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[Ben]

My new tank is160 gal. and was built by Aquarium Obsessed. I put down my deposit for this Nov. 25 08 and got it april 20th all said it took longer then expected by far but came out nice. The outside demensions of tank are 48"x36"x 24", it has an external overflow that is 28"Lx10"H x6"W. The overflow has 3 holes drilledd in it, all for 1.5" bulkheads. They drilled these bigger then I asked them too and cut the overflow 28" instead of 36" but it will work out just fine. The front of the tank is starfire and the rest standard, In hind sight I should have done the side panels as well. The tank is euro-braced and I had the euro-bracing drilled in the corners for 3/4" bulkheads to do my returns through. The tank was done with black silicon and I painted the back black, I can scrap it off if I ever want to change that.

The stand is just a marineland deep demensions stand, which I already chipped trying to put my sump in the stand. The sump is a 40 breeder with some acrylic panels glued in with silicon for baffles. Nothing fancy about it I am going to add a frag tank later when I get around to it, just something small like a 20 long.

The skimmer is going to be my Bubble king mini 200 it's a 2nd Gen one. I have been using this skimmer for awhile and love how quiet it is, and it works great too. I think it will handle the tank fine.

I am also going to be doing zeo this time around. I already have the vertex zeoreator filled and ready to go. I will get some arm exercise out of it atleast. I have had good results using the prodibio on my current tank so figured zeo would work equally as well, but seemed more of a complete system then prodibio so I went the zeo way.

I also have a deltec media reactor I will use for carbon.

For flow I am using the 2 vortech mp40w's I have already and I plan to add two more when the funds permit.

The return pump is a Panworld 200PS, I ran the return into a Y and out through the two bulkheads in the corners and added penducters to the ends. This should help a bit with some flow.

I went with sand this time too, just 1.5-2" of sp. seafloor grade sand. I plan to vacuum it at every water change, its in there for aesthetics not its filtering ability. I use RO/DI of course and really have liked the D+D Mag pro plus salt, so plan on sticking with it. I bought a bucket of Tropic Marin Pro to use on my first fill becuase it was cheaper and on sale. Anyhow I think thats about it for now.

[Ben]

Ok so heres some pics to get started,

The tank was delievered to me this friday the 1st of May, my ex-father-in-law had it at his warehouse untill his drivers could drop it off.

[Ben]

And after I finished the plumbing and painted the tank black this weekend was busy. I did all the plumbing saturday night after I put my son was asleep and was done by 1:30am. Not to bad. I slide it into place and added the sand then started to fill. As long as I don't stir the stand when I scape the tank it shouldn't get cloudy.

[Ben]

Just one more of the other side of the sump. My outlets I put in are not so straight but they are GFCI protected and although the silicon holding the baffles in place is sloppy if they do the trick I don't mind. I still need to staighten the easy board under the pump, and should have wiped the dust up but all well.

[MartinE]

Looks good so far Ben!

[Lawdawg]

Tagging along

[seamaiden]

VERY cool, and I love those dimensions.

[The Escaped Ape]

VERY cool, and I love those dimensions.

Me too! Looking good.

[WhoDey]

I cant wait to see how you progress on this build! The 160 looks sweet!

[Ben]

Thanks for checking in everyone. Nice to see ya over on RDO Whodey. I haven't done much. I hung my 12 bulb 4' sfiligoi light last night but might need to tweak its hanging spot a bit. I think its a tiny bit off and its driving me nuts. I also took the LR out thats been curing for a few months now and scaped it. This is just a temporary scape since in a week or so I will be moving over my current tank to this one. At that time I will redo alot of it and am not sure I will end up using all this rock. The rock was 35lbs of uncured premium figi from Premium Aquatics, and 40 lbs of the same from Marine Depot. Both came in 2 day on cold winter days and looked not much different then it does after two months of curing lol.

I will finish my tile work after the tank is done, I never finish things lol.

[The Escaped Ape]

That's a sweet looking fixture Ben. Are you impressed so far?

I'm still going to have to make up my mind between T5s and MHs when I go for my set up next year.

[Ben]

The only problem I have so far with the light is the fan is a bit loud, I have it turned up to full power though and if I turn it down its not as loud. Oh and the other thing is the lens are glass, it's two pieces each 2'x2' and they slide in like a typical lens would, but there is no pin to hold them from sliding out if the fixture every tilted to either side. The light is very bright though, IIRC the bulbs combo is

Sfiligoi Actinic
ATI Blue Plus
KZ coral Light New Gen
Figi Purple
KZ coral light new gen
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Blue Plus
KZ coral light new gen
Figi Purple
KZ coral light new gen
ATI Blue Plus
Sfiligoi Actinic

When its time to change the bulbs it's going to kill my wallet. SInce I went T5 I will not go back to MH's. Atleast not in the depth tank I like, I perfer shallower tanks like mine. Anything over 30" or so I might look at MH again but I have loved using T5's. I used MH's for years and tried everything from 170 watt Iwasaki 65K's on the eye ballast to 400 watt Radium's etc...I was all about MH untill I tried T5's. The corals grew fast and colorful with out me having to deal with the heat so I was sold. In my 58 I had some acros growing at the bottom with the 8 bulb 36" tek unit, and it has no lens so the bulbs and reflectors are dirty with saltcreep yet the stuff still holds color and growth.

[MartinE]

Nice fixture $$$ and the bulb choice looks good to, have to give us a FTS with them on. Shallow tanks are my faves as well.

[Ben]

Good news, I know my gfci's work, bad new my plumbing leaked

Right where the flexible PVC goes into the the 90 degree turn for the return it has a pinhole leak thats sprays like nuts. Got water on my socket that was running the light and the gfci popped. Guess I get to repair that plumbing....

[MartinE]

That gets the pirate going ARGH!!

[The Escaped Ape]

Ben,

Bad news about the plumbing. I guess the silver lining is at least you found the leak at this stage. Scant consolation at this stage, but still...

Thanks for the review of your lighting. I am seriously tempted by the T5 option. The thing that puts me off most is the fact that I'll be in Japan and AFAIK, they don't sell T5 bulbs for marine tanks over there, or at least certainly not the high quality ATI, Sfiligoi or KZ types, so I'd have to order them from the US and I have images in my head of boxes arriving containing only shards of glass (still, I guess they were sent to the US originally from Germany, so it must be possible to send them half way round the world safely...

[WhoDey]

Good news, I know my gfci's work, bad new my plumbing leaked

Right where the flexible PVC goes into the the 90 degree turn for the return it has a pinhole leak thats sprays like nuts. Got water on my socket that was running the light and the gfci popped. Guess I get to repair that plumbing....

Thank goodness you at least used GFI's, plumbing is a bear and I have yet to ever get it right the first go around =(

[Ben]

Well I fixed the leak, replumbed that spot. Then after I turned on the pump and unplugged it I remembered I had the educters so far underwater they will back-siphon to much to my sump and overflow it. SO I drilled a couple of holes in the returns. Problem is I drilled them to high and when I plugged the pump back in it was spraying water out really hard right at the water level creating a venturi like deal filling the tank with air bubbles. I fixed that with some superglue to fill the hole and a black cable tie to ensure the glue doesnt pop out and I re-drilled lower.

So the tank is finally fully running, but not with out issues. With the one votech on there, and the two eductors on the return lines the sand is just swirling in the tank. I have moved the returns around a bit but sand storms continue. I plan to add the other vortech as well. I think I just need to lenthen the modular hose before the educter to aim them a bit better, but man they both are rocking the flow. Although I don't usually like running this much through the sump, it will add alot to my intank circulation. Becuase the sand was blowing around the tank clouded up, and the skimmer won't run with out overflowing so it's off for now.

Here's an underside of the light. If the bulb options are a problem in Japan, Tom, I would probably just go MH and save the trouble on getting bulbs easy. I am surprised that they don't have them though.

[The Escaped Ape]

Yeah, getting equipment in Japan really sucks. For one, it's incredibly expensive ($700 for a 150w MH pendant, $1200 for a 250w) and, for another, it's not particularly well penetrated by overseas manufacturers, which means that there is little incentive (it seems) for Japanese manufacturers to be innovative. The idea of fluorescent lighting being strong enough to be an alternative to MH doesn't seem to have registered there (from my reading of Japanese aquarium magazines/websites). Even if I buy MH, I'll be ordering fixtures and bulbs from the US, but at least they're smaller and less likely to break. Still, I guess I can ask the US vendor whether they reckon it's worth the risk or not...

As for your sandstorm, is the Vortech dialled right down? I seem to remember I had to build up my flow very gradually when I had Tunze Streams in my old tank. Something about bacteria building up in the sandbed to the point where it starts clumping? The eductors can't be dialled back though, can they?

[seamaiden]

Ben, a little tip when working with cyanoacryclate and plastics--acrylic nail catalyst. Use a drop of the catalyst (I have a bottle downstairs somewhere) on top of a drop of the SuperGlue and it will have a pretty strong reaction (stronger the warmer and dryer the weather) and will melt itself into the plastic. I've actually repaired cracked/split acrylic tanks this way, and my last trick was repairing my motorcycle fender using the technique. That was when I discovered that if using the mixture on ABS plastic it SMOKES.