Alex

Quick update, was just going to drill another hole in the wall to run the cables through, but didn't realize the ceiling in the garage behind is much lower than the living room, so had to rule that out. Ended up running the cabling down the wall hidden in some television conduit. Looks pretty good for the most part, and hid the rest of the cabling behind the tank itself. Still a couple minor touch ups to be done. But the tank is back on the wall and the plumbing is now drying. Filled the tank up to see how 'unlevel the floor is'. Approximately 1/2" over a

The long wait is now over - the lights have now been suspended! I have to say I'm very happy with the results, definitely hitting the look I was going for with the 'sleek industrial' look. Looks amazing with the 'satin' finish on the stand and the hanging brackets as well as the black wall. Now I need to figure out how to best hide the electrical chords from the lights, weather i run them up and into the ceiling or back and run them down the wall and hide the bulk of it behind the tank. Once that is done, the tank can be pushed back onto the wall and just some minor pl

Wall has now been painted black, and I must say it really pops already with the black stand and the rest of the house being painted 'ivory white'. The light brackets are currently at the powder coaters, getting finished in 'satin black' like the stand. Should look pretty spectacular once the tank gets pushed back on the wall, putting a real focus on the tanks inhabitants.

My skimmer finally arrived yesterday, after a very long wait. Ended up going with a Nyos Quantum 300 - beast of a skimmer, first thing I noticed was the sheer size and had me second guessing if i measured incorrectly and have it not fit in the sump! (full size lighter on top of the cup for a size reference) I must say, putting it together it feels very well made, solid and precise construction with no play in the pieces once put together. Really easy to assemble, took me all of 5 minutes with a flat head screw driver. Fits in the sump nicely, and looks the part next to the algae reactor. I tur

Finally some more progress - getting the wall drilled was a major headache, with my usual avenues unable to help me for the foreseeable future. Ended up getting one of my dads mates to help out, and must say he did a fantastic job with the 4 holes through a double brick wall - nice and straight and hardly a chip out of the plaster or the garage brick wall! really neat job. This was really holding me up. The electrician is also at my house as I type this doing some jobs including doing all the wiring of the powerboards in the garage for all the equipment for the QT tank and sump/display!

Update - got the mixing station mostly plumbed. All dry fitted then glued. Only a couple very minor leaks which I have since rectified. Pretty happy with it and seems to be working a treat so far. The left barrel is SW and the right RODI. I like the 'closed loop' on the left as I can turn the pump on and really churn the water to either mix salt or get the water full of oxygen before a water change. Each drum holds 220L (~60gal). All that is left to do is clamp a flexible hose on the reducer and install drill a hole for the float switch to plumb the RODI line into so I don't flood my garage.

Slipshodman - Thanks for the kind words. Have a busy weekend this weekend, finishing off whatever plumbing I can on the display, and potentially leak testing. Will also be plumbing the mixing station, doesn't sound like much, but there are a heap of taps and other plumbing pieces involved. Will definitely keep this thread updated as things progress.

We are like every other couple expecting a kid, we will wing it! First kid is always a bit of a trial run anyway isn’t it?

Thanks! Congrats to yourself too. This is our first. Like everyone’s been telling me, our lives are going to get pretty hectic when bubs comes along. So in the meantime I’m trying to knock off as much of this tank as possible.

Ray - Thanks mate. Tank painted by the boss, 33 weeks pregnant and done a really good job!

Once in a generation a FW keeper will have the guts to go to the dark side!

Josh - I agree that it does look the part. The Carib Sea Life Rock i got for the quarantine was just a sample to see if I liked it, and I do for the most part. I have used live rock in the past and as good as live rock is for your system, it also comes with its fair share of nasty hitchhikers, have dealt with large growing crabs and mantis shrimp in the past. The plan was to use the Carib Sea Life Rock (I'll use the term 'fake rock' from here) as a total replacement to avoid live rock altogether (and all the hitch hikers that come with it). For me it is either use all live rock (and dea

Seems like every week there are multiple packages arriving in the mail, which is like the adults version of Christmas! The postman brought me a new Red Sea Refractometer and another Ecotech MP40. Did get some bad news today though, the ETA on my skimmer has been pushed back to the 18th of June which is a bit of a bummer, but it does give me a chance to really pull my finger out and get all the odd jobs done.

Attached the RODI system to the wall. This RODI system has a duel inbuilt TDS meter (TDS of pretreated and treated water), actually surprised to see the TDS of my tap water around the 400ppm mark. The treated water coming out is at 0ppm, so working nicely. Still need to fix the tubing to the wall to make it a bit neater. I have started filling the QT tank with RODI, then it's time to add salt and start the cycle. I am quite impressed with how the Carib Sea Life Rock looks when wet under lights. Some nice purple/pink without being over powering, I think Carib Sea have done a great job wit

Hi After along lay off from having a reef tank, I made the hard to decision to sell all of my freshwater stingrays and set up a new reef tank! The tank is in our front lounge room that backs onto our double car garage. I picked this room of the house, as it was easy to drill through the brick wall and turn half the garage into my 'equipment' room. The tank itself is a 8x3x2' (LxWxH) glass, black silicone and starfire/low iron front and sides. The stand I had professionally welded by a local fabricator, and powder coated 'satin' black. I picked a Satin finish (l