Okay...so now that I have your attention...
This build thread has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, it's going to go pretty slowly so hopefully I can keep everyone's attention long enough to get this tank built.
For the last 10 months or so I've been trying to get started on a new house but every conceivable obstacle seemed to rise and stop us from getting anywhere. Thankfully, things appear to have started moving and I just signed off on the building permits yesterday so we've officially started spending our hard earned money.
The plan for this tank is a 84"l x 32"d x 24"h three sided Starfire peninsula tank. By my figures, this works out to about 280G. The plan also includes an external overflow 28" along the side of the peninsula buried in the cabinet work. I will be using the Bean Animal Overflow (if you don't know this one, I will put up a link further into the build).
Right now I haven't decided on who will be building the tank as the two builders I was considering the most have both closed their doors. Several people have PM'd me with new suggestions and so I have to explore some price quotes with these vendors.
The house will be a basement level entry and so the display will be on the main floor and I will have an 8 1/2 by 14' fish room on the ground level. My sump, fuge and future frag tank will all reside in the fish room. Along with these will be a laundry tub, RODI, FW storage and SW mixing tanks.
I've been gathering stuff for this over the last year and so far I've got the return pump (3600 Reeflow Blackfin), 2 x 6105 Tunzes along with the 7096 controller and an MP40W. I've also got various plumbing supplies, etc when they've been on sale.
My current 70g will end up migrating most if not all it's contents and inhabitants into the new display. Unfortunately, I've got a little problem with mushrooms in the 70 and I've yet to decide how to make sure they never enter the new tank.
Anyways, there's no doubt this will be a huge undertaking for me and I'm going to need a lot of help from everyone in order to make this work out right. Hopefully I've learned enough from this forum that the mistakes I make (and I'm sure I'll make some) will be small enough to get through without blowing too much extra dough. My better half has been very understanding about my need to build a house around my fish tank. Roughly translated, that "understanding" means we've established a budget together and if I know what's good for me, I'll need to stick to it.
