Drew's 75 gallon setup with basement sump

This will be my first saltwater setup so this will be a learning experience for me. I found the setup of craiglist and decided that it would be a good starter tank. The previous owner built the stand and never finished or used it. I bought doors, hinges, and drawer fronts (will be used for access doors on the front of the canopy). Right now I am debating on how I want to finish it off trimwise and then I will restain it a more appropriate color. Here are some photos of what I have so far.







40 gallon breeder sump


I will have my sump in my basement and will run my plumbing in the wall. I want to have my sump and all of my equipment in the basement and away from the hardwood floors so that it will be easy to do maintenance.

Right now I am in the planning stage and will be starting this after se finish our bathroom restoration and refinish all of our main floor floors since we need to do them at once and I don't want to have to move the tank.

My first question is that I have 9.5" between my water level and the underside of the canopy. Will this be enough room for an led fixture? I haven't seen much information on led fixture mounting distances on any manufacture sites.

 

I picked up my 2 quarantine tanks today

 

I really like the color of the stain, it matches the wood on the stair case and goes well with the wall behind.

 

Sounds like this is going to be awesome. Yes 9 inches above the water would be enough. Great thing about leds vs other fixtures is you can dim them

 

Thanks guys! The stain is a bit too cherry looking for for our tastes. I'll take a picture of the basement space I have to work with tomorrow.

I think that I've decided on some equipment, I'm still in the air on the pump and skimmer.

• Reefbreeder photon lights
• Reeflo bh 1100 Ran on medium, I will have about 13' of head. This would put me at 500gph, which is around 5X turnover.
• I've been recommended this skimmer by the guy I bought the tank from, but I still need to do a bit more research on these.
• 2 HMO-150 heaters for the tank and 2 HMO-50 heaters on the quarantine tanks

I should also mention that I want to have a ro/di setup with a freshwater container and saltwater container. I'm looking at making as much of this automated as possible as I don't want to manually move any water.

 

Got the doors mounted up today. I taped the top drawer fronts on to get a idea of how they would look. These photos show the color better than before.



Here is a shot of the space I have to work with in my basement. The water damage is from a water line breaking prior to us buying the house last year. I haven't got to remodeling the basement yet.

 

Where did you buy the doors?

 

They are oak doors from Menards

 

Keep up with the good progress. More Pics! haha Following this thread.