NEReef

I like the idea. as for as the power what kind of lighting do you plan on running? you could do a canopy with a split level design that ran all the way to the ceiling. In other words the lower half of the canopy would be your lighting and the upper half could be your power supply but you need to have a separator between your lights and the power supply to reduce moisture from evaporation from getting to all the power. Now you may be able to figure out a way of doing some type of "wire tuck" going down to the bottom of the tank for the rest of the equipment such as putting the drop cord on the same area as the internal overflow if you are using one.

As far as lighting goes I want to go Leds. I am debating the canopy because the current canopy is only 8" tall. I have an internal center overflow that has a dry box next to it so i can rum the power cords down through the tank to the stand underneath. Also it is drilled with three holes for a closed loop on the bottom of the tank and i was thinking about plugging them and using power heads but I don't really want anything showing on the tank. So my current train of thought is to make tall stand pipes that stick out of the water like a dry box for extra electrical supply and possibly make a large enough dry box to mount vortechs on the inside of the pipes... the pipes would then be covered in rocks/agrocrete to look like pillars.... not quite sure yet. I've never run a closed loop and power heads just seem to use so much less power. I dunno.

How about a raised floor around the tank to run power and plumbing under? That's what they do in large IT rooms.

Phil

Phil that is definitely a solution I'm considering. What do you think about how to get power/plumbing to the raised section just build a chase from the utility closet to the raised platform? My only concern with that is a trip hazard. I guess I could run it along the wall then 90 it straight to the tank to minimize the impact. Also Ive thought about building like a window seat type thing along one of the walls for viewing so maybe I could hide it under that. Something to think about for sure.

Big I.T. rooms use a false floor that's about 6" above the structural floor. It's got removable tiles to access wiring below. I was thinking something like that. It would cover the entire room, except under the tank itself. Kind of like a suspended ceiling in reverse.

Phil

I've been watching Tanked too much. When I saw your pool table, I started wondering how you can make the table into an aquarium. LOL

The raised floor idea is a good one, if you can somehow get the idea across to everyone that enters that they will have to step up. That was a problem with my last tank, as you had to step down into the fishroom. I constantly had people drop 5" in surprise, so with the new room I made it a point to pour more concrete so the floor was level.