Future upgrade 250gal tank in planning stage.

[whatcaneyedo]

This thread could morph into a tank Journal over a couple of years but will probably be a one shot wonder... I've got my fingers crossed.

For my next tank I would love to simply add 1' to the length and the width of the one I current have. This would give me a tank with dimensions 5'x3'x2' LxWxH like a 250gal Marineland DD. I'd like to have it drilled in several places for the return and a closed loop. I'd also like a clean coast to coast overflow projecting off of the back and a eurobrace top because my big ugly center brace is possibly the worse thing about my current tank. The front glass would be starphire and the tank itself would be displayed in-wall. One final thought is I'll probably paint the entire back light blue.

Now I dont have any fancy design software but I do have a free paintbrush program so here is my concept so far. *note none of this is to scale.

I'm trying to re-invent the wheel with my return plumbing which possibly still looks a little confusing and over complicated. You see I want to use a lot of my existing system and simply upgrade my display tank so I was planning on continuing to use a Sequence Dart return pump and have it return through four 1" bulkheads in the back of the tank. Obviously if I just straight plumbed this the first time the power went out my tank would drain almost entirely onto the floor. A check valve is not an option in my mind so I came up with this ludicrous idea. The plumbing goes up and then comes back down again with a small restricted amount of water coming over the top of the tank (the ball valve restricts how much) and the rest going through the bulkheads in the back. This way if the power goes out the siphon will break up at the top of the plumbing and the tank will not drain entirely.

Something else that has really caught my attention are these bulkheads that Progressive Reef sells. They are 1" and have a removable directional jet that can be swiveled and aimed much like loc-line but sit flush within the bulkhead. I'd really like to use them.



For a closed loop I'll have a Sequence Hammerhead drawing water through the 2" bulkhead in the back of the tank (partially hidden behind the rockwork). Then return the water through an OM 4Way with 1-1/2" input and four 1-1/2" outputs in much the same way as my current tank works only with larger plumbing. Between the Hammerhead and the Dart I'm aiming for around 30x/hour turnover ~7500gph.



The rest of the tank/system will be basically the same as what I have right now. I'll add another Lumenmax pendant but continue to use all of the rest of my equipment. The Bullet 3 Skimmer, and PM 622 Ca Reactor should still keep up fine as the total system volume would then be +/- 400gal. I dont even plan on adding more liverock or fish to the tank (well maybe a volitan lionfish eventually). I mostly just want to open it up further to give me a larger sandbed and perhaps squeeze a few more coral in.

I'm guessing a custom tank like this is going to cost at least $2000 but I'm not sure so please someone chime in if you have a better idea. I suspect also that the euro bracing will have to be quite wide and so I may need to consider adding 1-1/2" bulkheads in each corner of it for the Hammerheads return plumbing.

Feedback? Comments? Questions? Ideas?

[plutoniumJoe]

Looks good, can't wait to see this come together.

- Joe