UK based 400 gallon UK gallon Tank

[reefislife]

Thought I would post pics of my new tank from start to now:-

The tank shortaly after construction. Constructed in situ by a good friend.

Tank dimensions are:- 7.5ft by 3ft wide by 2.5ft high.

With 4ft by 2ft by 15inch sump useable plus 2ft by 2ft section for salt mixes etc.



Left hand weir with inner overflow.



Right Hand weir.


Tank on Steal box section frame and sump.



Lighting rig, holding 4 * spiderlights with remote ballasts and mix of 14k and 20k 400 watt lamps.

[reefislife]

Pipe work





This is my master plan, both weirs to each hold 4 * 6100 streams. 3 as main flow into tank and 1 for my crazy coral rubble substrate, basically the idea is that the streams will flow through the base and up through the egg crate and rubble, thus keeping rubbish in suspension

[reefislife]

Old tank meeting its demise.



Frame under construction, this is to give the built in look.

[reefislife]

Contruction complete, tank RO'd up, salted and my weired experimentation with rock work begins.







left, middle and right hand side of sump.

[reefislife]

One of my Tunze 3140 skimmers, second in use on by holding tank at present.



2 * Fluidised Phosphate reactors.



Hope you like, more pics can be seen on my web site [img]http://www.craiggoffin.com

Thanks.

Craig

[scarletknight06]

very cool, i like the stream blowing under the egg crate idea. I guess the substrate is heavy enough not to get blown around?

what are the slots at the bottom of the overflow boxes for?

[reefislife]

hi,

The slots at the bottom let more water into the false weir, the main weir is the glass bit inside which does not have slots at the bottom.

Also the slots allow the water to flow through from stream number 4.

[mike660r]

I like how you closed off the area around the tank. It has a nice clean amd modern look to it. Keep up the good work.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

nice handy work, awesome beginning!

[juice me man]

it looks very good. keep up with the pictures. cant wait till its finished

[reefislife]

Completed the transfer of my live rock and one remaining fish today.

All streams online, both skimmers running, lights on, bit of algea in sump.

All that remains is dialing in my Kalk and Calcium reactors.

oh and the long long restock process.







Craig

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

IMHO-awesome set-up, but maybe a little more lr?
either way....NICE!

[reefislife]

thanks.

nope no more rock, I want a very open structure this time.

Dont want the chance of any dead spots.

[Martin's Reef]

Nice Tank M8! Is that a cleaner wrasse I see?

Chers,
Martin

[orangekush4]

very sick, great idea on the egg crat flo combo.

[reefislife]

hi, yes it is a cleaner wrasse but please dont flame me, bare in mind that I did have a 7ft tank before this one. After selling most of my stock and then a few losses in my holding tank, the cleaner was all that have left.

I would NOT buy a cleaner as a first fish. EVER.

[juice me man]

so what other fish are you planning on getting

[reefislife]

Not sure.

I do have a pair of Scribbled Angels reserved at my LFS.
but other than that not sure.

I'm not a fan of Tangs other than Powder Blues so they are out.

I'd like a huge shoal of various anthias as well, and some percs.

Going to try for less fish this time but probably wont succeed as the fish are the important bit to me.

[juice me man]

i would gor for a small shoal od butterflies.

what about a queen angelfish. they are beautiful. maybe a mappa puffer

[Martin's Reef]

No flame M8! I just wish they survived better than they do!

Martin

[NexDog]

Nice inventive idea on the raised eggcrates. I'll be interested to see how this progresses.

[Tanglover]

What are your thoughts behind choosing such a substrate, instead of sand?

[reefislife]

Hi,

A few reasons mainly.

1) I had a dsb in my old tank that was not DSB enough so I think it went bad, so I didnt want to have an in tank dsb this time.
2) I use a lot of streams so a shallow sand bed would have been impossible.
3) I really dont like the bare tank bottom look so couldnt go this way.
4) Coral rubble would have got messy with detritus etc very quickly so I needed to find a way of preventing this.

Thus the reverse undergravel style of idea.

Finally I like to try things differently rather than always assuming the old methods are the only way to go.

This so far works but the flow isnt quite as much as I was hoping for.

CRaig

[NexDog]

What problems are you having with the flow?

[reefislife]

The flow of the tank is fine (Impossible not to be with 6 * 6100 streams blasting water around), its the flow through the substrate that isnt what I expected.

Dont know what I expected really as I've never seen it done before, it definately lifts particals out from the substrate (and thus is keeping it clean) but kind of slow rather than rapid.