LakeShow's 50g Reef Build

Hello everyone! I'd like to start by saying how much this forum has helped me on the adventure of starting my first reef aquarium. So i figured i would start my tank build here.

The tank is a 50 gallon sumpless Oceanic with kinda odd demensions. Its 30x18x21x. wish i could have gone bigger but due to where i had room for the tank its the biggest tank i could find to fit!

Heres a shot of the tank when i first started.


As you can see there are walls on all sides giving me a little less than 3" on both sides, and about 6" from the back.

After alot of research the equipment i decided to go with was..

24" Marineland 24 hour pro lighting system for the light

And a Warner Marine H2 HoB skimmer.





I knew i needed around 50 lbs of LiveRock and my lfs only sold it at around $7.99 and lb. So i decided to go with Reefcleaners.org florida rock which not onlly saved me money but came out great!

I got 30lbs from them and heres what they sent.


I went with dry sand also to save some green, my lfs sells 50lb bags of it for a good price and i couldnt be happier with how it came out, not too fine but not to big either!

So thats pretty much what im working with so far, and a couple months later after putting it all together this is what the tank looks like today.





note: All pictures are take with my iPhone so sorry about some of the quility.

For live stock so far i have..
2 Black and White clowns
1 Yellow Watchman goby
and 1 SMALL sailfin tang (please dont hate, i know the tanks too small)





Havnt got a shot of the Watchman yet, he never comes out of his cave! But ill work on that.

Also ill try a better pic of the clowns tomarrow, but they never stop moving so its hard for my iPhone to get a clean shot.


Alright i think thats good for the first post, i started this thread mostly so i can keep track of my progress but any imput from all you great reefers on this site would be great! Try to go easy on me for the Sailfin though..><

 

Looking good

I would have been very tempted to have made that space into a custom sized in wall tank.

:-X Not saying anything about the tang :-X lol

 

wow thats a great looking setup, im starting a 42 build this week but can't find any local baserock

 

I liked that Marineland Pro 24 hour light fixture the first time I saw it. Right now, I have a canopy with lights and reflectors built in. I have to remove the canopy every time I have to work on something from the sand bed (pita). Are you happy with the Marineland Pro 24 hour? What do like the most about it and what don't you like about it (if anything)?

 

Nice! Great job you did with the rock work.

 

Lakeshow, are you satisfied with the Marineland light fixture? Any complaints? I will be purchasing one in the very near future and would appreciate your feedback on this light.
Thanks.

 

correction I'm doing a 56 now, I hope I can get a scape to look similar to yours. My build is in my sig check it out sometime. Not much to show yet though

 

I love the oceanic 50 gallon show tank. I have one of my own...well its in the attick now, but...

Looks great.

 

Thanks for all the great feed back so far everyone! Sorry its been a long weekend so i havnt had time to get any better pics up yet, tomarrows my day off so ill work on that.

LucBB- i would of loved to of made it an in wall build! but im just a broke college student so that was out of the question haha, very tempting though.

ontop27- Thanks for the response to the scape, took me a while to get it the way i wanted, as far as base rock goes though i would check out reefcleaners.org, i love the rock they sent and it came all the way from florida to here in cali so it doesnt have to be local. It was still alot cheaper then going with all LR from the lfs even having to have it shipped across the country. The 56 sounds good i wish i could have gone a little bigger myself, ill check out the build thread for sure but i dont see any links in your sig.

john1948- So far i couldnt be happier with going with this light, its only been on the tank for a few weeks since at first i didnt order the hanging kit hoping the legs would be able to make the stretch to 30" but that didnt happen haha. So i cycled without a light but ever since i put it on the tank looks 10x better, love the 24 hour system idea, the tank is in my bedroom and the moon lights look fantastic at night. One of the things i liked about it was the built in ballasts, i didnt really have any room to fit a ballast behind the tank so that was a big plus over most the other lights i could find. Also the built in timer was really easy to set to a 24 hour rotation. Only thing i might be worried about is the heat from the mh since summer is right around the corner, but so far iv only been getting like a 2 degree increase through out the day and thats with no cooling what so ever. So all in all if i had to do it over again, i would buy the same light

xmetalfan99- Yeah the 50g ended up being the perfect tank for the spot i had, i was at petco one night and almost walked home with a 36g bow front since that was the biggest tank i could find before stumbling across this one, glad i waited though! The only problem i have run into is how thick the rim is on the oceanic tanks, had to file down a 1/8" or so off the skimmer so it would fit, but that wasnt too much of a problem. Ill have to check urs out

Thanks for all the great feed back so far everyone!

 

Mine is in my signature.

I waited about 2 months until I found it. I had a stand for a AGA 56 gallon cubish tank so that max I could get was either the 65 or the 50 so I didn't have to buy all new equipment. Then I ran in to this at a LFS and put it on hold until I had the money. Am friends with the owner so he had no problem putting it on hold for me without a down payment.

These oceanics seem so much better than the AGA 56g. The glass is so thick and the wood trim makes it look very nice.

linky: http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-off-your-fish-tanks/xmetals-50g-show-78932.html