UrbanSage's 270 Gallon in Wall Reef Adventure.

[UrbanSage]

I am finaly getting so close to setting up my future aquarium that I can share it with the RC crowd.

I will be welcoming any and all comments, questions, recommendations and heads ups! Afterall, I have never done anything quite like this before

For a long time I have wanted a bigger tank and tried to get closer to making it happen.

Currently I have two tanks, a 10 gallon and a 75 gallon. These two will go into the one 270 and it will be my only tank..... my only display tank at least

My wife and I are building a house (well, paying someone to do the actual building of it) and I will be placing the tank in a basement wall so it is seen from a family room. I will have a dedicated fishroom 10' X 11' housing the tank. I am getting a floor drain, sink/water, 3 x 20amp circuits and an exhaust fan installed to support the room.
The basement will be mostly unfinished leaving me and my barely novice construction skills to get everything completed.

The tank itself is made of 3/4" acrylic. It measures 72" x 36" wide x 24" high. I will have a 48" x 24" x 24" sump and my current 75 gallon tank will be turned into a refugium.

I currently have about 130lbs of Gap Island live rock in my 75 gallon tank. There is a thread about it here, and I just aquired another 100lbs of the same kind (take a look and you will see why I want to keep it the same). The new rock is being kept in a 25 gallon rubbermaid that I just ghetto plumbed into my 75 system today.

The closer I get to setting up the new tank the more my tank resembles something Frankenstein would be proud of!


Now I know this looks pretty bad, and I know my wife will think worse........ So I camouflaged it and I really think she won't noctice now


If against all odds she notices the setup I am not to proud to beg!
It will be another three months or so before the house is done, I did not want the rock to sit untouched for that long. With the rock I also received about 150lbs of sand. It will stay in two buckets and will not be plugged into the running tank.

Today I picked up the first equipment for the new tank.


I am going with 3 x 400 watt metal halide. I will use 10,000k bulbs and supplement with 2 x 72" actinic VHO.
The ballasts are a single and a dual pulse start magnetic Sunlight Supply.



The MH will use Luminarc III reflectors and these will be ventilated by a Ecoplus Inline Fan.