Planning new tank "Build"

[clay]

I wanted to start off by introducing my self.

My name is Clay, me and my wify Monica live in Rockport. We have 4 kiddos that love the fish we own right now. We have a 60 gallon South American FW tank and a 55 gallon African FW tank.

We are planning to dive head first into a Marine setup I have so many questions i don't really know where to start, so i'll tell yall the plan as I have it right now.

The TANK:

I am drawing up plans for a 200+ gallon laminated plywood tank with a 40+ gallon sump/refugium. The tank will be fiberglass reinforced plywood coated and bonded with epoxy resin.Pardon my MSPaint skills.


I am very confidn't of the process of building the tank, but with that being said I am not confident on the design of the sump and other filtering for SW Reef setups.
Any suggestions and advice would really be helpfull. I also plann on adding a closed system just for flow with little to no filteration. Placement is still a question.

Besides these plans, well even including these plans every thing is up for evaulation,critisium,and hopefully a lil enthusium.

[hobogato]

welcome to maast clay!

there are many options for filtration, any idea what you want to keep in the tank?

[clay]

Thank you and I am so happy i found some locals to talk with about this and i imagin this forum and its users will be a great help to my dreams of having a peice of ocean in my living room. With the kids and wify there are only 3 must haves, Clown (without anem), hippo tang, maderin dragnet (added much later because of the need for well established copod population). The rest is really up for grabbs and what is compitable with these fish. The lighting i will be using will be 8x39watt T5HO as I have the balast from a demolition job i did.

I would like to keep the softer corals like xyenia and colts, along with maby some LPS and mushrooms. But that is really dependent on if my lighting will be adiquate. I would love to keep a birds nest but I really don't think I have the light for it.

[txav8r]

Welcome to MAAST! Sounds like an interesting build. Take plenty of pics!

[jrsatx20]

Welcome to maast. Tell your friends about us. Your picture/drawing shows 2 drains that come into one. I would make 2 drains. Have one drain into first section you could use that section to put a Skimmer. The second drain put it in the middle section and use second section for a fuge. Or have 1 drain on the left for Skimmer and 1 drain on right for fuge and have the middle for your return pump.

[clay]

Do to funds and time this is going to be a very long build. I plan on taking many pictures and maby even some videos of the entire project. Also i am going to try to keep a detailed cost breakdown of everything to see if i actually saved money going this route. Cutting a hole in my house and pouring a slab for the tank of course won't be included

I have read lots of different oppions on bioballs,substrate,ect. I really am just trying to get as many oppions and facts as possible before i even make my first cut. I could easly add a built in wet/dry bioball chamber to the design but I have read on some other forums that they might not be the way to go. The thought even crossed my mind of trying a plywood and acrlic airstone driven skimmer, but that will probally be an independent project.

[clay]

Ty Ruben,

The thought never crossed my mind about puttin the pump in the middle. the plan on the overflow is to be a coast-2coast style aka. go compleatly across the back to skim as much surface area as possible. And seperating the intake would give me many more options

[sampsonndelila]

Ambitious!

[phippsj]

Since you are building the tank yourself, an interesting thought would be to build the refugium in the display area. I had thought of doing that in my 180G, where I would have built a refugium 'wall' on the inside of the display area, towards the backside. The wall would have been made from live rock rubble, superglued together. It would have to be placed to one side or other of the tank for accessibility, but it would be interesting as the bugs would be able to enter the main display with ease.

That might be a bit too experimental though... I will probably try it out in the future some time.

[clay]

I am still very nubish on all things to do with the sump/refiguim :( and the whole filtering in general. I have been reading alot and tryin to get my head wrapped around it tho. What i gather is that a refigum acts like a bioligical filter. Tho i see where is is used to proagate critters too. I don't really know where to start on designing this part of the project. I though i would like to have some kinda mechanical filters(sponges, media, carbon) but i want my lil copods and such to be able to move and not die b4 getting to the sump or tank.

I am just a lil confused still about the roll of each filtering and the "BEST" setup for a tank of this size.