130g Reef Build with Shadowbox
 

We've been working on building up a 130 gallon tank I bought used from Worlds Under Water in Fayetteville, AR. The stand and canopy are solid oak, and were a cherry finish.

I wanted to start a thread to document the entire build, so that it might be of some help to someone else who wants to build something similar. I've spent countless hours in forums, researching various products (like we all do!), so I'm hoping to build a nice and healthy reef tank and be able to make some product recommendations to people....maybe save them some time.

We've been running a 24g nano cube for a while, and we've had a blast with it. It's our TV alternative! However, a family of 4 huddled around a nano, all watching to see what each creature is up to, is a little crowded. Also, I'm 6' tall, so I get tired of hunching over to get eye level with the tank. My wife and I have been dreaming of having a tank large enough that there is a large area of sand to watch starfish, crabs, etc. cruise around (they are some of our favorites), but still have a nice size rock area...like the area of the ocean where the reef ends and the sand starts. We really didn't like the traditional wall of live rock that many tanks consist of.

After getting a great price on the tank / stand / canopy, I started putting together a spreadsheet of the items we'd need to get this tank reef-ready...oh, how it adds up fast!

Here is what we started with: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...n/photostream/

Congrats on getting a bigger tank. What are your plans for equipment and stocking?

Pics are always a big plus so i'm looking forward to what you've got going on. I may take some ideas for my 125g.

As soon as we got the tank and stand home, we sanded it down and painted it satin black (but the wood grain still shows, which is nice).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...n/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...n/photostream/

The next step was to purchase a new Coralife Pure-Flo II RO/DI unit, water timer, and vats for water. Finding an eletronic timer that would run for 10-12 hours (enough time to fill up a 30 gallon can) was a challenge, but I found an Italian timer that does just that (Claber 8454 Aquauno Video 2-Cycle Water Timer)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7167282...in/photostream

Thanks for the reply! This is my first thread...still figuring out how to insert pics without using hyperlinks.

The tank is up and running (cycling now), so I'm going to post all the pics now, and the details of each step I took. I should have several posts tonight.

After getting 3 guys to help me move the tank into place (man, that sucker is heavy!!), I filled it up with tap water (leak check). No leaks! Woohoo!

Here are my two favorite little guys anxiously awaiting the tank to be filled with tap water while the RO/DI water is being made (130 gallons = about 2.5 days of making water).

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2067Medium.jpg

Kind of went on a spending spree to get the tank up and going. Here's a shot showing some of the gear, including:

-Coralife Pure-Flo II RO/DI unit
-eshopps R-200 sump with 4' hoses
-eshopps PF-1000 overflow, which turned out to be a little overkill
-eshopps return spout ($5, and it is too small of a diameter and is very weak plastic...will be replacing with larger diameter return spout)
-SeaChem Reef Salt
-Catalina titanium 500W heater (one for now, will add a backup later)
-3 stick on strip thermometers (at $1.65 each, it's better to know if one is flaky...two out of three readings beats guessing which one of two is correct)
-EHEIM Compact+ Pump 5000 (return pump for sump)
-glass thermometer for water vats
-Tetra heater for vats
-Extech RF20 refractometer
-5 20lb bags of CaribSea Live Sand (Fiji Pink)

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2071Medium.jpg

Still to be ordered:
-Reef Octopus XS160
-(2) Radion or AI Vega lights....using my AI Nano for the middle of the tank where there will be little to no coral

Here is the sump and overflow installed:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2072Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2073Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2121Medium.jpg

I ended up removing one of the overflow J tubes, as it was siphoning too fast and resulted in a low water level in the internal overflow box, which caused bubbles to enter the tubes and break the siphon. One tube is PLENTY for the EHEIM pump I'm using.

Thanks to Ken for the Coralife LED fixture that will light the sump for plant growth. I plan to do a DSB (deep sand bed) in the refugium area. There is so much debate about whether to do sand, mud, mud in a slow flow bucket, plants only, etc. I decided to just go with sand, as it seems to be the most popular (just pick something and try it out, right?).

Use photobucket and use the [IMG] tags.

Photobucket

As I was putting all of this together, I was trying to decide what to do about the background for the tank. I'm tired of black, and blue is not really appealing. I liked the idea of a white background, which appears blue when water is filled, but still seemed too boxed in. The tank is 24" front to back, 27" high, 48" long, but I still wanted it to appear to go deeper in the back. That's when I ran across this thread, which I'm very thankful for!
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1868825

That did it! A shadowbox like that one is EXACTLY what I needed. So...off to Home Depot to start that little project. I used the following:
-1X4" outer frame
-2X4' hardboard / masonite
-2X4' plexiglass / acrylic (pretty thin...less than 1/8th maybe)
-teal/blue paint
-LED light strip (one of those invisible light fixtures that is made to clip onto the rim of a tank)
-black foam core board for the reef shape cutouts

Pics:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2078Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2085Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2104Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2101Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2105Medium.jpg

Quick check to see how it will look behind the tank:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2116Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2118Medium.jpg

thanks!! too bad my initial posts are over an hour old....can't edit those without contacting the admin, so I'll just leave those as Flickr links.

Added 50lbs of man made live rock from LFS (until I can afford to buy about 50lbs more)...not crazy about the 'A' shape of the rocks right now, but it's a start. Got the shadowbox 'officially' installed, but I will probably make modifications to it to make it look more realistic. A hermit crab hitchhiked on the coral branch I brought over from the nano...hope he survives the cycling process. He, and a tiny white starfish, have the tank to themselves right now...must feel like the ocean compared to the nano!

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...rden/photo.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...den/photo1.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...den/photo2.jpg

At this point, the tank is cycling. Meanwhile, here is the Nano that we've really enjoyed for the past several months (sorry for the poor quality camera phone pic):

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...den/photo3.jpg

One of the pieces of live rock I purchased was not man made, and is very full of life. In fact, it was so infested with large / long bristleworms that I immediately quarantined it in a stryofoam box in the garage with a heater. I've picked off about 4 bristleworms, each about 4" long. Still have a couple more in there. I know it's inevitable to get these in a tank when purchasing live rock, but so far all the other rocks are 'clean'. This one rock, though, is so full of life! A pom pom crab came out of it, a brittle star, some polyps, and some really creepy gray fleshy area about 2" around that receded into a hole when I poked it...gave me the willies when it did that. No idea if it's a nudibranch or something else, but I'd like to know if anyone has seen this type of invert before. Safe to say that this piece of live rock is going to stay 'quarantined' until I know what all is living in it. I know, I know...it's part of buying live rock, but I'm just trying to be cautious of introducing a pest that will be hard to remove later on. I think the rest of the rock I buy will definitely be man made and somewhat inspected before putting into the tank.

Regarding the equipment I'm using, I'm very happy with what I've purchased so far. It pays to research and read reviews! I've decided to go LED for lighting for numerous reasons, but I'm still on the fence regarding which LED lights to go with. If it were possible to dim them on a sunrise/sunset timer, I'd go with the Kessil A350w fixtures. I'm so spoiled with my AI Nano's numerous timers and color settings that I am pretty much set of having those features in a larger light. This leaves me with two choices - AI Vega or Radion XR30W. The Radion is supposedly going to drop in price to around $600, which will make it more competitive with the AI Vega. The reviews seem to all reflect that the Radion software is much better (more reliable, better features, etc.), and they use UV light ranges that many people say is important for corals, so I'm leaning toward it more than the Vegas. I'm still having a time with the price tag. I know these things will get cheaper over time, but I don't want to invest in a T5 or MH fixture that requires regular bulb replacements, noisy fans, etc., just to turn around and replace them in a few years with LED fixtures. LEDs are like a computer or camera....have to jump in at some point, and try not to think about the depreciation / inferiority that will inevitably happen in the next year or so! My LFS uses the Radion fixtures and their corals have been doing fantastic...even the ones that have not sold in 6+ months. Also, if I go with Radion, I can sync them to my Vortech MP10 pump to create turbulent water & lighting storms at the same time (my tank-bred fish will SO not appreciate or understand this, but that's ok!).

Here are the photos that have inspired me on my shadowbox build (I have a LONG way to go to get my tank looking as natural as these tanks). These images came from the thread I referenced above, in the shadowbox build post:

euromomtx's tank:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...en/theglow.jpg

some guy in Germany's tank:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...n/img_8463.jpg

Serpentman's tank:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...n/DSCF1051.jpg

looks like you are off to a great start

I transferred the contents of my 24g nano over to the 130g last night, and everything is doing great! Here is a video showing the tank and the waves produced by the little Vortech MP10 that was in the nano. Crazy how powerful those pumps are. The tank never really cycled due the live sand and rock. Never could get an ammonia reading after 2+ weeks, so I went ahead and moved everything over. I also moved over the AI Nano light. It, along with the standard 48" fluorescent fixture that came with the tank, are sufficient until I order two Radion XR30W LED fixtures, which just had a price drop to $650 at a few retailers.

http://youtu.be/j9GK-eMyK4Y

One more video showing the waves in more detail:
http://youtu.be/8nrGrauDE9g

Here are a couple of shots of the tank, one at night time. Need more rock, but getting there...

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2192Medium.jpg
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2199Medium.jpg

Thanks to a recent birthday (thank you Carla, Mom, and Dad!), I was able to pick up a Powder Brown Tang, and several more pounds of live rock! We took all of the rock out of the tank and built the structure on the kitchen floor. We took pics and video so we'd know how to construct the rock once inside the tank. It worked out pretty well! Here are some pics....

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2221Medium.jpg

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...5368Medium.jpg

We love the big area of sand for watching starfish, crabs, and snails:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...5374Medium.jpg

http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...5376Medium.jpg

Pom Pom Crab that came with a piece of live rock:
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...2215Medium.jpg

Love it. I always liked the shadow box idea. I'm curious what the dimensions of your tank are.

Great job ! Word of caution, since your tank is new and you'll be able to do it with minimal effort. Put that Green Star Polyps on a rock on its own. Away from everything else. That stuff is a crazy weed and it will grow over just about everything !!

Looking great. I love the shadow box look, and the sand only area is a great idea.

Thanks! The tank is 48" X 27" H X 24" front to back.

Hey, thanks for the tip! It, and some other stuff on that rock, are already bonding with the rock, so I'll have to pry it off and move it...better now, than later, eh?