Hello fellow reefers!
I was browsing facebook marketplace a few months back when I saw this strangely unique tank. I knew immediately I had to have it, as I have a habit of needing to stand out and be different. But with a track record of buying new aquariums every few weeks, I had to strike a deal with the devil.. erm.. I mean Fiancé. 24hrs later and the new to me aquarium was sitting in my garage and the difficult part of holding up my end of the deal started. I was to not look, touch, or think about the aquarium until we had said our I do's. Well I'm happy to say, last weekend we said our I do's, and my best friend is now my wife. So with that being said, I can now begin to look, touch, and think about my new aquarium. So let me tell you a little bit about it.
Aquarium:
Custom acrylic inverted L-Shaped tank. It measures 60" in each direction along the front. Each "wing" is 24" deep and 24" tall with an overflow on each side. The volume is right around 240 gallons.
Placement:
So because the shape is truly unique, I had to find the perfect place to put the tank. Unfortunately after a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that I have exactly nowhere to place this tank in my home without taking up an excessive amount of livable space. At this point I was ready to abandon this tank. A few days later and my wife asked me where we were going to put 3 new chameleon cages for our chameleons that will be hatching around Christmas time. After much debate, we came to the conclusion that we wanted more reptiles than what we already have so we need more room than just a few small chameleon cages. We decided to convert my office from being mainly a room with an aquarium and desk, to being a reptile room. However, seeing as how many of our friends and family love to look at the fish tank and it has since become a centerpiece of the house, we do plan on a smaller aquarium for my office. As for this tank, it will be located in my fish room in the unfinished basement where my filtration is for my current office tank. The basement itself is unfinished and being an old 1900 fieldstone foundation house, isn't ever going to look very nice, so this tank isn't really going to be for anyone except for me. Putting the tank in the basement will present several challenges for the tank though, which I hope to overcome with enough planning. While I loose a large display for guests, I'm happy about having more room for reptiles, as we do plan on getting a red ackie monitor and leachie gecko in the future. Plus we love our bearded dragon Hank so much that we have greatly considered getting another. I mean, who doesn't love a face like this!
Sump:
For the sump I will be utilizing my existing DIY 40 gal breeder, but connecting a 75 gallon tank to it via two 1 1/2" PVC lines. I also greatly considered placing the sump behind the tank, or separately from the tank as opposed to inside the stand, but came to the conclusion that it just takes up too much room that way. So I do plan on having the sump under the tank in the stand.
Stand:
The stand will be 2x4 construction and nothing fancy since the tank will be in the basement. I don't know that I'm even going to do much more than just paint the 2x4's to seal them since there isn't much a point in making it look nice. I may end up doing some kind of hood or cladding the stand but it would be purely to help retain heat in the tank. I did a quick sketup for the stand construction. I'm thinking this will be more than sturdy enough, even without a plywood cladding, due to the fact its an L-shape and not a rectangle. Meaning, there is little worry of racking on this stand compared to a rectangular stand.
Lighting:
Once again the shape of the tank presents a unique problem for placement of lights. Or at least traditional LED's where you can expect a 24"x24" spread. I'm undecided at this point but I am highly considering to use either T5's with LED supplements, or Metal Halide. Both of these lighting solutions just seem to fit the tank much better without under or over lighting the tank. I do currently have a 48" 6 Bulb ATI Sunpower that I could use as well. I would just need to find a 36" 6 bulb fixture to match. I do have two kessil A360x's that I plan on supplementing with if I go that route, mostly for color pop and shimmer.
Skimmer:
My 80 gallon tank that is running now has a Reef Octopus Regal 250-EXT on it now. I had always planned on upgrading to a tank around the 200ish gallon size so I had bought a skimmer to handle that.
I was browsing facebook marketplace a few months back when I saw this strangely unique tank. I knew immediately I had to have it, as I have a habit of needing to stand out and be different. But with a track record of buying new aquariums every few weeks, I had to strike a deal with the devil.. erm.. I mean Fiancé. 24hrs later and the new to me aquarium was sitting in my garage and the difficult part of holding up my end of the deal started. I was to not look, touch, or think about the aquarium until we had said our I do's. Well I'm happy to say, last weekend we said our I do's, and my best friend is now my wife. So with that being said, I can now begin to look, touch, and think about my new aquarium. So let me tell you a little bit about it.
Aquarium:
Custom acrylic inverted L-Shaped tank. It measures 60" in each direction along the front. Each "wing" is 24" deep and 24" tall with an overflow on each side. The volume is right around 240 gallons.
Placement:
So because the shape is truly unique, I had to find the perfect place to put the tank. Unfortunately after a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that I have exactly nowhere to place this tank in my home without taking up an excessive amount of livable space. At this point I was ready to abandon this tank. A few days later and my wife asked me where we were going to put 3 new chameleon cages for our chameleons that will be hatching around Christmas time. After much debate, we came to the conclusion that we wanted more reptiles than what we already have so we need more room than just a few small chameleon cages. We decided to convert my office from being mainly a room with an aquarium and desk, to being a reptile room. However, seeing as how many of our friends and family love to look at the fish tank and it has since become a centerpiece of the house, we do plan on a smaller aquarium for my office. As for this tank, it will be located in my fish room in the unfinished basement where my filtration is for my current office tank. The basement itself is unfinished and being an old 1900 fieldstone foundation house, isn't ever going to look very nice, so this tank isn't really going to be for anyone except for me. Putting the tank in the basement will present several challenges for the tank though, which I hope to overcome with enough planning. While I loose a large display for guests, I'm happy about having more room for reptiles, as we do plan on getting a red ackie monitor and leachie gecko in the future. Plus we love our bearded dragon Hank so much that we have greatly considered getting another. I mean, who doesn't love a face like this!
Sump:
For the sump I will be utilizing my existing DIY 40 gal breeder, but connecting a 75 gallon tank to it via two 1 1/2" PVC lines. I also greatly considered placing the sump behind the tank, or separately from the tank as opposed to inside the stand, but came to the conclusion that it just takes up too much room that way. So I do plan on having the sump under the tank in the stand.
Stand:
The stand will be 2x4 construction and nothing fancy since the tank will be in the basement. I don't know that I'm even going to do much more than just paint the 2x4's to seal them since there isn't much a point in making it look nice. I may end up doing some kind of hood or cladding the stand but it would be purely to help retain heat in the tank. I did a quick sketup for the stand construction. I'm thinking this will be more than sturdy enough, even without a plywood cladding, due to the fact its an L-shape and not a rectangle. Meaning, there is little worry of racking on this stand compared to a rectangular stand.
Lighting:
Once again the shape of the tank presents a unique problem for placement of lights. Or at least traditional LED's where you can expect a 24"x24" spread. I'm undecided at this point but I am highly considering to use either T5's with LED supplements, or Metal Halide. Both of these lighting solutions just seem to fit the tank much better without under or over lighting the tank. I do currently have a 48" 6 Bulb ATI Sunpower that I could use as well. I would just need to find a 36" 6 bulb fixture to match. I do have two kessil A360x's that I plan on supplementing with if I go that route, mostly for color pop and shimmer.
Skimmer:
My 80 gallon tank that is running now has a Reef Octopus Regal 250-EXT on it now. I had always planned on upgrading to a tank around the 200ish gallon size so I had bought a skimmer to handle that.
