Spitfires 75G low maintenance home office tank build

[spit.fire]

hi,
so lately ive been spending alot of time in my office at home and decided to spice up the room, currently i have a paludarium in the office but decided to go with a full reef to keep my entertained. Hoping to keep it somewhat low maintenance


Equipment:
75g with custom corner overflow
Steel stand (built by me)
Plain old sump
vertex omega 150
hagen glo dual bulb t5ho fixture
apex neptune system
tunze powerheads




Building stand at the shop (1x1 hss), seems a little small but according to autocad it can support the weight no problem







Side of office cleared out and stand in place




i dont like to put doors on my stands as i find the inner workings of a system just as interesting as the display itself


Tank... so long story short, i dropped it about 15 minutes ago, dont worry i broke its fall, unfortunatly my knee broke the bottom panel

this will add a bit of a delay to the build but im fairly certain i have another glass panel that size somewhere in my shop

Lesson learned tho, dont go up stairs while carrying a 75g tank on your own

[Ryanerickson]

Nice Tyler lol

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by Ryanerickson

Nice Tyler lol

ya not one of my finest moments....

i have 2x 4' tanks, i picked that one because the trim was in better shape but after taking some quick measurements the trim off the broken tank will fit the other one

[spit.fire]

Through the magic of television we have a tank






get to pick up the sump today

[spit.fire]

starting to plumb the tank



Coral, Sir Reginald the third, and Cooper all locked up for getting in the way



Leak testing the bulkheads




sump shot

[spit.fire]

ok so ive been asked alot about how i make such large branching rock structures without them collapsing.... so here is my quick and dirty guide to super awesome macdaddy rockwork



Step one
Get inspiration (look at bonsai trees, best place to get ideas imo)

Step two
Pick your rock, doesnt matter what it looks like, the plan is to not see it after you coat it in your corals (i cheat, there was about 200lbs of bleached and acid dipped rock in my garage)

Step three
Find a sturdy base, the base will be what will determine how far you can go with your ideas, the heavier the better as it is what will balance everything

Step four
Start by drilling holes and zap strapping everything together, using anything you can to prop up your structure, the idea here is to make it as strong as possible with the zap straps, dont be afraid to use alot of them

Step five
After you have a structure you're happy with, start filling the gaps between each rock with my special concrete (or other brands, i dont care....) dont be shy with it, the stuff i use grows coraline and corals like crazy so it gets hidden in no time. Also cover any visible zap straps with concrete to hide them








And a bunch of pics of my paludarium

[Slyguy00]

Nice rockscape write up Tyler. I like what you did with that one. Now hurry up and get that thing running

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

Nice rockscape write up Tyler. I like what you did with that one. Now hurry up and get that thing running

rock in the tank
sump pic

ive been having problems with the paludarium and slugs, pulled 6 slugs out of it in the last week, i think they hitch hiked in on a plant i got from a plant shop

will be starting to mount some of the corals will be mounted on the weekend

[Slyguy00]

Looks good dude!

[maron6977]

Ya, looks really cool . Can't wait to see with some frags .