Our New Top Down Tank

[NanoReef]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Slick looking little top down. Love the light hanger too! I'm going to assume you don't have kids or cats? If you do you've got more guts than me lol.

haha no kids or cats! alright so i got a couple more pictures to share.. Since we are wanting to run this tank bare bottom, and we hate the look of the glass until coraline overtakes, we decided to have the guys at concept cut us a black piece of acrylic to match the back panel for the bottom of the tank. This way, the corals will stick out more, and there will be no distracting glare off of the bottom of the tank. So once i got it home, i siliconed it in place, and here is how it looks


i love the way it turned out. Matched up the back panel with the bottom quite nicely

[reefwars]

Love the black bottom dude looks clean as hell build looks killer def following along will you get er filled this week?

[NanoReef]

ya Denny i love the black bottom! and yep! tank should have water in it today! For now i have a bit of an update! got the plumbing done for the return. Here is the split to the 2 returns

before i could finish the plumbing i had to pick up a sump. Because of the small foot print of the stand, it made it a bit difficult to find one to fit, but then i found one locally that worked perfectly! Its a Aqueon Proflex Model 1 sump.

sooooo that allowed me to finish the plumbing. Then i had to tackle the stand for the light. Because we are renting our house, i didnt want to drill into the wall, and i didnt want the light hanger kit coming down from the 11' roof, so i had to make it a part of the stand so its all one unit. Our house has kind of an industrial feel to it so i decided to go with galvanized steel and paint it black. here is what i came up with



and here it is with the Radion on it!

thats it for now! more to come soon

[Borderjumper]

Love it! I have a look down tank myself, and its my favorite one. Wondering why you went with a eurobrace? On such a shallow tank I would have thought it wouldn't be necessary?

[reeferfulton]

Looking good . Nice job on the light bracket , fits in well with the brick wall behind.
painted black bottom is neet too . Im guessing your are going bare bottom then ?

[Skimmerking]

wow Man that looks really good the light hanger is a great idea.

[NanoReef]

Originally Posted by Borderjumper

Love it! I have a look down tank myself, and its my favorite one. Wondering why you went with a eurobrace? On such a shallow tank I would have thought it wouldn't be necessary?

We went eurobrace because rimless on a small tank scares me. With a tank this small thats rimless, things like scrubbing the glass turns into more of a chore because you are constantly worried about throwing water out of the tank. With the eurobrace, i can have my arms in the tank and splashing around and not have to worry about splashing water out of the tank. The eurobrace is definitely NOT necessary but it was our preference to run it.

reeferfulton Looking good . Nice job on the light bracket , fits in well with the brick wall behind.
painted black bottom is neet too . Im guessing your are going bare bottom then ?

thanks! I'm happy with the industrial look of the light stand, and like you said, it fits nicely with the industrial feel of the house. The back acrylic bottom was installed because we will be running bare bottom!

Skimmer King wow Man that looks really good the light hanger is a great idea.

Thanks!

[Trevor W]

Very nice tank! I always liked the idea of top-down tanks. Concept did a great job of the tank and I really like the idea of the black acrylic bottom, fits very well with the overall look. Excited to see what it evolves into.

[NanoReef]

Originally Posted by Trevor W

Very nice tank! I always liked the idea of top-down tanks. Concept did a great job of the tank and I really like the idea of the black acrylic bottom, fits very well with the overall look. Excited to see what it evolves into.

thanks a lot! i have always wanted to do a nice shallow tank so here was my chance. And i would have to agree, the guys at Concept did an amazing job on the tank.
So, we picked up a Mag 7 for the return (i know they are not the quietest but i have had a Mag 18 running on my 120 gallon for 9 years and have NEVER had an issue with it), so we went that route for the reliability. We also snagged a phosban reactor, so im hoping to have some pictures up a bit later!