Darkdrako's 75 gallon tank build

[darkdrako]

This will be my build thread that I can hopefully stay on top of better than my nanocube's thread.

 

Here is a little background how I got this tank.

My wife had decided for me that I needed a bigger tank for father's day (I guess I complained enough that I wanted a larger tank! ). I didn't know how big until a few days ago when she said that she had found two tanks; a 55 gallon and a 75 gallon tank omgomgomg . After reading around and a thread posted here, I ended up settling for a 75 gallon for the larger footprint. What she didn't say that it was almost 50 miles away and I drive a monte carlo so I wouldn't have been able to fit the tank and the stand in my car. Luckily for me my coworker was nice enough to take the 100 mile round trip with me and bring back my next adventure and here it is:

 

It came with a welded angle-iron stand and a few extras. My plan is to first weld the four legs with another piece of angle to distribute the weight around the perimeter of the stand rather than the four corners. After that, my father-in-law will put a nice wood skin on it so that I can place a sump and my frag tank below without having to worry about my dog getting thirsty or my 19 month old daughter deciding that the fish look thirsty and putting whatever she could get into the tank. Being that the iron stand will take up all of the weight, the stand will have very large doors with a small divider in the center for the locks. The tank will be drilled and from there on will have to be taken in steps so I can obtain all of the equipment that I want.

 

Future specs:

Custom finished wood stand

80lbs live rock

70-80lbs dry sand

700gph overflow with two 1.5" returns

Koralia 4 (maybe two koralia 4s or one with a vortech on the other side)

Current USA Nova Extreme Pro 6x54w T5HO

Reef Octopus NW 150

15/20gallon sump with a QuietOne 2200 (600gph) return pump

SCWD for the two returns

Reefkeeper Lite Level 3 Controller

 

Once I get a little bit more money I will purchase some base rock to seed while I am waiting on the stand and overflows to be done.

 

And so it begins...

[Nanobuds]

[darkdrako]

So the wife started to look through Liveaquaria to pick out some fish that could be put in the tank and I quote "They have to be pretty. I don't want some ugly fish swimming around!). We'll see how much the list changes. Gotta do alot of research before purchasing anything. I'll continue to edit the list until I have exactly what I want and would work.

 

Tailspot blenny

Anthia - specifics undecided

Blue dot jawfish

Zebra barred dartfish

Sleeper gold head goby

Powder brown tang

Kole yellow eye tang

Snowflake clowns