The Best of Both Worlds

The Best of Both Worlds

Welcome to my build thread and join me as I develop my basement for my little fishes. This build will feature a wall with two fish tanks. A high tech reef and planted tank.

Originally, I was planning to have two 90 gallon tanks. But I hate cleaning and reaching into such a deep tank. Therefore, I have decided to downsize them to shallow custom tanks with the following dimensions 48" x 18" x 18". Definetely something that I can manage. Plus, I won't get my armpits wet.


Reef
My focus is to have a SPS dominated tank which will eventually run zeovit. I just love these fuzzy sticks. Below is an image of what my current 90 gallon looks like now. I will be keeping the same type of aquascape but will add sand. I also intend to move some of the frags onto the rock (whenever I decide to buy some glue - lazy). I guess it's a mountain high, valley low aquascape.




Planted
This will be an Iwagumi aquascape with an auto drip water change setup for my discus. The discus are all still juveniles so it will be a while before I purchase this tank and set it up. I realize this is a reefing community so I won't go in depth with the planted discus tank. There will be photos from time to time though. Below is an image of where they used to live, before I shut this tank down and moved them to their current 40 gallon breeder.




This is what the setup looks like right now. Isn't that ugly or what?


This is the new feature wall. It is 9' so with both tanks, they should fit nicely. I have my old planted 90 gallon tank on the right side to show what it would look like. The new custom tanks will actually reach up to the bottom of the black trim on the tank.

As you can tell, my basement is still undeveloped. My wife painted the feature wall so that we can get a feel for what it would look like. It's actually a very light blue color.

It will still be 2 or 3 weeks before we finish hanging all the drywall, plastering, painting and installing the laminate flooring.




The Stands
I purchased two of the same stands. They are actually bathroom vanity's that I will need to modify and reinforce to fit the sumps and to hold the weight of the tanks.



Access into the stands is very tight. I'm going to remove the drawers and they will simply be cosmetic. I have two choices: (1) to remove the entire front panel (my choice) or (2) to make the stand deeper so that I reach in there. I prefer to go with both options but we'll see how far I get.

Onto the plans. The display (67 gallon) has an external coast to coast beananimal overflow. The drains will run 11 feet horizontally (on a slope) to a room nearby and into the main sump (30 gallon) that houses all the equipment and 3 filter socks.

This gets gravity fed into a refugium with a deep sand bed (90 gallon). Yes I changed my plans on the carbon dosing.

Then it goes into another 90 gallon which will house the ATO, W/C station, the rest of the live rock and the return pump. I will incorporate a drain for easy water change. I will also set it up so that I can easily fill the tank without the need for any hoses. The ATO will have a float switch to automate refilling.

The live rock will sit on a egg crate shelf so that detritus can be easily removed. Finally, I'm hoping to run this entirely off of a Eheim 1262. It will be pushing 11 feet horizontally.

I'm looking for some advice.

1) The fish room will be in the space directly under my stairs. I am planning to drywall it to keep the dust from the furnace room (directly next to it) out. I plan to have glass lids on the two 90's, but not on the skimmer portion of the 30 gallon sump. Do I need to worry about humidity? I can put an air vent into the furnace room if that helps. Not sure if I need some fans to suck the air out.

2) Will the Eheim 1262 be able to handle a 11 foot horizontal push? It's also going up 5 feet and through about 6 x 90 degree elbows.

3) I have 4 drains holes on the external coast to coast overflow box. I was planning to do a beananimal, and use one hole for the return. They are 1" drains. Should I adapt the PVC to 1.25" pipe instead of the standard 1", and have that running to the sump?

Thanks for looking. Drywall is still about 80% done. This will still be a long one.

The good news is that I got the tank. It's been curing in my dining room for the past week. Thanks Concept. James built an awesome tank.

Denny (never met you before) apparently boxed everything up so Dave could only find 3 bulkheads. There are 3 holes on the right and 1 on the left. I should have had them spread out more. Oh well.



This is a one piece acrylic background that was glued to the inside.



And finally, a custom hand cut overflow weir.

[Skimmerking]

i like it

[Arok3000]

Looking good, are you having Concepts building you an identical tank for your discus?
The Eheim 1262 has nearly 12' of head capability, so I think 5' with a few elbows should be fine.

Thanks for the comments.

I most likely will go with Dave again for the discus tank. They are still small juveniles (less than 4 inches) so it will be awhile before they move to their new home. I'm also planning on having the exact same setup for the discus tank, except I will also incorporate two canisters to it. The sump will be a refugium for hornwort and auto water change.

The Eheim 1262 has to run 11 feet horizontal and up 5 feet total (gradual slope).

[The Guy]

I like your plans of what you are doing, keep the pictures coming, looks great so far.

Okay the drywall is up and were onto the 2nd coat of drywall mud. Still 3 more coats to go before we can paint.

I decided to add more rock to the display. Let me know what you think.



My corals are still bleached and faded, still trying to bring the colors out.







I want to add a sand/crush coral substrate on the new tank, but I don't think I'll be able to keep it clean. There's just too much rock covering the sand. Also, my water flow inside the tank will be about 120x turn over.

Moving the sumps and refugium into the fish room has definitely given me lots of space under the stand. I'm going to keep the drawers in the stand. I bought the wood for it so hopefully I can reinforce it this weekend.