OscarMeyer 280g

[OscarMeyer]

Well what can i say.... I have a problem and reefing is it.

i have been reefing for about 5-6Yrs now and keeping freshwater tanks for almost 10-12yrs, this is my first adventure into a larger build, the largest tank I kept was/is a 65g tank that I'm keeping my Wife's 7yr old blood parrot (Natty) The reason for the upgrade is because after many years of saving I was finally able to buy a house and was able to coax the wife into letting me turn one of the basement rooms into my own fish room, plus we are going to be here for quite a while and i wont need to worry about moving the tank at a later date. My initial plan was to try and stuff all my freshwater and salt water tanks into this one room but after doing my layouts over the last few days I'm thinking that it will just be the 280g room, this allows me room for expansion later and also just allows more ease of movement in the room, its not going to be as fancy as some of the other builds here but I'm going to do my best to bring forth what i have learned over the 16-17 yrs I've been keeping tanks.

alittle about my previous tank/current tank. after keeping freshwater, like so many other's I got the itch to start reefing, so i went down to JLAquatics, spent some time talking with Jeff, and ended up purchasing myself a RedSea Max130D, and like many reefers i just modded as i went along, but the entire time i was kicking myself for not getting a tank with a sump, but i did enjoy the all in one tank, and never having a sump before and not really knowing to much before really diving into it made it and easy choice.

my old build thread:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...t=72686&page=3

Unfortunately i had the unthinkable happen to the tank, i cant remember the type of ATO i was using, but it failed and dumped about 10-15gal of fresh RO water into the tank, I came home to a very wet basement and a very cloudy tank, my Midas Blenny went carpet surfing, the Yasha Goby and Pistol Shrimp just disappeared along with the Mandarin Goby, and the corals just looked terrible, clam was completely disintegrated..... Everything that was still in good shape I gave to a friend and decided to take a little step back on the tank and convert it to a FOWLR setup as i knew in the coming year i was going to have to move the tank multiple times, this system has stayed wet for the entire time I've owned it, but for a solid year it didn't really get the maintenance it deserved. This was a very important lesson for me, i learned never to skimp on the cheap stuff and always try to have redundancy to system that these issues cannot happen.

Alittle about the new system, i saw a FS thread pop up in the buy/sell location, and decided to jump at it as it was almost the exact dimensions i wanted.

Tank dimension's:
60''x36''x20'' Euro braced, with starphire front and left and right, it has an internal coast to coast overflow and I believe a herbie style overflow installed, but I'm going to convert it to a Beananimal setup. I have no pictures of the tank because ill be picking it up this coming saturday morning. ( super excited )

here is where I'm at currently and hoping looking for alittle input from fellow reefers on how i should lay the system out. The room is 10'1"x9'7" with a small cutout that after the doorway makes the length on that side 10'x4" I'm wanting to install a sink and small work bench in the little cutout to get some of the stuff out of the bathroom in the basement, which the wife really wanted.

little cutout inside the doorway, which will be turned into a sink area and workbench.


Option 1:


Option 2:


Option 3:


what are your thought's? I'm leaning towards option 1, as it allows the most space around the tank, although i do like the fact that option 3 allows the RSM to be added to the room, just sucks losing a viewing panel on the big tank.


will update more later!!