OK where to begin. I got my feet wet with my own salt tank last year getting a biocube. That thread is here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2476475
Suffice to say I quickly outgrew my biocube and started looking online for a larger tank. I finally decided on the 150 gallon SC Aquarium with an all wood stand. Within a week or so the tank and stand were delivered:
Here it is unboxed in my man cave:
And of course the requisite daughter in the tank pic:
The stand was great but I wanted to redo the interior. Having it sealed and painted white was important so I could see better and not worry as much about spills. So I taped off the "trim", sanded off the poly inside, sealed the corners and seams, and finally primed then painted white with appliance paint which formed a hard shell. LED lighting was added to light up the internals and allow me to see everything and neoprene on the floor for sound dampening:
I put in the sump (needed to remove the one support to get it in) and began to plan out my plumbing. I decided to go herbie and use the third hole in the overflow for my return. I know I want reactors, frag tank, and potentially other equipment to run off of the pump so I planned for a manifold as well. So thus far my sump and equipment are:
Trigger ruby elite 30 sump
fluval SP6 pump
life reef svs 24 skimmer
2 heaters
rw4 to be moved to the refugium area of sump
Pac Sun kore 5th doser
Building an obsession dosing containers with float sensor
Building an obsession ATO container with float sensor
Tunze ATO
Apex
Cabinet temp control fans