270 gal light lps tank
 

This is going to be my build thread. I am (slowly) building a reef tank for my living room. I apologize if this thread becomes very chaotic as I have never done this before.

Let's start with the tank, my original tank was a 240 gallon glass 96x24x24 tank. Unfortunately after removing my freshwater fish and supplies, I moved the tank to my garage for a short time. When I began planning for a reef tank, I had filled my glass aquarium with water to make sure none of the seals had gone bad. Sure enough about 90% full, the whole back cracked. So I decided to go with an acrylic 72x24x36 tank.
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My wife is cleaning out the sand from inside the tank :) i then fill the tank to make sure there were no leaks in my new acrylic tank. Then I went onto planning my base and hood. Since this is going in the living room my wife picked out a design off Pinterest. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e936e6b86f.png I am using this idea as a guideline, mine will be similar but much larger.

Any help throughout this project will be greatly appreciated as I will have many questions about the different products that is offered throughout this hobby.




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Day 1:
Today I begin construction on the base. It was mainly constructed with 2 x 2's and 4 x 4's with three-quarter inch plywood on the top and bottom rack.
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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5e89145fd0.jpg my father helping me
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...69b1677c34.jpg 3 basic frames to begin
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...700936b824.jpg frames tacked together
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d52e2a5753.jpg frames place and braced with liquid nails and lots of braceshttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3a10ec2638.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d78847e1d2.jpg the section not covered by plywood actually slides underneath my marble countertops in my living room which give me another foot of space underneath the tank. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4ef9cb5737.jpg
Here you can see the final placement of my tanks base, it's tucked in nicely underneath my countertop. Disregard the legos hahah



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Day 2: we began the posterior frame along with the hood
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0a100b2942.jpg beginning of the hood
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...23790ae3bd.jpg posterior vertical section
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f1e91e0ba4.jpg both together but upside down

I plan put in the tank and everything together next weekend unless I have free time during the week


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Can a mod move this to the proper section? If I am not in it?


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I'm going to clean my dry rock, is there a good way to do this, I would prefer her not having a lot of hitchhikers in my tank


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Both the bottom, side, and top complete

Have started to remove the scratches from the inside


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Sanding out the deep scratches and beginning the buff process

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Still a bit hazy going to hit it with a cotton buff pad to remove any chemical Hayes left over by novus products

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I have a controller and two pumps with this
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2 aqua Sanrise R90


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Very hard to take a picture of but there are small micro bubbles on the inside of the seams and small looks like stress fractures on the outside
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Anything I should worry about


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Looking good!

Bubbles not so much but any cracks I would be concerned. Either reseal them yourself or have someone do it for ya.


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They are super small cracks. Thickness of a fingernail


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Cut new larger bulk head holes, the middle one was the original size, 1 1/2. They 2 side holes are 2" 3/8 now for my schedule 80 1 1/2" bulk heads

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First sump build. Will do my next one completely different.
From left to right; refugium, return pump, skimmer, drain pipe area/ mechanical filtration


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Is the return pump area too small? It's marked by lasagna


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At first glance I would say you are good but if I was you I would find the return pump you are going to use and verify the measurements accordingly.

I'm using the ecotech L1, it fits well


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Should be good as long as you have an ATO and the sensor is in that chamber.

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I'm going to be using tunze 3155


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From what I have read, this has decent reviews


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Also from queen creek, have a 190G currently cycling! Will definitely be following along. Let me know if you need help lifting anything.

Right on man! 5 days too late haha! Lol


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Dry fitted all the plumbing. Started to glue together.


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Update: so I measured twice, cut all the pipe, but mistakes happen. I was short on the return pipe. Miss calculated my pump height. Slowly but Shirley I'm getting everything together.


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Looking forward to to seeing this in the next several weeks!

I also install my 6 stage R/O D/I and my mixing station. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...dfaf9988ce.jpg
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I'll have to buy another brute trash can, and maybe make a cart with my pump for water changes and moving ro water.


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