reason I plan to stick to more "traditional" filtration methods on the new system. Lots of rock in the sump and algae packed fuge.
The fish room will be 8x5 so there will be plenty of room to set up a separate QT and frag tang system down the road.
I plan to light the tank with a combo of LEDs and t5. This is something Iv been doing on my current tank for about 6 months and am very happy with the results. Flow will be provided with several maxspect gyres and mp40. I like to have several different sources of flow to keep things nice and chaotic. Stocking will be fairly heavy and as far as corals go it will be a good mixed reef.
As construction progresses, I'll keep the thread up to date. As soon as I can dig out the pdf from my email, I'll post a picture of the floor plan so you all have a better idea of what we are trying to achieve. Finally, a big kudos to my wife even entertaining a separate room dedicated to "fish stuff". While she is not as nuts about reefing as me she has always been supportive of my "problem"
When we moved into our home 5 years ago we knew that eventually we would out grow the existing space. However, we had plenty of space to build out and the neighborhood was great. About six months ago we decided to take the plunge and move forward with exploring the idea of of the addition. We met with multiple contractors and made the decision to move forward and enlisted the services of an architect. The plan was to put about 800 sq/ft on the back of the existing ranch to include an additional living space, bedroom, bathroom, laundry room and, you guessed it, a fish room.
After a long wait for permit approval from my town we finally begun work this week. My deck has been demoed and the mason will start the foundation tomorrow. Work should be completed by early December worst case.
The new tank will sit in the new living space with the dedicated fish room directly behind it. The current plan is to have at least a 180g display supported by a 100g rubbermade sump and separate fuge. After running biopellets for several years I recently went back to algae and rock in my sump and my tank has exploded with micro fauna and looks so much healthier. For this reason I plan to stick to more "traditional" filtration methods on the new system. Lots of rock in the sump and algae packed fuge.
The fish room will be 8x5 so there will be plenty of room to set up a separate QT and frag tang system down the road.
I plan to light the tank with a combo of LEDs and t5. This is something Iv been doing on my current tank for about 6 months and am very happy with the results. Flow will be provided with several maxspect gyres and mp40. I like to have several different sources of flow to keep things nice and chaotic. Stocking will be fairly heavy and as far as corals go it will be a good mixed reef.
As construction progresses, I'll keep the thread up to date. As soon as I can dig out the pdf from my email, I'll post a picture of the floor plan so you all have a better idea of what we are trying to achieve. Finally, a big kudos to my wife even entertaining a separate room dedicated to "fish stuff". While she is not as nuts about reefing as me she has always been supportive of my "problem"
