Hi Everyone. After a few years off the hobby I decided that it was time to start all over again. Below some pictures of my new custom tank (30 long x 17 deep x 12 tall). It comes down to like 26 gallons plus the refugium/sump. The stand is custom made out of solid wood.

Equipment:

Aquatic Life 30" T-5 with timer
euro-reef nano skimmer
1/10 Aqua-euro chiller
Tunze ATO
phosphate reactor
american dj on/off plug system
Vortech MP10
Eheim return pump (1260)
Spectrapure Maxcap and silicia buster RO/DI (90 gpd)


Will be posting more pictures of the system once all the equipment has been properly installed.

very cool set up!!! What are the 2 black hoses going out to the side? For the chiller?
What kind of lighting are you going to use?

Yeah! The black hoses are for the chiller. I will be using Aquatic Life T-5 with timer (30" 4 bulbs). Thanks!!! It will take me a few more days before I get everything in its place. Right now I have to much flow on the main tank. Hopefully it will reduce significantly when I connect the chiller.

Any suggestions on how to improve the setup? Right now my only problem is the huge amount of flow. I have valves to reduce it and it will also loose some power when I add the chiller.

Last night I mix the ro/di water using Brightwell Aquatics Neo Marine salt. I almost burned my entire hand!!! This is the first time that I have seen such a thing. The water got super hot and it almost started boiling (i mix half the bag with like 4 gallons of water). In the past I used TropicMarin and I never had a problem. Is this a common problem with Neo Marine?

That sounds really odd with the salt mix. My guess would be that there's a lot of calcium in there that reacts with the water...not sure though

Is there anything like too much flow in an SPS tank? I'm sure once you add live rock it's going to be less flow anyways.
The set up is pretty neat, so I don't even know how to improve it. You could screw in some power compacts over the refugium and grow different chaetos in there.
It helped me a lot with nitrates.
Are you going bare bottom? Might be a good idea, as your tank's shallow and. flow's high which is great for sps.

here my fuge with chaeto. Sorry for the messiness

here the display

how about splitting the water outlet, so the flow goes in different directions?

I did order a light for the refugium and I'm planning on keeping chaeto and some live rock in there as well. Thanks for the advice! I will split the lock line in two to decrease the flow a bit. I will be adding like an inch of sand to the tank because I dont like the bare bottom look. Once the Vortech MP10 is properly installed I will be able to decrease even more the flow from the return pump and hopefully the sand will stop moving. As of today my other big problem is that the tank is evaporating a lot of water very fast!!! Probably 1/5 of a gallon!!! My ATO water container takes only 2 gallons ( will be run using aTUNZE ATO). BTW your tank is insane!!!!! looks very good!!!!! I will post more pictures tonight and show some of the progress. Thanks for all the help!!!

I like the Sump, nice clean look.

Thanks!!!! It was custom made. It will house some carbon on the first compartment, filter floss on the secon, protein skimmer and phosphate reactor on the third, chaeto and rocks on the refugium and the return pump on the last one. On top of the sump I placed a wood panel where I will put a 2 gallon square container for my top offs. Glad you like it!!!

Hey! Here are some new pictures of the tank. I installed the american dj on/off switch (on the top of the stand), added an inch of sand and some fiji dead rock. During the weekend I'll be installing the euro reef nano skimmer, the phosphate reactor and the mp10 vortech (with the battery backup).

Just wanted to report on the euro reef nano skimmer.....it works like a charm...i ordered it from globeaqua.com.......Todd was very helpful throughout the entire process......You can even order it to your own specifications. I will post some pictures very soon.....