Great looking tank.

I say lose the ATI especially the 8 bulb.
All these T5 only fixtures hang too low over the water. They prevent viewing from above and they give a shadowless lifeless look to a potentially great opportunity to turn your kitchen into an awesome living space. Have a powerhead aimed to break the surface of the aquarium water and watch the shimmer dance in the tank and project onto the walls. Find a fixture with T5 supplements.

My pick
Giesemann Infinity
Sfiligoi's Infinity XR6

Adding quality moonlights again would make your room come alive the entire night.

JMHO

PS
If you don't care about shimmer please ignore above opinion.

What should be in over the weekend.





Yeah I really like the texture of the concrete, it's super smooth. The bar area has a couple pendant lights so I didn't want too much stuff hanging on the ceiling. I've been searching around the boards for DIY light bars or I might end up getting some light bars from Ali's store. Might powder coat that white to give it a different look.



I really appreciate the input, I currently have a Sfiligoi fixture and love it. I've had bad experiences with AO, so I don't know if I would order from them again. The only thing with Giesemann fixtures is they only make 24" and 48". The problem is mine is a 36" wide tank, so if I went with Giesemann it would have to be a 24" light fixture. I'm still debating what fixture to get, really like MH but leaning towards the ATI powermodul.

Awesome tank. I am interested inmore detail on the pannels and how they are attached.

I will take pics when I get home, the internal of the panel is...

Meaning it looks nothing like the outside, kind of looks like an alley. There's spray paint on it, well I'll show you guys later.

I'm just north of Toronto about 30 minutes from AO's office.
Lots of bad feelings for AO on the Canadian reef sites and RC.
Shame..seems these AO guys are hit and miss with a lot more misses of late.

Maybe hang the Sfiligoi fixture and compare it to a quality T5 that a LFS will lend you for the day..
You should get a good idea if you will be happy with the T5 only.

I'm sure whatever the decision your tank will look great.

HAHA Bonsai that's awesome.

Really busy weekend, transferred some fishes from my old tank. Everything is doing fine so far, I have some LR I'm curing outside for almost 4 weeks. Should be ready to aquascape soon.

very sexy and sleek tank, thats a big fish you got in it already.

sweet build. this is one clean setup. i think you are giving the elos fanclub a run for it's money. lol

I like this build, can't wait to see it up and running.

Looking good!

Nice Tank! What kind of overflow will you be using?

I'd recommend Herbie style!

My 125 is plumbed this way and it's DEAD silent.

Holy crap....... I'm so jealous right now.

wow...I was actually searching for a tank with these dimentions to see how it looked. Love it so far!

Thanks I'm trying to keep it clean and sleek. I already had a few people think it was an ELOS tank.



Appreciate the compliments.



I had a skimmerless tank for about 3 years and I had mostly LPS/Softies. I'm farely new to the whole plumbing, I had a buddy come over and take care of the plumbing. I'm actually going with the Durso plumbing.



Lol, thanks



I love the dimension I chose. I was thinking about a 30x30x24 or some other options, but really glad I went with 36x30x20.

Time to aquascape, the one thing that always gave me trouble in this hobby is getting the "right look". I had to browse around for inspiration. I definitely like the open look and with a wide tank I also want to maximize the depth. So here's some of the tank that inspired me.


cpfarm


SunnyX's rimless


Leonardo's minimal aquascaping


I just like the open look similiar to this, I found this on Leonardo's thread on RC.

Here's some pics I haven't gotten a chance to post up. Water was waiting to clear up, but I decided to go with sand instead of BB. I added about 1 1/2" of sand, we have free saltwater in San Diego. So had to make a 10 minute drive for that.




Some dry rock that I've been curing for about 4 weeks, I'm going to epoxy them together.

Can't go wrong with cpfarm's scape... it's one of my all-time favorites!

gotta love free scripps!

If I had a vote, I'd vote for Sunny's aquascape - his a fellow Michigander, and his Man Cave with Shallow Reef is unreal.

Im a fan of SunnyX's if it was more slopeing reef style...but they are all so amazing its hard to say. I cant wait to see your scape

by the way id say something smart about how the chargers have been playing lately but I have Rivers, Gates and Sproles on my fantacy football team so my lips are sealed...

but go Texans!

I like Sunny's tank too, we'll see. Aquascaping a tank never turns out how you want it to be but I'll see how it goes. My buddy is coming over to help and he has a really good eye. We did one island already and it turned out great, so I'm going to wait a week or two to add more rocks.

Phillip Rivers is a beast but not to make any excuses but the team has a lot of injuries. It's still a long season so as long as we're healthy towards the end of the season I'm fin with that. So you're a Texans fan? That was a nice win last week vs. Titans. I had Titans D and I ended up with -1 pts. Cheers!

I too like SunnyX's scaping. i personally would like a little more rock than that but basically i like the 2 island type thing.

You may find this one inspiring too.

+1 on above...wow


But yea die hard Texans. I root for the chargers every week though because my family are trator Denver fans. gotta love watching Sproles, IF he can catch the kick off he will take it to the 40 at least.

Hey Wombat were did you get that picture COOOOOL

I like the two island scapes. I tried to accomplish that in my tank, pretty difficult in a ten gallon, but I think it came out as good is i could have expected. I'm looking forward to seeing which way you go

Kevin Pockell's tank. I think he's kevpo or kevinpo on RC.

http://www.reefbuilders.com/2009/08/24/aqu...ane-washington/

Looking great.

I vote for the cpreef or the really open one. I have been thinking of the same, check my thread out I have my rock work like SunnyX

-Dave

That is one of my favorite tanks, the aquascaping is beautiful.

Nothing much happening lately, I added an island. Epoxy a mixture of LR and dried rock together. I'm going to wait another week to make the final touches with the aquascaping. I called reefgeek and talked to Greg about my lighting situation. He said an ATI 36" 8 bulb would be ideal for the dimension for my tank and the types of corals I wanted to keep. If I went with the Sunpower , 2 fixtures would be best. With 2 fixtures that would be equally 12 bulbs, I'm going to try to do a single Sunpower fixture. I know there will be dark spots, and if I'm not happy then I'll purchase another Sunpower. With the aquascape I plan to have, a Sunpower would work, SPS in the middle and LPS/Softies on the outer edges. We'll see how that goes.

This past weekend I transferred some fishes and also purchased a few.

current livestock

-a pair of osc. clowns( had for 3 years)
-stigmata blenny(2+ years)
-(6) threadfin cardinalfishes

This very well could turn out being one of my favorite tanks between the dimensions, stand and the theme you are going to be going with from the above pics. Keep them updates coming.

Very sweet tank, and I really like the concrete skin you have there. As for lights, take it from a guy who had to build a tank for his Powermodule. If you are planning on having a mixed reef, then go with the 6 bulb. If you want to go with more SPS, or mostly SPS get the 8 or 10 bulb. I have a 10 bulb, on my 28" tank, and I have to have my chalices under overhangs because the light is that strong, and my tank is 22" tall. I thought that having a 39W Powermodule on a 40x28x22 tank would give me lower light areas on the edges, but it's not the case. The one thing you should think about, is that with the 30"W tank, a 8-10 bulb would be best for coverage, and you can put lower par bulbs such as super actinics in the light, if you want to keep LPS/mixed tank, and will have the capability to really blast the corals if you later go SPS dominant....Instead of going with the 6 bulb now, and deciding in a year or two that you want SPS and then have to get a larger fixture....whatever you do, it's going to be very sweet...congratulations

Lol i saw that picture and was like wait a min! I go look at this tank all the time, it's his 600 gallon store tank. The open look of this tank is awesome it's mostly all large sps colonies as it's foundation. Hes also got an amazing sailfin tang in there that he has had for over 16 years.

How'd the aquascaping go? You know what comes next after that... diatom bloom!

Thanks for the input, awesome Boston terrier.




I just finished the aquascaping. Ahh diatom bloom, there's nothing yet cause I haven't gotten the lights yet. Just a few aiptasia here and there.

Well the tank has been up and running for about 2 months, it seems a lot shorter. I transferred all of the fishes from my previous tank. Everything seems to be fine, I'm doing about 15 gallons a week in water changes. I can't seem to get the salinity where I want it so I'll give that a few weeks.

Snapped some photos today, I must apologize ahead cause the photos are horrible. There's a lot of light going through my living room even with the blinds closed there's still reflections. So excuse the awful photos with the point/shoot camera. There's 2 main island epoxy together, the epoxy is visible but over time the coralline will take over. The rock by itself in the front will be a blasto island I'm hoping. I really like the open look and with a 30" wide tank I tried to maximize the depth of the tank.

I can vouch for this!

Tank is going to be great! I love the dimensions and clean look to the system.

ive gone herbie and will never ever go to anything else. finally this things got some water.......SO SEXY!!!

You gotta switch over to Vortechs!

I've been getting that suggestion alot Daniel.

i like

nice

Great looking tank, looks like it has great potential, keep the updates coming.

Well here's an updated pic of my fishes. I just recently purchased a 2.5" Marginalis butterfly fish. It's super active and only eats certain pieces of PE mysis.

Currently have...
(6)threadfin cardinalfishes
(2)osc. clowns
(1)stigmata blenny
(1)marginalis butterfly

nice.

i'm always a fan of butterflies, though that one looks a little like a CBB.
when are the corals going in, paul?

Love this tank. Looks very clean. Love the concrete on the stand

Looks excellent. I like your fish choices. Can't wait to see some corals in there!

do you have any pics of the pannels from the inside?

Don't suppose you know the dimensions of this tank?? Looks very similar to the tank I am in the process of building.

How's the tank progressing these days? Come back to Nano-Reef foolio!