Dragon2115
Non-member
Ok, for all of you people out there that are now laughing at me and thinking "I told you so", you were right. I should have known better. 
Anyway, for the unfamiliar, the history on how this came about is pretty typical. My wife and I took up diving and decided to get a nano for the living room to have a little piece of the reef to look at the rest of the year. We both said we’d be happy with that but I knew going in it was a lie and that we’d get a larger tank at some point. And so four months later our 46g came online. And it even fit in the living room. Great DIY experience. But after reading about people crashing their tanks, and figuring that since we’re still newb’s, we’d better setup another system for redundancy. So up went the 30g. The two systems are running great. We’ve had our fair share of problems but overall things are going very well. The major disappointments have been, the work required to maintain two systems, the fact that neither system is large enough to support more than one large coral colony(and we have several that I really want to let grow), and the amount of space required for top off water and equipment like CA reactors that would increase the stability of the system while also reducing the workload.
The inevitable happened and Lisa and I began discussing a larger tank in order to consolidate the two systems to address the issues above. We also wanted to reduce the noise level in the living area as well. We have a FW and two SW tanks running in a fairly small area and it’s just too noisy with all of the pumps running. Surprisingly we got approval from the landlord to run lines down to the basement and all of a sudden a large system became possible. (I think they secretly like the tank more than they're willing to admit and want to see a large tank almost as much as we do.) So we bought a used Glass Cages 180 with starphire front glass and will be bringing it home at the end of January. I'm still looking for anyone that would like to help on the 27th to move it from a cargo van in front of the house and into the first floor. The only catch is that I think the tank will have to be stood on end in order to maneuver the front hall. But I have a wheeled dolly for that. Location is Arlington. Pizza and beer for any takers.
The plan is to plumb the 180 down to a 150+ gallon stock tank in the basement. Now I can have a large enough area to keep all of the bulky stuff like a calcium reactor and skimmer plus eliminate the noise of pumps in the living area. I’ll also be able to move RODI water production and storage out of my kitchen which will be especially nice. No more storing and hauling five gallon buckets through the house. I’ll be able to store SW and RODI water and use pumps to do all of the moving. No lifting at all. I am SO psyched for that. And, as a bonus there's a slop sink right next to where the sump will be. I’m also hoping that having the sump on the concrete floor will help with summer cooling. It would be nice to not have to worry about the temp spiking because I didn't turn on the AC and the weather got hotter than expected.
The reality of actually beginning this project hit last night when my ASM-G4 skimmer arrived. I took it out of the box and oh yeah, it’s Tim Taylor time, erh erh ah…
Anyway, for the unfamiliar, the history on how this came about is pretty typical. My wife and I took up diving and decided to get a nano for the living room to have a little piece of the reef to look at the rest of the year. We both said we’d be happy with that but I knew going in it was a lie and that we’d get a larger tank at some point. And so four months later our 46g came online. And it even fit in the living room. Great DIY experience. But after reading about people crashing their tanks, and figuring that since we’re still newb’s, we’d better setup another system for redundancy. So up went the 30g. The two systems are running great. We’ve had our fair share of problems but overall things are going very well. The major disappointments have been, the work required to maintain two systems, the fact that neither system is large enough to support more than one large coral colony(and we have several that I really want to let grow), and the amount of space required for top off water and equipment like CA reactors that would increase the stability of the system while also reducing the workload.
The inevitable happened and Lisa and I began discussing a larger tank in order to consolidate the two systems to address the issues above. We also wanted to reduce the noise level in the living area as well. We have a FW and two SW tanks running in a fairly small area and it’s just too noisy with all of the pumps running. Surprisingly we got approval from the landlord to run lines down to the basement and all of a sudden a large system became possible. (I think they secretly like the tank more than they're willing to admit and want to see a large tank almost as much as we do.) So we bought a used Glass Cages 180 with starphire front glass and will be bringing it home at the end of January. I'm still looking for anyone that would like to help on the 27th to move it from a cargo van in front of the house and into the first floor. The only catch is that I think the tank will have to be stood on end in order to maneuver the front hall. But I have a wheeled dolly for that. Location is Arlington. Pizza and beer for any takers.
The plan is to plumb the 180 down to a 150+ gallon stock tank in the basement. Now I can have a large enough area to keep all of the bulky stuff like a calcium reactor and skimmer plus eliminate the noise of pumps in the living area. I’ll also be able to move RODI water production and storage out of my kitchen which will be especially nice. No more storing and hauling five gallon buckets through the house. I’ll be able to store SW and RODI water and use pumps to do all of the moving. No lifting at all. I am SO psyched for that. And, as a bonus there's a slop sink right next to where the sump will be. I’m also hoping that having the sump on the concrete floor will help with summer cooling. It would be nice to not have to worry about the temp spiking because I didn't turn on the AC and the weather got hotter than expected.
The reality of actually beginning this project hit last night when my ASM-G4 skimmer arrived. I took it out of the box and oh yeah, it’s Tim Taylor time, erh erh ah…
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