melev

I think 36" deep and 24" Tall would look really good, but not sure the toadstool would fit in a 24" tall tank

I just went through your travails on a much smaller scale when my 6 mo old tank leaked. I upgraded from 110g to a Marineland 250g DD tank and love the change. Definitely go for the extra depth, even though it would only be six inches in your case. With your corner setup, the extra depth will look realy nice - giving almost as large a view as looking at the front of an average tank.

Don't worry about your camera lens - they are cheap (relative to a full reef tanik) and it is easy to find macros with shorter focal distances or even to use a wide angle with extension tubes.

I just sold my 700g tank - otherwise I would have given that to you! Get a Marineland 300g (72 X 36 X 27) so you don't have to move all your electric and stuff. The extra depth is nice and a shallower tank will be easier to maintain but provide enough depth (hopefully) for your toadstool. No matter what size you go with, you will not exceed the 3/4" if you stick with glass. (my 700g still had 3/4" glass)

--Ed

Marc, I've read the interview you had with the man that has the deep tank. Well I think you should keep all diminsions the same but go deeper. No mod on lenth, none on hight, will just go deeper in the fish room. Powder coated is a great idea. Don't have it though where you can see sump from front, why, because you know you are anal about astetics and that would mean more work cleaning the sump area. This is just my thought. And, bigger tank, with a whole lot less work and time. ;-)

My custom tank is 65 x 30W x 25H. I saw that cross section in somebody else's tank design and I took it. I like it a lot, I can reach the bottom with my gorilla-like arms when the need arises. Glass is still 3/4" , I love my vortechs.

Glass is also an issue for me too. I'm trying to convince the tank maker to go with 15mm glass (0.6 inch) against the 20mm (0.8 inch) a couple of constructors had suggested. The 15 mm which is between the 1/2 and 3/4 inch should give more strength and silicon area as well as allow the use of vortechs.
Spoke with a tank maker in Switzerland and he said that 15mm glass should be more than enough if you use a brace...
I worked a bit with some firends on their tanks 30 inches high and yes acces is a problem, but at least this way I won't have my hand in the tank all the time (as I try to convince my wife and myself) as well as for deapth it doe make a hige difference and in the end you won't be reaching that far due to the rockwork. Not sure if it won't affect a tank to step in and out of it like once every 2-3 months tto clean the backglass and adjust corals, but I'm always afraid of braking a brace... I'm going with 80x34x30.
My last tank was 24 heigh and I would advise against that height:As you lose a couple of inches for wood cover to not see waterline and another 1-2 inchesif not more for sand this reduces it to 18-20. So you'll have to go very low with the scape to be able to get a top view of the corals. In my tank many corals such as my red planet are only seen from the lower part so look very neutral.
As you mention taking pictures goign this shallow won't allow the use of flash for the upper part of the tank where the corals are as when my camera goes heigh the flash is agains teh wood of the canopy...
In the end the smaller displays in public aquariums are only different from our tanks by huge deapth so upping your deapth to 34 -38 if you can still fit it will give you a huge sense of deapth as well as much more scaping space... Yes it's a bit more water changes and heatin cooling but as long as you can still light it without an additional halide then go for it.

As mentioned above, the Marineland 300s are great! I wish I had that extra few inches to fit one into the hole in my wall. As much as I love when people go bigger, you have hit some important aspects for the reason to compromise by staying the same size, or close to it....

I agree with Ed and Hop. You can have a 300DD at you door with the click of a mouse and I am sure your local store is more than happy to get you one in.

I just finished setting up my 84" x 30" x 30", I absolutely love the dims but I would totally go deeper front to back if I ever did again. I have my tank lit with 3 of the Lumenbright mini's so I am sure that you would be fine with 3 of the large lumenbrights. As far as your concerns about an overflow, you could go with a floating overflow as I did in mine or an even cleaner option is an external overflow like the tank syedjilani has been working on http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php/562-Tank-bracing.

In my opinion a steel stand is WAY better then a wood stand. It opens up so much more room under then tank and is much cleaner in my opinion. The one issue I have always had is that no matter how many coats of prime/ paint you put on it wood will still eventually soak up water. With a powder coated steel stand you will never have to worry about it again. In my opinion even if you don't change tank sizes getting a steel stank is a must!

I personally would keep the height the same because of the huge leather you had going in there I know that you could remove some of the rock and let it sit down lower but I don't know if it would really be happy with a different depth but that is just what I see in the pictures, I could be wrong. I also love the really tall tanks, AGA makes a 125 I think that is 36 tall and I just love it, had one growing up with freshwater and had a plecostamus that was about 24" long. But it really is your choice.

The advantage of going with a tank not quite as tall would be that you would actually increase the par at the bottom, your lights would actually probably be more effective in the tank. So as long as you really look at one and know everything will fit (unless you are thinking about fragging some stuff off and letting it grow into the new tank) and it looks good then go for it.

The greater depth would be nice too but if you shorten and make deeper what you may have to do with aquascaping is make walls on the back and at least one end because your change in height will force everything to be built a bit shorter as well. But that is something that can be easily overcome.

Steel stand. . . yes please. You will gain quite a bit by not using wood, peace of mind, added space, stronger stand. I do think you will need to price it out though. And you will need exact measurements so that it can be built and sit level afterwards. Wood is great because when something is a little off you can cut it again. Once you have a steel stand made you will not have that advantage and it will result in shimming and I don't think that would be wise. Also I know the floor in your garage was concrete but is your house built on a concrete pad as well? If not you need to get the carpet dried up better right now so you can prevent moisture problems and you will probably need to reinforce any area where the steel stand sits as it will not handle the steel as well as it would the wood stand. I built my whole stand out of wood, I used 3/4 inch birch veneered plywood. The only bracing is what the tank sits on and the doors for the bottom are large enough to fit a 29 gallon tank in. So if you do stick with wood skin the front and either end with heavy ply.

External overflows would be nice but I think then you are looking at a total custom tank, which may not be bad either. . . you could double eurobrace for added strength. Have your overflows put where you want them. And even custom size. You want 27 height its cool, 38 depth no problem, 80 length done. You would probably not have to make as many changes to the existing if it is done that way and a tank with the stated would be 350 gallons. The disadvantage is cost. . . and a custom tank of that size I doubt would be cheap.

Building the stand up higher probably wouldn't be a bad thing. My tank is about 4 feet off of the floor, and I like it because when i come up to the tank I don't have to bend over to look in. It is at about eye level and a skimmer will fit underneath with no problem, and you already have to use a ladder to do any work so you would just be a little higher.

And I know that you are thinking bigger tank more work but if you keep the same livestock and increase the volume what I see happening is a decrease in issues. The waste would be even more diluted because you would be increasing your total system volume. Calcium demand would only increase as your corrals grow and food would be about the same as now because you would not increase your bioload. So the only thing I see being increased is your initial salt and water to top off the system and anything that may be needed to treat the system. Technically I think most of your additive use would stay about the same because of zero increase in bioload, in fact I would expect to see your additive use stay exactly the same but dosing just wouldn't be quite as often for a lot of things, larger doses less often or smaller doses at the same rate. I would even expect your water changes to be within 10 gallons of what you already do because you really haven't made any changes to your system that would require huge changes to what you do. The only thing that would change that is adding more livestock.

But this is just what I think, the real choice is up to you. And I know you want to make the decision fast so you can get everything done. But take a few hours, go look at some bigger tanks hit a few LFS' and maybe even sleep on it. In the morning look at the opening and make your decision.

One other quick thought. . . your current tank is drilled for closed loop but not in use. You may not need the vortechs if you do the same thing and utilize a closed loop with a new tank.

My two cents ! I would try to fix the old tank, it is starphire glass ! This would be you chance to upgrade the stand to metal and re-aquascape too. Save your $ in this economy.

If you choose the upgrade the tank route, I would suggest going deeper. 72"L x 48"D x 24"H. This would give you more room under the tank. Also give you more of a Steve Weast effect of a deeper tank. This would be a little bit larger volume wise, (359 Gal) still close to your old tank volume.



Goolge Sketchup is your friend ...

Now that's tasty!

My vote is for the 300DD you could have one at your door within a week or so...Ive heard alot of people aren't too fond of the overflows so might wanna get one not reef ready and buy your own overflows. Also you can't deny that the price tag on one of those tanks is really attractive when you start looking at the cost of building and shipping a custom made tank. Either way IMHO i think you should go atleast 36 inches deep

Go deep with an external overflow. Clean up the inside look of the tank.

I'll agree with agsansoo on using your old tank. You already have all the gear. No $1699.99 in new lights or pumps or whatever. Being a metal guy I like the steel stand idea. Personally I would use a thick gauge stainless steel polished to the nine's and clear coated over using a mild steel in powdercoat. Powdercoat looks nice but if it chips it can peel off. It's your money sir and this economy is still tanking. I don't know how you sit personally in the cash flow arena but even if you have a stack in the bank I would save as much as possible. A man can't eat metal halide lights when the defecation hits the oscillation.

You know you want to go bigger.

Crazy guy!

I am just amazed at the size of this aquarium and I am definitely following along.

any updates?