High Tide Aquatics

Chris' (chicken) 220g Inwall SPS System

Ok, everyone I run into from BAR & RC keeps telling me to start up tank threads, so here we go. Please let me know what you think. I look forward to updating this as I finish the tank.

I bought my house here in San Ramon about 8 years ago now. As kids we always had a freshwater tank or two around the house with various gold fish, etc. So I was looking forward to finally getting my own place and setting up a Salt Water tank. The house took about another 9-12 months for the builder to complete. Once I moved in I realized the TV nook in the family room was just not going to work for the TV set. It was between the fireplace and the hall to the dining room and directly on the opposite side of the nook is the back of the house that includes two large windows, a medium size window and a large 9' tall sliding glass door to the backyard. So between the bad location for the TV set and the glare it would have during the day we moved the TV to the side wall of the family room. So from there I had to fill the nook with something and it was calling for a custom built in wall tank :)

So I worked with Tru-Vu and had them build a custom 68w x 24D x 30T tank. Since I was new to the hobby I started the tank out as a Salt Water tank with just fish. I added a 55g Oceanic sump with a 100g fuge in the garage. The tank is plumbed through the wall so I can keep all the noise, humidity and potential for spills out of the house.

I ran the tank this way for about 2 1/2 years. At that point my fish started getting to large for this tank so I started to look at an upgrade. I'll leave that for the other thread. :)

Once I had the other tank setup this tank sat running with nothing in it besides a few crabs and snails for nearly 2 years. I started getting the itch to finally clean the system up and get it setup as a reef system as I had planned. So I started working on it and as I was cleaning it I noticed the top seam of the tank had split from the back of the tank about 2/3rds of the entire length of the tank. From there I immediately drained the tank and contacted the manufacture. They were able to replace the top of the tank but unfortunately it had split down the back of the tank about 2" which required a patch inside the tank. Due to this I did not trust having 200g of Salt Water in my family room in a patched tank. I worked with the manufacture and they cut me a deal to build me a new tank. So I decided to have a new one built to the same dimensions except 32" tall and this time made out of all 3/4" thick acrylic. A few months later I got the new tank setup, reaquascaped and hooked back up to the existing sump and fuge.

Then work got even more busy and the tank sat this way for another 18 months. Finally in September of last year I finally got the time to get things finished up. I replaced the main pump with a Reeflo Snapper, added a pair of Tunze 6100s with a 7095 controller and upgraded to a pair of Lumenbright reflectors with 400w 12k Reflux bulbs. I then started picking up frags from a bunch of local reefers and a few of the LFS. Today I have about 50 frags in the tank. Things are going well and growing pretty decently.

The last few things I have to do to the tank is setup the CA Reactor I picked up tonight (thanks Alan), add some fish as there are no fish in the tank currently and finish building the cabinets. One of my other hobbies is woodworking. The cabinet for the tank is made of a Cherry face frame that sits in the recess of the TV nook. From there I built arched bookmatched raised panel Curly Cherry upper doors while the bottom are bookmatched raised panel Curly Cherry doors. I then finished the area under the tank with adjustable shelves for general storage. The upper doors are completed and finished while the lowers and the face frame I still need to sand and finish. Hopefully this weekend I can finish them up.

I'll work on getting some pictures this weekend and post them on this thread. I look forward to keeping this Tank Journal up to date as I finish the tank and the corals grow out.

Thanks

Tank: Custom Built Acrylic 3/4" thick 68" W x 24" D x 32" T
Sump: 55g Oceanic Sump
Fuge: Old 100g Acrylic tank from CL
Main Pump: Reeflo Snapper
Secondary Pump: Eheim 1260
Skimmer: H&S A250-2x1260
Chiller: JBJ 1/3 HP Chiller
Heaters: Dual Redundant Ranco Controllers each on separate GFCI circuits and each with one 500w Titanium Heating Element
CA Reactor: H&S A150 and Pinpoint PH Controller
Circulation Pumps: Tunze 2x6100 + 7095 Controller
Primary Lighting: 2 x Lumenbright Reflectors with 2 Reflux 400w Electronic Ballasts with 12k SE Reflux Bulbs
Secondary Lighting: 3 x 80W T5 (Blue Plus + Actinic)
Top-off: 20g Top-off tank with ATO float switch and 180GPD Spectrapure RO/DI
Stand: Custom built 2" Steel Square Tube Stand
Cabinet: Custom built Cherry Face Frame with Curly Cherry Raised Panel Doors
Water Change: 900g Water Change Tank shared with my other Tank
 
I have to admit I was a little bummed I didn't get to see your tanks when I came by, but both days were kinda urgent.... I can't wait to see pics of this and the 600
 
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