Ok, I work for 2 friends of mine at a lrs they opened a year ago, Ive been working saturdays for frags, but they have finally finished some well needed renovation ( making more room). They changed their fish system to a cube style and have had several acrylic tanks hanging around in the back So upon on of their ideas and the fact I moved into a different house with more room, Im setting up a small but I hope effective prop system. The tank im using is acrylic 96x12x12, that is actually two 48x12x12 tanks that share a overflow/drain in the middle of them. (pics tommorow). Theres already a stand/ raised canopy, and im planning on starting/cycling the tank with the original equipment used in the store for the tank.

20 long sump with one baffle, live rock rubble area
Mag 7 return pump
a couple heaters
and havent decided which skimmer I wanna use

I plan on running (4) 48" t5s over each tank, on a movable suspension system. I plan on propping high end zoas, and rics, and maybe some nice softies.

Any opinions on anything above ??? That it can be sucessful ? Im open to all opinions. Anything I should change or add ?

any pics?

just keep it clean. dont put any live rock in your display just in your sump. get a good skimmer for all those frags. and you got good lights and then just frag away.

Ok got the tank to the house, Its smaller than I though. This particular tank was made weird. ine side measures 50x12x9 on the other side of the drain it measures 39x12x9. No worries itll still work for me. So I grabbed a setup we had at the shop which consisted of (4) 39 watt bulbs running on (2) Advanced Centruion (sp) ballast, also have (4) Hagen Glo reflectors for them, they appear like theyll work perfect and the person who had them before never pealed the plastic so theyre practically brand new. Havent decided what length ill go with for the 50" side, ill worry about that later. The mag 7 feeds a locline return on the ends of each tank and is plumbed u through the bottom. I picked up a heater, and an Excalibur skimmer we had laying around. The 20 long only has one baffle, so its not setup like i like ill fix it this week. I got water and some salt in it tonight. I used tap to help speed up the cycle practice. Anyone else wanna chime it on what I should run in the sump? Im just going to prop high end zoas and rics, and a few other softies. Im thinking drain/skimmer section then a middle section full of LR rubble, last section mag 7 (not sure if its enough flow yet) Heres a pic I took tonight. Ill get more tommorow. Suppose to get a 40 breeder tommorow as well, if so thatll be my new sump

cool looking setup. good luck.

Thanks man, Should be awesome once its completely up and running. I dont do much having a 2 yr old and a newborn so i got nuthing but time at home to take care of it. I dont leave the house cept for work haha. Plenty of time to keep this tank on the up and up

Anyone got a good deal on 400lbs of salt ?

you could probably go to instant ocean (aquarium systems) and get a deal with them.
but first, i would clean that thing out.

itd be pretty cool to scuba dive in your pool. charge people like 10 bucks each =D hahaha

Well, last night when water went in the tanks it was at 67 degrees, it took till this am to get to 72, and right now its holding at 79.9 And the suns went down and temps outside are dropping so I guess ill find out if I can keep the temp tonight. If not i might have to add a window unit to the porch to help me regulate room temps

UPDATE : Well, Ive tried all week to keep a steady temp, but it still dips to 72 at night. And thats with a 400w and a 300w heater in the sump. I talked to the wife, and have actually moved the tanks into our bedroom since the only stick out from the wall 12". Im sure ill be able to keep a steady temp now. Pics to come soon !!!

Ok, its been in the house now for almost a week, Ive noticed steady temps 78-80 never lower never higher. Im ditching the 20 long sump and adding baffles to a standard 30g. questions are

1. What do i run for a fuge ? LR rubble only ? LR rubble and cheato ? Sand in the fuge or no ? I plan to propogate zoas and other softies at first and then eventually sps in the other side of the tank.

2. I plan on just sand and eggcrate in the display tanks. Is that how its normally done ?

3. Are you suppose to put a CUC in the display tanks ?

Ill be buying glass and putting baffles in this weekend. Also have ATO standing by waiting to be put together


Wish I could get things moving faster, but I have a 2yr old a 7yr old and a 4 month old... so when theyre in bed its time for the tanks !

BTW Any tips on wiring t5s? Well they are already wired i just hate how the stiff 1 strand wire is, its hard to manipulate and hide the wires, ive already had the hot wire touch the negative and spark!! eek!
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Update........ finally got a bigger sump on the system....a 30 gallon with three section and a bubble trap. Im running an external pump now (1100gph). And if you havent noticed my " help me quiet my overflow" I plugged 5 of the 6 3/4" drains and installed a one inch durso standpipe (having problems check the other post). I decided to run the left tank BB with LR (sps side) and a modded mj1200 for crazy flow, and on the right tank (softie side) a nice 1.5 sand bed with LR for now, ill eventually go with eggcrate racks. And I built my light hanging assembly(simply a 2x4 on each side of the stand running up 36" then (2) 2x4s connecting the left side to the right side, ill hang my t5 retros from this using chain of some sort. Ill post pics tommorow.

Check my other post i need to fix this overflow ...its getting close to finding out if im going to cycle or not.

pretty unique tank. following along.

any word on the drain?

Not yet, I throttled back the return to the BB side of the tank almost all the way....it quieted it down a bit. Sometime this weekend ill drill it again for another 1" durso drain and hopefully thatll take care of all the noise. I hope. Plus the softie side of the tank will finally get lights this weekend (a t5 4x39w retro) although it needs new bulbs

Welp, Dug my marshall island rock out of the tub in the shed and added it to the tanks. The left side is BB and will be sps, and the right side has a nice sand bed and will be zoas, softies and lps. Tanks been cycling with no lights for about 4 weeks or so, but last night i hung (2) 175 halides over the sps tank. the 2x39w t5 retro will hang on the softie side i just havent gotten around to wiring it.

I found a 6 stage W.G. rodi on craigslist and emailed and offered frags for trade since i have a bunch in my nanocube that have been growing out. Come to find out they are customers of mine at the store. So now I make my own water !!! I borrowed a TDS meter and measured water out of the sink which was 0.34ppm then tested the fresh rodi water i made and got a reading of 0.00 I got it setup in my laundry room so its hidden. Here are some pics !!!
( i know i need to put a lid on it, im not sure im keeping that container)