90g Peninsula

[Linlox]

A couple months late starting the build thread! After a 7 year hiatus of no tanks the wife and I decided to start reefing again this spring, and so the adventure began. Bear with me, as I have never really participated in posting on forums, just gleaning all of the information from them over many years.

Here is a current shot of the tank:

10/16/2024​

09/14/2024​

08/07/2024​

Decided on a peninsula between the living room and dining room and exactly what I was looking for popped up used in all its scratched glory. Acrylic, 0.5" all sides, 48x18x24 peninsula ext, good seam work with no apparent flame polishing.

5 hours of driving and immediately started filling it in the garage for a water test. The stand was unacceptable (green treated lumber that I didnt want in my house) and falling apart from using the wrong fasteners in green treated lumber. But good enough for a test.

Started construction of a new stand, 2x4, 3/4 oak cabinet grade ply top and bottom that I had laying around.

Painted the interior with a gloss white and skinned it in 5/8 oak with a maple veneer interior ply, which I also have laying around. For some reason I didn't put my kreg joints on the outside so the skin covered them, knew better, just didn't do it. oops.

Stained and coated with a few coats of helmsman spar urethane, sanded between coats.

Made removable panels on each side, I hate doors, always in the way.

Will have to continue this later as the power company is shutting off power in 2 hours for substation upgrades, so it will be a good test of my generator running the tank and quarantine tanks overnight.

 

[mythesis]

That stain brought out the grain beautifully.

How'd the QT tanks hold up overnight?

 

[Linlox]

That stain brought out the grain beautifully.

How'd the QT tanks hold up overnight?

Thanks!

Everything held up great overnight, fish are happy. Had a bunch of GFCI's the tanks are on trip when the well pump kicked on while running on the generator. Figured out that problem and it didn't happen the rest of the night, it was a good test run for power outages.

 

[mythesis]

Nice, good to stress test a system with low consequences!

What's your stocking plan? You already have some stuff in QT?

 

[Linlox]

And the story continues-
The fun of used acrylic is you get to spend a couple days buffing out scratches so it looks like new again. Did not have to do any sanding just a lot of novus 3 and then 2.

 

[Linlox]

Nice, good to stress test a system with low consequences!

What's your stocking plan? You already have some stuff in QT?

QT has a blue eye tang, clowns and a lawnmower blenny. The little tang and blenny are in a observation 20g long doing great, eating a ton of nori I rubberband to rocks. Clown is in one of the 10g going through prazi.

The wife has been putting together the stocking plan for fish, it seems to be a moving target right now. Believe she is thinking about 7-9 green chromis, maybe pistol shrimp/goby, royal grama.

 

[Linlox]

The day a freshly polished empty aquarium is placed in its resting place for a few years, or my wife puts together another tang stocking list and I am out looking for an 8-10ft long tank upgrade in 6 months....

If you notice the extra 3/4" piece of plywood on top of the stand that was unintended, when I was checking the top for flatness while leveling it was low in one corner. In order to correct it I found the flatest 48x18 piece of plywood I could and corrected it with shimming. Had already checked for flat, glued and finished the top of the stand so it couldnt be adjusted, something must have twisted or warped after finishing (nature of wood unfortunately). Have some red oak boards to trim around that edge and make that extra plywood disappear. Water is level within 1/32" all the way around to the top.

Also started adding 120lbs of live rock and water to help settle everything while shimming everything.

 

[Linlox]

Plumbing was completed pretty quickly, assembled it all then removed it and spray painted all the ext plumbing grey so it looked decent. Could have used sch80 but had most of the sch40 from previous builds and other projects. Plan is to build removable panels between the wall and stand/tank to hide it.

The Fiji Cube Ext 800gph overflow was loud with the stand pipe that came with it, replaced it with a longer one and now the tank is almost silent.

Skimmer, refugium (ready for some macro I suppose, might try a little sea lettuce this go around)

 

[reef’r]

Awesome build! Fragbox corals has a custom tank this same size and it’s always been one of my favorites. Check out his YouTube it’s an awesome tank! I think somewhere between 80-100g is almost the perfect size for a display. Can light it with 2 lights and can still carry out water changes with a bucket or two. I’ve got a 38g cube now, but when it’s time for the next one I’m thinking a 4ft peninsula will be what I go with

 

[Linlox]

Lighting is an Aquatic Life 36" T5HO 4 lamp, with 2 blue plus and 2 actinics. 3x AI Primes mounted to that. Used shelf brackets to suspend the lighting which also will double as off season storage of XC skis. Always preffered the T5HO because the coral just seemed to magically grow and all I needed was a timer, so these hybrid options are neat. Still have a Tek 60" 8x T5HO fixture from the 240g somewhere.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Incredible work on the stand and tank! I'm following along now!

 

[Linlox]

Awesome build! Fragbox corals has a custom tank this same size and it’s always been one of my favorites. Check out his YouTube it’s an awesome tank! I think somewhere between 80-100g is almost the perfect size for a display. Can light it with 2 lights and can still carry out water changes with a bucket or two. I’ve got a 38g cube now, but when it’s time for the next one I’m thinking a 4ft peninsula will be what I go with

Thanks! Will have to check that out. With the 120lbs of rock the whole system is only 76.5 gallons, 64.75 in the display and 11.75 in the sump. 10% a week is 2 buckets, so simple. And to think I was going to run an auto changer to the basement!

 

[Linlox]

Incredible work on the stand and tank! I'm following along now!

Thanks!

 

[Doctorgori]

…that stand work is outstanding …

..you can’t put enough coats of gloss white on the inside, salt spray sucks when dried and your wood will appreciate the protection…I know they say latex is equally good but I like epoxy and/or oil based stuff…. just preferance

…I see you are not going to do that “gravity defying” “negative space” aquascape thing ( which IMO is getting played out) but in any event the ole skool “pile-o-rocks” aqua scape becomes problematic when chasing fish, moving corals or when/if that eventual rockslide happens on your 10” walt disney colony…
…just suggesting consider the new fast rock cements, some even work under water…
might be a good time now before stuff grows and encrust

 

[Linlox]

…that stand work is outstanding …

..you can’t put enough coats of gloss white on the inside, salt spray sucks when dried and your wood will appreciate the protection…I know they say latex is equally good but I like epoxy and/or oil based stuff…. just preferance

…I see you are not going to do that “gravity defying” “negative space” aquascape thing ( which IMO is getting played out) but in any event the ole skool “pile-o-rocks” aqua scape becomes problematic when chasing fish, moving corals or when/if that eventual rockslide happens on your 10” walt disney colony…
…just suggesting consider the new fast rock cements, some even work under water…
might be a good time now before stuff grows and encrust

It is amazing what salt does after a few years to our terrestial building materials!!!!

Wife wanted to do the negative space thing but convinced her against busting up live rock from who knows where, that has had who knows what growing in it, on it and through it. Have no problem smashing dry rock and scaping it, like the QT observation tank. Plus the pile-o-rocks always changes the first fish you have to chase so it makes it interesting.

I have used this waterweld in the past to much success, although it has been many years so hopefully nothing has changed. It is NSF, works well underwater to hold rocks together or mount frags after cutting off the base.

 

[kevgib67]

Fantastic build, you should go into the tank stand business! Love that rock, where did you get it from?

 

[Linlox]

Fantastic build, you should go into the tank stand business! Love that rock, where did you get it from?

Thank You! Unfortunately there was a LFS going out of business after 57 years and they were liquidating live rock, some of this was from their reef display tanks. One piece of dry rock hiding in the bottom of that rock wall.

 

[kevgib67]

Thank You! Unfortunately there was a LFS going out of business after 57 years and they were liquidating live rock, some of this was from their reef display tanks. One piece of dry rock hiding in the bottom of that rock wall.

Right place at the right time!

 

[Linlox]

My australian shepherd, Odin, has decided nori is for him and not my tang/blenny. About took my hand off taking half a sheet and gobbling it up. Stares at me and drools while I rubberband it to the rocks. Wouid have never guessed a dog loved dried seaweed.

 

[Linlox]

The sea lettuce came in yesterday and I tossed it in the refugium. Have used caulerpa and chaeto in the past and figured I would give this stuff a shot. Will probably scoop that stuff that it floating and toss it into an expirement I setup last night.

My quarantine has taken over my seed propagation area where I start all of my garden plants and my wife's flowers every spring. It sits empty most of the year but has 2x 48w 6500k LED grow lights per shelf and 48" heated seeding mats.
Use a Johnson Controls A419 temperature control on the tanks and mats for now, this will probably get moved to my display tank eventually as I originally set it up for the old 240g and it is super reliable compared to the hobby stuff.

Pic of its intended purpose:

Anyway, tossed some of that sea lettuce in a shallow tote and put a few mLs of liquid fertilizer and turned on those grow lights to see how fast this stuff actually grows. Since the dog now loves sea weed, maybe I can grow enough for him and the tangs.

This stuff looks like it will grow algae:

On the bottom left shelf is a brine shrimp grow out, they are getting pretty big. Fish should love them.