Albertan22's 120g Reef

[Albertan22]

This project has been underway for about 7-8 months now. It's been a slow process of accumulating equipment and a failed stand build so I didn't want to start a build thread and tease everyone. My wife has convinced me that it's finally time to get one going though, so here we go

Here's my equipment list so far:

Marineland 120g reef ready tank with 1 corner overflow
40g breeder as a sump
Aqueon Cherry Mission stand and cannopy
Sunlight Supply Tek 8 bulb T5 light fixture
SWC Xtreme 200 protein skimmer
Quiet One 3000 return pump
2 Koralia 4s for added circulation
TLF reactor w phosban
autotopoff.com rig attached to a maxijet 400 for ATO
29g QT tank
1 Koralia 1 for the QT
Sponge filter for the QT

The project started with me attempting to build my own stand.



I had planned on skinning this stand in maple then applying a red stain. The build seemed successful at first, but then I left it for a month and found that a lot of the wood had shrunk, leaving gaps and warping the top box frame that the tank would sit on. Rather than trying to fix it, I decided that I'd feel safer with a store bought stand.

My wife is a math teacher so I got her to help me out with the plumbing design



The final product:



Thanks Vana:



Let there be light



Sump is up and running!



And some rock:



I still need to pick up more rock, maybe later this weekend.