well, no power for at least a week here, so I'm bored and starting this thread a little early.

150g aquarium obsessed tank
- eurobraced, starphire
- 3 sides starphire
- black silicone
- 48" x 30" x 24"h

Lighting (planned)
- 2x250w Radium 20k, lumenarcs

75g AGA fuge
- bb? Dsb? Help me decide

150g rubbermaid sump
- 75g actual volume

Flow
- vortech or tunze? Help me decide

Metal stand with wood skin

Honda generator on order!

Pics to come when I get my power back.

Nice! cant wait to see pics.

I would go BB and def. get the tunzes

skimmer?

btw love those radiums. just put them on our sps tank at the store.

Nice setup, look at the lumen brights also. Vortech all the way.

vortech for form and function..

BB display, DSB in fuge, Vortech, 20k will look awesome!

Sounds like a good start. However I am always a bit wary on AO and big tanks. I've heard of too many horror stories with their tanks busting seems. I personally have a friend who had the back fly off of a 90 gallon rimless tank 3 months after setup. I think better options would be miracles, AGE, or Lemar.

power is back! But no Internet, so I'm using my iPhone. I think for the fuge I will try bb and a big ball of chaeto, that's gonna make for some excellent nutrient reduction w/ low risk and maintenance.

For the display, it will be ssb and very open aquascape.

Skimmer will be ATB medium w/ airstar.

Still undecided on tunze or vortech. The tunze with aquasurf is much more programmable. The vortech is just bad ass.

I agree AO is not my first choice. The tank is 3 yrs old, and was built for GEO the calcium reactor builder (he's local). This is a very well built tank, but it needs to be cleaned up. I got an amazing deal on it, and I can I only hope that this is not one of the rare ones that fails. It is eurobraced which I think helps too, at least it gives me a little more piece of mind.



out of curiosity what did AO do about your friend's tank?

I'm excited to see this unfold!!!

I still have my used vortech from when I had it on a 46, dialed pretty darn low. The wave functions are insane. You'll love it.

New boxes are an exciting thing in this hobby..

I unpacked the first box, its the airstar pump, gonna finish dinner and unpack the big box.

I have 2 vortechs and may get another, we'll see. I'm planning to have a very open aquascape so I hope I can get A LOT of flow with just 2.

I'm a little bummed that all the good dry rock seems to be sold out at BRS. I've been hearing a lot of bad reviews about marco rocks lately so I don't know... I left him a message but I've heard he doesn't call back. Bad business = no business but we'll see. I may just order the spaghetti rock at BRS. I really want to get it curing in a tub so that I can get the tank going over winter break.

I also have a galaxy 250w x 2 ballast on order. Need to order a couple of radiums from hellolights and lumenarcs from reef exotics. Need to order some salt, heaters, and koralia pumps (for mixing and rock curing) from DFS. Money, money and more money.

nice shiny titanium screws!

holy chit thats a skimmer

WOW

+1. Too bad the skimmate will look gross.

Finally someone gets a REAL skimmer.

everyone! this is uhuru we are talking about here. he obviously won't get anything less than $300 for a skimmer (but i think that one is way up there)

tagging along for sure! vortechs were the right choice! def go with the dsb!!! i think thats the coolest looking skimmer ive ever seen, and holy crap theyre pricey! good luck, cant wait to see it all come together!!!

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

Ordered a bunch of supplies today. Decided to go with an OR 3500 instead of an eheim 1262. At half the price I was able to buy 2, one for backup.

Galaxy ballast is here. Lumenarc III reflectors are on order.

For the 20L Coral QT tank:
Ordered the Nova SLR 30" T5HO fixture.
HK3 for circulation.

For the 20L Fish QT tank:
HK2 and AC HOB filter.

Got a bunch of Jager TS Heaters.

Also got a bucket of Seachem Reef Salt. Not my favorite but will be using most of it for cycling and curing. May switch to something else once I start adding corals, maybe not.

So a couple local reefers have some cured LR for sale, I may check it out, although I initially had my mind set on dry eco rock. Problem is the good stuff is all sold out and they don't expect to hear anything until after Jan. 2009!! If the local LR doesn't work out though I'll still just get what's left of the eco rock at BRS.

...

wow.


I don't sign into nr for a few months and you go and one up my tank that's been in the making for a year. _-

I hate you.


I'll love your tank by the look of your plans. It's also the same dimensions as the tank I ordered a few weeks ago. Biter.

Don't hate foo!

Be sure to post up some pics of your tank when you get it! I just received all my rocks. 150 lbs. or dry fiji from BRS. Very very nice! Also got some awesome shelf pieces from aquarium specialty. However, I spent my weekend doing things other than working on the tank, or studying

I cant wait to see this tank up and running. The footprint of this tank will really let you have a ton of room for fish.

Yeah, can't wait to go crazy with the fish! I'm planning on a school of cardinals, maybe a school of chalk bass, a couple of gobie/shrimp pairs, a peaceful wrasse or 2, and a tang or 2.

My "Tang or 2" plans for my 125 turned into 3 yesterday. Good luck sticking to your game plan. That does sound like a very cool fish list. Looking forward to seeing the end result. Keep us posted.

Maeda, you keep us posted as well.

I picked up a GEO 618 CA Rx yesterday at the black friday sale at phishy business. Also got all my test kits, media, salt, radium bulbs...

$800 later I think I'm almost ready. Just gotta get an aquariumplants.com regulator and some plumbing parts.

I'm really liking the larger angelfish but not sure which ones can be kept, if any, in a tank this size. I don't plan to keep any softies, lps and don't really need to get any clams if I can have one or two of these guys instead.

I still don't know how you make the scrillas to afford such nice equiptment. I'm jealous.

Let me turn the tables for you Uhuru, if just only for a few days.


Threads on SCNRS. That's 48x30x20" if you're curious as to what your tank might look like...

I'll delete this pic after you've seen it, and drooled. Don't wanna clutter up your nice thread.

ohhhhh that is sick. I was wondering when that DIY pendant would be put to use. Very clean bro. I just gotta get through 2 more weeks of school then I'll have time to get my tank set up.

Don't delete the photo or the link . . . I'm sure anyone interested in my tank build would be interested in seeing yours.

That will totally ruin my thread.

So uhh.... what do you do for a living?

Tank sounds like its going to be killer. Can't wait till it gets up n running.

taggin alongg:D
that tank looks sickk so far tho!

Got my return pump today:

ATB standard flowstar 1500



basically a standard flow version of the ATB airstar 1500 which powers my skimmer:



Also started putting together some plumbing, hopefully I'll have the system filled with water before christmas but that's kind of a lot of work so not sure

I see kleenex but where's the jergens? You'll need it while looking at your tank. I know I do

uh oh. got the itch for big tank huh!


cant wait to see it unfold.


ps: ive got a new tank in the works, shallow n wide, you know how i like it!haha.
36" x 16" x 10" tall, keep an eye out for it! you know i have to have UHURU's approval to make a tank worth its weight.

making some good progress lately... just gotta tear out this cupboard behind the tank so I can start on the plumbing. Maybe pics of the whole system soon.

so I was thinking of keeping the back panel of the tank clear like the ADA and Elos tanks... and then I came across this beautiful background:



full article here

If you can duplicate tha, I would DEFINITELY got that route. By far the coolest background I've ever seen!!!!

no way, can't duplicate it, although I think Elos makes a gradient type background that creates some depth... I'm probably just gonna keep it clear since the wall behind the tank is blue

damn 2k for a skimmer

where did you get that figure? LOL, I got mine for much less

I may try something like that on my next tank, in fact that background may just be the motivation I needed to get a new tank going. I've got a few friends that are tattoo artists, I'm sure one of them could paint me something like that. I highly doubt it will be cheap, even though they're friends.

That would be sweet... although to really get that depth you have to actually light the background separately from the main tank and have it set further in the distance. It's worth it though if you have the skills.

can you do me a favor and post a pic of your return pump SEPERATED from its red plastic base?

I believe it is exactly the same as the Laguna i pruchased.

replied on your thread

Glad to see you back

sold off the 500w of MH in favor of 390w of T5:

thats a kick a$$ light how long did it take for you to get it from when you ordered it?

last one in stock... ordered it from reefgeek late last week arrived on my doorstep today! very high quality, very heavy!

hopefully I'll get it installed this weekend

Sweet!!! A couple of tips on the light. 2 things will make the fans inoperable, one is the metal "ATI" fan guards sometimes will get pushed in towards the fans during shipping, this will jam them up, so take a screwdriver and pry all guards up a little. The second item that will cause the fans not to work is the plug for the voltage adapter, where it plugs into the junction box where all plug wires exit from. If the fans are not running, take the plug out and rotate it 180 degrees, and that will solve the problem. You will be so happy with your choice.

thanks for the tips! your tank is looking sweet BTW!