12 years coming, my venture back into reefs.

I have been out of the reef hobby for close to 13 years now and have decided to give it another go around... I kind of did this on a whim when I saw a nice tank posted on Craigslist in the barter section.

I ended up getting an acrylic flat back hex with a stand, canopy, wet/dry and return pump, all unused in trade for a rifle valued at about $800-900 and have been collecting everything I need to get it going since.

Here's my equipment list so far...
110 gallon tank with dual corner overflows, 1 inch bulk heads (60x18x24)
Furniture grade stand and canopy
Custom 50 gallon acrylic sump, refugium combo (44x16x16)
Reef Octopus NW 150 skimmer
Nova Extreme Pro 6 x 54 T-5 light fixture
Finnex 3 x 36 PC for the fuge
Blueline temp controller and titanium heaters 1x500w and 1x300w
BRS 6 stage RO/DI with 55 gallon holding barrel and 30 gallon mixing barrel
Koralia 2 pumps x 4 with JBJ Quadra wavemaker
CA 2200 return pump

I've just started the build and am currently running the plumbing through a wall to keep everything but the DT on the other side of the wall.
I'm also running dual 20 amp dedicated circuits to power it all.

I figure within 1-2 weeks I'll have it full of water and starting the cycle. I plan on a mixed reef when it's done and will upgrade the 6 bulb T-5 light to 100% LED retro sometime this summer.

Here's the tank as I bought it... I've since ditched the idea of a wet/dry and the crushed coral that was in it.


Here it is after switching to CaribSea black argonite and adding a huge pile of dead coral and lace rock... This is NOT my final aquascaping as much will go into the sump or be glued together, I just kind of went overboard at the LFS when I bought it.


Here's some pics from a couple day ago when I cut into the wall and made my standpipes.




Here's the sump for size comparison.


Sump with the skimmer, return pump and PC light over it, just testing out how much room I have


As soon as I finish my electrical and plumbing and get the sump in place I'll be setting up my RO/DI unit and start making water.



Well that's it so far, wife has been super cool about letting me do this and it was even her idea for black sand so I think I'm pretty lucky this time around.

I should have updates in the next week or so.

Thanks for checking it out.
Duane

 

Looks Great! I can't wait to see it up and running.

 

Looking good so far!

 

Nice!

You certainly made a comeback with style. I really like the shape of the tank and the black sand.

 

excellent re introduction to the hobby Duane

thats a great pile of rock you got there
biological filtration capacity is certainly catered for with that lot

Steve

 

Great looking set up and plan, congrats on getting back into the hobby

 

I dig the location your putting it, nice stuff there. Can't wait to see it running.

 

Thanks for the welcome guys.

I'm going to finish up the plumbing and electric this weekend and will update with pics then.

 

Well, this project is turning into a project =)

I spent about 1 billion hours stacking rocks to try to figure out a decent aquascape and scraped the entire idea and decided to go with foam rock walls with 2 islands of real rock.

Here's the best "stack of rocks" I could come up with, tons of caves and open areas to keep water flowing but still looked like a pile of rocks..


Bottom line, I wasn't happy no matter what... Scrap that idea.

Rock wall idea...



Euro bracing should keep it in my tank with minimal silicone. This was a test fit and hopefully in the next few days I'll have the other back wall made along with the pieces to cover the overflows and epoxied with sand/crushed coral mix.

Plumbing is going slowly, I need to connect it through the back wall to the sump in the other room.


Updates when the plumbing and rock wall are done.

Comments and suggestions are encouraged. Thanks.

 

Looking good!!!!