My Bigger Piece of the Reef (LotsOPics)

[Kannin]

This is my 220 build thread. I would like to thank SVTour, steve the plumb, PCostanzo and mostly... jnarowe for contributing to my pre-build thread. Without their help (and others)... who knows where I would be on this build.

I started in the hobby about 11 months ago when my wife got me a used 54 gallon corner bowfront for my 40th birthday. It had 3 fish, a rock, a 32 watt light and an h.o.b. filter. I quickly learned... mostly on this forum that I had a lot to learn. Skimmers, reactors, liverock, livesand, rodi, lps, sps & lfs. Don't even get me started on lighting.

Here is a 3 month old photo of my first tank:


So... a couple of months ago... I walked into the lfs by my home to buy a bucket or two of rodi and this is what I saw:


Tank: 72" L x 30" W x 24" H. Glass with low iron front panel. External overflows. It also came with a 3 fixture 750 watt Guiseman light, a 50 gallon acrylic sump and a stand.

It took me close to a month to convince my beautiful wife that WE couldn't live without it.

This is what it looks like in my garage:


The cabinet that it came with doesn't suit my needs so I have spent the last month of Saturdays building a new one:








The stand is an extra 7 inches wide so that the plumbing can go thru the top. It is also 38 inches high to accomidate plenty of equipment. It's built with 4x4's and 2x6's and plenty of dado cuts. It is completely water proofed on the bottom 6 inches.