My In Wall 150 Build

[Lampshade]

Most Recent Tank shot:


Tank Overview:
150gallon 72" tank (i thought it was 135 until i measured it....)
60 gallon custom sump

Circulation:
Reeflo Dart Gold
Herbie Return
3x Kora 4's

Filtration:
ATI Bubble Master 250
25g Refugium
Npx Bio Beads
Carbon/Vodka dosing

Calk/Alk
PM Calcium Reactor

Lighting:
2x250W MH - XM 10K bulbs
4x65W PC Atinic

Fish:
Bariene Tang
Flame Hawkfish
Lyretail Anthia
4 Chromis
Spotted Mandrin
2 False Perc's
Blue Damsel
Purple Firefish
Foxface
Lawnmower Blenny
Coral Beauty

And the build...


I've planned this build for a long time, we recently bought a house and i knew when i saw the place what i wanted to do. I've seen lots of nice in wall tanks, and although it was a lot of work, I've loved it. I had a 55 gal set up, it was my first salt tank, so it became a great learning experiance. I've had that tank balanced for awhile, and everything has been going great. I decided to go for 135 gallon 6' tank. Although it's one of the smaller 6' tanks, it'll give me room to grow if a need (that's what the hobbies all about isn't it?). I'm not too good at typing things out, so this is going to be mostly pictures, which are more fun to look at anyways:

Here's where we wanted the tank with paint testing going on aswell, busy house:


Now for the fun part of cutting a hole through the wall:


I used a waterproof coating on everything inside the "splash zone" but i'm still debating going a step furter and using greenboard or concrete wall board around everything. I was shocked taking my old tank down how little water actually got on the wall, but at the same time, while building it i might aswell spend the extra few bucks for insurance. This is where my tank setup's at today, should get finished next week sometime.

Does anyone think it'd be worth insulating the wall between my sump and TV room? My pumps and everything are reletivly quiet, but silent would be nice. Any recomendations?

[Skimmerking]

i did it and its a huge improvement do it.

[Lampshade]

FINALLY have the thing up and running in "one week" haha, wow... i wish.. so here's how it all went down:

I built my own sump with acrylic, it was a learning process, but it doesn't leak, so i guess i learned.

Here's the sump being held together with tie straps:


I was given a heap of 1/2 inch acrylic for $10 one day and figured i could make a sump out of it. I did, it had some special parts though. the bottom is one solid piece, and the sides are in 2 pieces, the overflow from my refugium works as a wall between the 2 halves for the side pieces: (this also shows why you should cut straight cuts on a table saw, i had to recut this TERRIBLE cut.). If anyone needs a hand building acrylic stuff i learned all kinds of weird tricks from the guys at the place i bought weld-on from.


And here's the sump in place in the stand, with the return pump partially plumbed in. I ended up insulating the wall behind the sump, and glad i did. The tank makes next to no noise, and should be silent once i skin the stand. The back wall has vapor barior to protect the insulation... and i carried it down across the bottom of the stand, it held up well with no leaks, so in theory i could flood my stand a couple inches and it should hold water with no damage.(i do not want to test this)


And here's the tank in... it was an adventure fitting through the hallway, i could only imagine what you guys with 200+ tanks have to go through.


The tank was originally with a painted background, that i scraped off.

I put up a frame around the tank, it might change though since we're adding wanescoting to that room and the tank just clips the top of it, i'll have to see how it looks.


And with everything in place, i filled it up, tested my plumbing for leaks. All was good, so i added salt. And anyone else doing this... test your tank with tap water, then use RO, took 3 days to fill my tank to test my plumbing and if it was leaking i probably would have lost my mind.

I figured to aclimitize my old stock i could use them being in the same room to my advantage. I ran one line from my new tank to old sump, and vice versa. It was about a gallon an hour, so i let it go for a day monitoring and adjusting flows.:

[Lampshade]

I"ll have to post some running shots another time, Lights just went out and everything's closed up for the night. BUt as for reading after 3 days:

Nitite/Amonia: <0.1(unreadable on my tests)

Nitrate: 0 (I'm using the NPx beads in a TFL reactor, and an over sized skimmer that can't even pull anything right now... my old tank sat at 20-25 with the same bioload.)

Phosphates: 0

Calcium:400-420

KH: 8-9 (low for having high calcium, I have a calcium reactor that should dose equal, I'll have to keep topping off KH until things balance out)

PH: 8.1 (False high since i've been dosing seachem KH buffer that boosts PH, was about 7.7 before)

[Lampshade]

So here's some running shots to show how things fit in. The tank looks pretty open, i'll add a bit more liverock, but i'm planning on going pretty heavy SPS, so i'll leave room for stuff to grow.

[BlueTang<3]

Looks good very clean job.

[bryceschutte]

I LOVE IN WALL TANKS!!!

You make me want to cut a hole in my wall

[Delphinus]

Very nice!

[Dez]

I'm a fan of in wall aquariums as well. I wouldn't do it any other way. Good job and I love the details.

[Lampshade]

Thanks all

I should also add a big thanks to everyone who helped set this up. Nearly everything in this tank was bought from Canreef members. Met a bunch of nice people and learned a lot from all of you. I'll have to post a few more pics now after raiding Reeferrob's tank(thanks again). and also trading off my split anenome for a few more frags(thanks wayne).

Funny story about the BTA. Well, not so funny, but a story none the less. Mine split a little while ago but i didn't want to deal with selling it since i was setting up a new tank, and didn't know what direction i wanted to go with it. I ended up deciding that i'll part with one, and see about the other, if it moves i'll get rid of it too so that it doesn't take a walk through SPS one day. Well... it took a walk... and found a powerhead There was pretty much nothing left of it. I Ran carbon pretty heavy for a few days, and skimmer was going crazy with the nastiest smelling skimmate i've ever smelled. But looks like everything's fine now, no other losses.