Now that our 375 gallon project is underway I thought I’d post some pics and some information as it progresses. This will be a fairly long project as we are not expecting to have water in the tank until the end of summer.
So far we have the tank of course which was built locally by Tenecor and let me just say- they build an incredible tank and they were very patient with our design specs and the customer service was top notch- Not to mention they hit the projected completion date on the nose (which was only 2 weeks from time of order). The tank is 96 x 30 x 30, black back, with 2 corner overflows. It looks a bit like swiss cheese at this point because of the 18 holes we had drilled for various closed loops and sump return.
One of our main goals was to have a tank that didn’t have any visible PVC, powerheads, Tunzes, etc. We want to see the reef not the equipment. For this reason we will be having 2 closed loop systems, one will have fixed returns coming from the sides of the overflows and the second will be utilizing a OM 4way returning to 4 separate rock supporting structures made out of PVC and coated with foam. Both closed loops will have a flow of about 3600gph. The sump will return through 4 holes in the top corners of the tank and will have a flow of about 4400gph. That should give us in the ballpark of 11,600 gph of flow through the tank.
Once we had the tank it was time for the stand. We considered wood but it only took a few minutes to determine that the type of stand/canopy system we wanted was only something that could be made out of steel. After much planning we had a design and it was time to build. For this we turned to fellow reefer Keith Jackson. He built the stand exactly the way we wanted and his craftsmanship was excellent. We went to his house about 10am and we had a finished stand/canopy back on the trailer heading home by 6pm. For anyone considering a steel stand I would refer Keith without hesitation. Here’s a look at the stand/canopy before it heads off to get powdercoated-
Once the stand is powdercoated I will post some more pics- hopefully by the weekend