50g tall rimless Starphire - first tank (pic heavy)

[Solstice]

Hi reefers!

First and foremost, I want to thank you all for the help that I've received on this site. I've gotten more suggestions and tips here without the cattiness of other forums and truly appreciate every bit of it, so thank you for collectively being such a fantastic resource for newbs like me who are trying to get started in the hobby.

I also wanted to share with you the results, so far, of all of the help I've received. I also wanted to document my build process so I can look back on it in a year and say "what the hell was I thinking?", haha.

In February, after months of research, I bought a custom 50g tall (36x18x16) tank from GlassCages.com with the plan to build a rimless, topless tank and hide as much equipment as possible in/behind the rocks. Quick thoughts on GC: starphire glass is amazing, people are very nice to deal with, driving 1 1/2 hours to meet the delivery truck saved me over $200 on shipping which is nice and their silicon work leaves a little to be desired, but nothing I wasn't able to clean up with a fresh razor blade.

Unfortunately the odd size of the tank meant that I couldn't find any stands that I liked myself, so I set off on building my own stand with the help of a buddy with more tools than you can shake a stick at (I'm sounding like my dad).

I'm a planted tank hobbyist too and have always been a fan of ADA products so when I found this article on building a DYI ADA stand I knew that's what I'd be doing with a couple of modifications: http://www.projectaquarium.com/plant...riumStand.aspx

On to the pics!

We started off gluing the 8' x 4' x 3/4" sheets of plywood together to make 1 1/2" plywood that would form the sides, top and bottom of the stand....


...while the tank sat hung out waiting for a home


While that dried, we started cutting the back, doors and "foot" that the whole thing would sit on:


After the glue was setup, we cut the boards and started adding the supports with some help from my bro-in-law:


Checking level and square:


Supports and bracing are in! Let's see how the tank fits!

[Solstice]

It was about this time that I decided the overflow box that GlassCages built was waaaaay too big and would really limit my ability to scape the tank. Look at the size of that thing! It had to come out. Getting through the silicon was really difficult. In the end, we used an E string from a guitar to slice through it which worked amazingly well.




Next up was to add the back, the front trim panel and route the holes for the plumbing and lighting supports:


The square hole is to accommodate the bottom bulkheads (1 1/2" and 2") of which I'd only be using the 1 1/2" drain for a closed loop system. The large center hole is for the 1 1/2" downpipe for the Gl*******s.net overflow box I replaced the stock overflow box with that will drain to the sump. The outermost holes in the back will hold the conduit I'll be using to suspend the lights over the tank. The innermost holes are for the returns from the closed loop and the sump which will go into 1 1/2" bulkheads towards the bottom of the tank.


Cutting and test fitting the doors:

[Solstice]

Next up was to cover the wood with Formica. This stuff is not easy to work with. Unfortunately Home Depot ordered me the wrong color. Facing a 3 week turnaround to custom order more Formica, I decided we'd have to go with what we had and paint it. The solution was far from ideal, but it did allow me to patch some mistakes with woodfiller.




Priming and painting!


At this point we moved the tank from my buddy's garage back to my house and I started getting really antsy to get it running. We banged out the plumbing in about 20 minutes (minus the time spent on 4 trips to Home Depot and the aquarium store for parts, of course ). I chose to use hose under the tank since this is my first reef tank and I've probably made a ton of mistakes and will want to make a lot of changes despite all the research. I unfortunately didn't take many pictures. You can see the closed loop pump in the top right, the intake for the closed loop next to the plugged bulkhead, and the returns that go up through the top of the stand to meet the bulkheads with gate valves to trim the flow from the pumps. I split the downpipe from the overflow to a fuge and sump.





I was able to get just enough water in one trip to the store before they closed to cover the live rock I picked up and run the closed loop for circulation:



More water and the sand. Cloudy!:


Finally got the lights hung and the water cleared up a bit.


After 2 months of work I finally have a little something to show for it. Now the hard part kicks in...being patient while waiting for the cycle I'm not sure how much to expect here since the live rock was taken directly out of a running tank and was transported in water, but I'll start checking ammonia today. I still need to hang the doors. It's proven tricky finding euro hinges that I can attach to the 1 1/2" plywood. I should have notched the plywood for the hinges, but didn't realize that until it was too late. I'm still looking for a solution there.

I've also got to replace the closed loop pump. I have a Gen-X pump that's incredibly loud. Don't get one if you value your sleep at night unless you grew up in an apartment next to an L train in Chicago (which I didn't). I have to unplug the closed loop when we go to bed. I have a QuietOne 4000 that I'll be replacing it with as soon as I have time to build a shelf to hold it.

Thanks for looking and, please, if you have any other suggestions, critiques, advice, etc., let me know. I'd love to hear your feedback.

[Solstice]

So far so good. I've started to notice some small diatoms on the glass and the sand and a little hair algae here and there, but nothing that's getting out of hand thus far.

I've replaced the Gen-X pump with the QuiteOne which is much, much quieter and is keeping the GF happy so far

I came back from a weekend out of town last night and have noticed a lot of new critters in the tank. There was a hermit crab that we knew about that had hitchhiked on the LR and we'd seen a few brittle stars sticking their legs out of the rock. After coming back home I've found at least 8 nassarius snails, and a bunch of copepods hanging around.

I'll be doing a water test this evening to see how things have panned out since Friday. Hopefully I can start adding a CUC soon! I'm still a little concerned about having truly gotten through a full cycle since there was little-to-no die off from the LR, but we'll see what the test kits say.

[mudskipper1]

my 40 never really went threw any cycle to speak of either and i got my LR in a similar manner...there were quite a few zoas and a couple other corals on the rock from the very beginning and they did fine. Not saying that this is normal at all, but i wold just move forward very slowly, adding a little at a time, reading before every addition, and testing to make sure your system is still on track. Looks like the start of something nice. good luck.

[EnglishRebel]

Welcome to this wonderful, fascinating, incredible, rewarding (and expensive) hobby, although in your case with only a 50G it should not be too bad.

[Solstice]

Originally posted by EnglishRebel
although in your case with only a 50G it should not be too bad.

Haha, that's what I thought too. I think I've tripled my original budget so far. But most of that was building the stand which is almost behind me now (dang doors....)

Thanks for the input guys!

[WhoDey64]

What an awesome build, such a clean looking setup. Congrat!

[fender4string]

I was thinking "clean" when I looked at it to . Nice job man! Those rimless tanks are sweet.

[imcosmokramer]

great work so far, keep it up.