sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Ok here's my tank as requested, I'm still fiddling with certain aspects of things. And as usual you'll get a long-winded rant from me explaining things 
(scroll to the bottom for pics)
This is a 100g long tank (72" x 18" x 18"), and is home to stonies, most all my SPS are frags, the rest are small mini-colonies (plating montis mostly since those are fast growing), and the LPS are for the most part fully colonies >20 polyps (2 acan lord colonies, 2 blastomussa wellsi colonies, and a couple other LPS I can't think of now).
You can see all but 2 fish in the picture
3 Green chromis
1 Blue damsel
1 Percula clownfish
1 Pacific sailfin tang
1 Yellow watchman goby (hiding)
1 6-line wrasse (also hiding)
Also have a sand sifting star, a few super nassarius snails, poo looking cucumber (but does a job on the sandbed!) and a coral banded shrimp in the tank.
List of things to do
1) Figure out lighting scheme, I have 2 -250w 12kK Reeflux bulbs on it with home-made spider like reflectors. I also have an equally ghetto 40w actinic bulb in one of those "lamp holders" that you'd put on a FW tank that I kind of lean against the thing to get a little "glowiness" at night (makes no dent during the day which is cool). The fact I can see the MH bulbs (quite bright) upon entering the room (and my head is quite a bit higher than the bulbs) means quite a bit of light is being lost that could be reflected into the tank. I'm not quite sold on Luminarcs (just because I don't have that cash floating around.. well I dont want to spend it is more like it) and I'd like to have room for a T5 bulb or 2 over it (actinic) so that rules out the lumes because they're almost 20 inches wide (18" wide tank), infact that rules out quite a few things.
2) Plumbing/flow, those white PVC hanging down now are simply a legacy of my ocean's motion "I want to get this working now" haste. I have some Loc-line dohickies and I'd like to to hook up (8-6" sections) where I'd like one OM from the top with the Loc-lines (since this is a sump return these NEED to be coming from the top.. but I'll drill as close to the back as possible. I also have another OM that I was planning on using on my softie tank but... meh, I'm thinking of hooking up a closed loop for this. Also have a Seio 2600 & 1500 in the tank so I have a nice amount of flow, but as you can see they are big and bulky... only saving grace is they are a dark color (except for the coraline covered parts) so they blend in... unsure what I'm going to do for this workhorse part of the tank flow, I'll see how well that maxi-jet mod works out. Also I'm hankering on a surge system but I think that'll be something that's left for quite some time in the future (if at all) as my overflow can't handle my current return pump on full blast so additional flow is a no-no.
3) Overflow! This was a FUBAR job that's going to be a hard one to fix. Originally I had a couple acrylic boxes in each corner, unfortunately the acrylic wasn't perfectly cut so instead of weldon I used superglue and figured I could silicone the hell out of it. Well it worked fine for a while (still does) but unfortunately it leaks near the top so ifthe power goes off more water will drain than what's above the overflow height. So being as emptying the tank and doing them right is out of the question I was thinking of cutting a series of external overflow notches near the top so there's no internal boxes at all (i did this on my glass tank and it works like a charm, but that tank was also empty when I did it). The problems I'm worried about the structure of the top acrylic piece if I just chop out a huge hunk o' acrylic out the back if it'll still be structurally sound as I don't know how to cut teeth and do it in a straight fashion (maybe make a router jig and move it for each tooth section) also I'll have is finding a way to make a really long external overflow box, AND figuring out how to get it to stick firmly to the back of the tank... the issues here is from what I understand you can't get a good bond with weldon on vertical surfaces (i'm hoping theirs a gooey version as clarity of the seam is not a concern to me) and other issue is the tank is full there probably is bit of a bulge so assuming I make a nice long straight overflow box the back of the tank might not be straight (I'm guessing I'll just have to empty a buttload of water and hope the bulge isn't permanent!).
4) Opening the top up. The tank looks to have an acrylic brace/top that you see on many standard acrylic tanks, what I'd like to do is double up the acrylic in sections and weldon it to the top, then hit it with a router or saw and make the hole openings larger, MAYBE going so far as removing the center brace... at the very least making it smaller. This is probably the easiest of my projects
Ok enough babbling but I warned you! Here's my tank
Yeah I know... you read through all of that just for this?? Meh!
Anyways here's a link to the original photo before I shrunk if you want to see it in more detail...although it's not that detailed. (2804x784 image) http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7591/wholetankok3.jpg
(scroll to the bottom for pics)This is a 100g long tank (72" x 18" x 18"), and is home to stonies, most all my SPS are frags, the rest are small mini-colonies (plating montis mostly since those are fast growing), and the LPS are for the most part fully colonies >20 polyps (2 acan lord colonies, 2 blastomussa wellsi colonies, and a couple other LPS I can't think of now).
You can see all but 2 fish in the picture
3 Green chromis
1 Blue damsel
1 Percula clownfish
1 Pacific sailfin tang
1 Yellow watchman goby (hiding)
1 6-line wrasse (also hiding)
Also have a sand sifting star, a few super nassarius snails, poo looking cucumber (but does a job on the sandbed!) and a coral banded shrimp in the tank.
List of things to do
1) Figure out lighting scheme, I have 2 -250w 12kK Reeflux bulbs on it with home-made spider like reflectors. I also have an equally ghetto 40w actinic bulb in one of those "lamp holders" that you'd put on a FW tank that I kind of lean against the thing to get a little "glowiness" at night (makes no dent during the day which is cool). The fact I can see the MH bulbs (quite bright) upon entering the room (and my head is quite a bit higher than the bulbs) means quite a bit of light is being lost that could be reflected into the tank. I'm not quite sold on Luminarcs (just because I don't have that cash floating around.. well I dont want to spend it is more like it) and I'd like to have room for a T5 bulb or 2 over it (actinic) so that rules out the lumes because they're almost 20 inches wide (18" wide tank), infact that rules out quite a few things.
2) Plumbing/flow, those white PVC hanging down now are simply a legacy of my ocean's motion "I want to get this working now" haste. I have some Loc-line dohickies and I'd like to to hook up (8-6" sections) where I'd like one OM from the top with the Loc-lines (since this is a sump return these NEED to be coming from the top.. but I'll drill as close to the back as possible. I also have another OM that I was planning on using on my softie tank but... meh, I'm thinking of hooking up a closed loop for this. Also have a Seio 2600 & 1500 in the tank so I have a nice amount of flow, but as you can see they are big and bulky... only saving grace is they are a dark color (except for the coraline covered parts) so they blend in... unsure what I'm going to do for this workhorse part of the tank flow, I'll see how well that maxi-jet mod works out. Also I'm hankering on a surge system but I think that'll be something that's left for quite some time in the future (if at all) as my overflow can't handle my current return pump on full blast so additional flow is a no-no.
3) Overflow! This was a FUBAR job that's going to be a hard one to fix. Originally I had a couple acrylic boxes in each corner, unfortunately the acrylic wasn't perfectly cut so instead of weldon I used superglue and figured I could silicone the hell out of it. Well it worked fine for a while (still does) but unfortunately it leaks near the top so ifthe power goes off more water will drain than what's above the overflow height. So being as emptying the tank and doing them right is out of the question I was thinking of cutting a series of external overflow notches near the top so there's no internal boxes at all (i did this on my glass tank and it works like a charm, but that tank was also empty when I did it). The problems I'm worried about the structure of the top acrylic piece if I just chop out a huge hunk o' acrylic out the back if it'll still be structurally sound as I don't know how to cut teeth and do it in a straight fashion (maybe make a router jig and move it for each tooth section) also I'll have is finding a way to make a really long external overflow box, AND figuring out how to get it to stick firmly to the back of the tank... the issues here is from what I understand you can't get a good bond with weldon on vertical surfaces (i'm hoping theirs a gooey version as clarity of the seam is not a concern to me) and other issue is the tank is full there probably is bit of a bulge so assuming I make a nice long straight overflow box the back of the tank might not be straight (I'm guessing I'll just have to empty a buttload of water and hope the bulge isn't permanent!).
4) Opening the top up. The tank looks to have an acrylic brace/top that you see on many standard acrylic tanks, what I'd like to do is double up the acrylic in sections and weldon it to the top, then hit it with a router or saw and make the hole openings larger, MAYBE going so far as removing the center brace... at the very least making it smaller. This is probably the easiest of my projects
Ok enough babbling but I warned you! Here's my tank
Yeah I know... you read through all of that just for this?? Meh!
Anyways here's a link to the original photo before I shrunk if you want to see it in more detail...although it's not that detailed. (2804x784 image) http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7591/wholetankok3.jpg
