Mark
Well-known member
The aquarium hobby is one of the few passions that has stuck with me my whole life. My first saltwater tank was in 1990 when I was in middle school. It wasn't a huge success. The undergravel filter grew a lot of Cyano, and I remember my tomato clown treated the cyano like an anemone. My first reef was in 1995 reusing the same tank. It had wild Florida live rock(still legal then), flourescent strip lights, and a Skilter(anyone remember those?). I actually had good success given the time and equipment. For some reason, I had great luck with sponges in that system. Since then, I've had numerous reef tanks... And it would be boring to recap all the systems. But the highlight reel would show a wide variety of husbandry shifts, changes in types of corals, etc. I've had seagrass tanks, reefs running original Walter Adey dump bucket ATS, carbon dosing, true Jaubert system, you name it. Anyway back to the not so distant past.....
Around 2015, I noticed my longstanding 180-gallon tank was looking rough at the seams and deemed it ready to be replaced. This was the most recent pic I could find before tearing it down:
In it's place I upgraded to a 225-gallon. The tank did well for the 3 years I had it.
Eventually, we would find ourselves wanting to remodel the main floor of the house. That meant tearing down the tank and moving it. We also liked the idea of converting the free'd up space to a play area for the kids. The good news is that we had just renovated our basement, and there was a good spot for a reef tank down there. The only issue was that the wall was shorter and would not accommodate the 225-gallon. So I found myself needing to downsize to a 5-foot Red Sea 625XXL tank:
That was 2018, and I thought I would be good to go for a while. But, it turns out the kids never use the "play room". And the family commented how they miss seeing the reef in the busy part of the house. It's hidden away in a dark basement, and gets very little attention except from me. So we agreed to put the reef back in the sun room off the kitchen where the old tanks used to be. I debated just moving the Red Sea, but I decided against it. There are a few things I disliked about the tank.
1) I hate ultra-clear glass. It scratches way too easily. All it takes is one scratch to offset the benefit of additional clarity.
2) I love rimless, but hate how close Red Sea and Waterbox have the water line on their tanks. Splashes are common when cleaning glass. I also had to rehome a surgeon fish because he splashed water a few time.
3) I hate center overflows. Corner overflows are much easier to maintain.
So with those revelations, I decide to order a custom tank from Planet Aquarium. It's basically their Mega-Matrix rimless 180 gallon, but I asked them to move the overflow to the corner and shorten it so that I would have 3" of glass above the water line. During a water change, I simulated the lowered waterline appearance on my Red Sea, and thought it looked great. The tank is still being built, so in the meantime, I'm doing some prep work.
Around 2015, I noticed my longstanding 180-gallon tank was looking rough at the seams and deemed it ready to be replaced. This was the most recent pic I could find before tearing it down:
In it's place I upgraded to a 225-gallon. The tank did well for the 3 years I had it.
Eventually, we would find ourselves wanting to remodel the main floor of the house. That meant tearing down the tank and moving it. We also liked the idea of converting the free'd up space to a play area for the kids. The good news is that we had just renovated our basement, and there was a good spot for a reef tank down there. The only issue was that the wall was shorter and would not accommodate the 225-gallon. So I found myself needing to downsize to a 5-foot Red Sea 625XXL tank:
That was 2018, and I thought I would be good to go for a while. But, it turns out the kids never use the "play room". And the family commented how they miss seeing the reef in the busy part of the house. It's hidden away in a dark basement, and gets very little attention except from me. So we agreed to put the reef back in the sun room off the kitchen where the old tanks used to be. I debated just moving the Red Sea, but I decided against it. There are a few things I disliked about the tank.
1) I hate ultra-clear glass. It scratches way too easily. All it takes is one scratch to offset the benefit of additional clarity.
2) I love rimless, but hate how close Red Sea and Waterbox have the water line on their tanks. Splashes are common when cleaning glass. I also had to rehome a surgeon fish because he splashed water a few time.
3) I hate center overflows. Corner overflows are much easier to maintain.
So with those revelations, I decide to order a custom tank from Planet Aquarium. It's basically their Mega-Matrix rimless 180 gallon, but I asked them to move the overflow to the corner and shorten it so that I would have 3" of glass above the water line. During a water change, I simulated the lowered waterline appearance on my Red Sea, and thought it looked great. The tank is still being built, so in the meantime, I'm doing some prep work.
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