300+ gallon reef tank build. Finally

MPH2 · Jun 6, 2017

Well I have had this tank for about a year now. It is 10 foot long and if I remember right 26 deep and 30 tall. What we first was going to do was finish part of our basement and have a game room/ tank room. But it became unrealistic for us because of what we have in the garage portion of the basement. So it sat.... Well long story short we decided to put the tank upstairs in our living room and also to shut the 55 gallon and the 120 down. We will keep our daughters tank and the frag tank(just in case the big tank crashes we won't lose everything). The sump will be downstairs directly below it. I have made some progress with the sump room and the wife has made progress on the stand as it had Chinese restaurant themed lamaite on it. The sump it's self is a 150 stock tank. The skimmer is a euro reef rc-500. The return pump is a Sweetwater she 2.4. The lights we will be using is 5 ocean revives. I have already built the water change station and moved the ro system downstairs. We pretty much have to rearrange the living room and move the frag tank downstairs. And finish painting the stand and it can get moved to the living room. For the floor support i have built 4 upright supports and tied they together and also sistered the floor joist that will be supporting the tank. Here is some pictures

Reefing Madness · Jun 7, 2017

seaplane · Jun 7, 2017

Oh, this is going to fun to follow, off to a great start!

Brian Mountain · Jun 7, 2017

MPH2 said:
Well I have had this tank for about a year now. It is 10 foot long and if I remember right 26 deep and 30 tall. What we first was going to do was finish part of our basement and have a game room/ tank room. But it became unrealistic for us because of what we have in the garage portion of the basement. So it sat.... Well long story short we decided to put the tank upstairs in our living room and also to shut the 55 gallon and the 120 down. We will keep our daughters tank and the frag tank(just in case the big tank crashes we won't lose everything). The sump will be downstairs directly below it. I have made some progress with the sump room and the wife has made progress on the stand as it had Chinese restaurant themed lamaite on it. The sump it's self is a 150 stock tank. The skimmer is a euro reef rc-500. The return pump is a Sweetwater she 2.4. The lights we will be using is 5 ocean revives. I have already built the water change station and moved the ro system downstairs. We pretty much have to rearrange the living room and move the frag tank downstairs. And finish painting the stand and it can get moved to the living room. For the floor support i have built 4 upright supports and tied they together and also sistered the floor joist that will be supporting the tank. Here is some pictures

Can you discuss the specifics of your water changing station? Looking at building a new one as well.

Sandroni · Jun 7, 2017

Good luck!

MPH2 · Jun 7, 2017

I will take some pictures of it for you tonight. And go into detail. I am happy with it.

MPH2 · Jun 9, 2017

I took a picture of the water change station sorry for the mess in advance.
How I have it set up is the ro water is on the top and salt water on the bottom. I have a on the right side that dumps the ro into the bottom barrel. I have a external pump to mix in the bottom but the highest valve on the left allows me to pump water back to the top barrel if I need to. I can mix between both barrels to do a 100 gallon water change. I have another valve on the right to dump to water from the top barrel to a bucket to top off the tanks upstairs if I have saltwater mixing in the bottom. And the hose reaches the 120 which is the farthest away. So to make it simple lol.
I can circulate water in the bottom barrel,circulate between both barrels. Pump water out from the bottom barrel. And pour from the top.

I plan on using a manual float valve for top off for the tank. And adjust it to where the sump water never touches the seal itself. This makes it simple and when doing sump maintenance just clean anything close to it. Eventually I want to incorporate the apex system but it won't be before the tank is up and going. The stand painting is finished. I need to start running the wiring for the sump room. So I can have at tanks in one corner of the room and my frag tank in close by the sump. I can't remember if I added this piece to the original post so it might be a repeat lol. I'm also going to use the fogged/cloudly 120 tank and stand as a refugeium for the big tank. Mainly for more water volume and to help the pod population.

Chriscrna · Jun 14, 2017

Looks great man! Where did you get such a cool idea with the sump? LOL. Seriously though, it's gonna be rad!

MPH2 · Jun 22, 2017

Update. I upgraded to a bigger frag tank. So in the process of moving the one up stairs to the new fish new I reworked the stand to accept the bigger tank and did the plumbing and all. It was a late night for that one. We got the stand up stairs a week ago and got the tank upstairs and on the stand on Sunday. Currently I am in the process of wet sanding the scratches out and then will be buffing. Once that is done the next task is shimming the tank and building the canopy. We are going to have the canopy sit on the tank and it'll go to the ceiling, it will have two access doors on the front. I'll also be adding two fans to help keeping it cool with the five ocean revives we will be running on it. For a controller I have decided to build one off the reef pi thread here. I'll save quiet a bit of money and will have it do everything I will want. Well I guess I can't upload pictures for some reason so once I can I will.

Jeeper · Feb 25, 2018

Any updates?

Stixlife · May 17, 2018

How’s your build coming

MPH2 · Sep 21, 2018

A long overdue but yet short update. We really haven't made any progress on the build. We were moving along acquiring equipment then we slowed down on the tank before the holidays and focused on doing some work on the house. Before Christmas we managed to tile the front door and garage entry ways, do a tile back splash, and build a floating computer desk to fit three gaming computers across it. Then march we lost a job and lost some income which cut our spending money down quite a bit. up until recently the only tank we had running was the 50 gallon frag tank in the sump room, but my wife decided we need another tank for now so we fired up the 28 gallon biocube again and it is currently cycling. We are getting the frag tank back up to par from the neglect. I'm installing two of the ocean revives above it, rebuilding the stand to fit a bigger sump, removing the sand, and going bare bottom. Also the sump room cleaned up and organized.

MPH2 · Sep 21, 2018

some of the progress, There are more but the uploader is slow lol. the inside of the tank is buffed and ready. I just have to drill the bulkhead holes bigger because currently the tank is setup for two 1 inch drains and two 3/4 inch returns. It will have two 1 1/2 drains and 1 inch returns. the wiring in the sump room is done. I just have to build the wall to close it off from the rest of the basement. I also have a exhaust fan plumbed to the outside. I believe I will need a second one before the tank is up and going. Really all we are leaking is the plumbing going from the sump up to the tank and some more man hours.