Below is a description of Snailman's and Snailwoman's incredible 200 gallon reef tank. 

History:
For years we wanted to get into the Saltwater tank world. We read everything we could get our hands on, talked to everybody we could talk to and then when our SW sources started running when they saw us we figured we must be
"ready"......

We started off with a used 125 gallon acrylic tank.  Bought the tank, rock, 3 fish, a couple of corals, 'What a deal" we thought !!  It wasn't long that Snailwomans arms were getting weary trying to reach the bottom of the tank for cleaning..got some 24" tongs.. The acrylic tank wore heavy shall we say on Snailwoman so off to Penn we go.. "TANK SHOPPING".. and home we come with a 125 gallon glass tank.. shorter..longer.. All is well I think to myself..

We pain-stakenly take one apart, set the new one up. AHHHHH, I think my tank moving, carrying days are finally done.  And SURELY going through the routine "troubles" with new tank set-ups will certainly be absolutely enough the second time around for her. YUP, that bigger tank bug that had bitten her will be buried once and for all.  One day we are in Penn again (gotta keep her outta there) and I called her over to see this tank. I ONLY wanted her to LOOK at it. Snailwoman looked it all over and said "LOAD HER UP". Luckily we had the truck that fateful day.  So here it is (and she says THIS IS IT) It is a 200 gallon RR Oceanic Tank.

Livestock:
We still have the 3 fish that we originally started out with. We absolutely love the corals so that is really where our concentration is. Snailwoman has propagated many of the corals that we have. The parent devil's hand is in our 400 gallon tank and one day I caught her looking it over and the next day it was missing a "finger. Most of the Snails are from larvae that I raised.

Chilli Coral

For more details on our livestock, visit our website.

DevilsHand

Equipment:
I drilled two holes in the floor and have all of the equipment in the basement.  I put a 1 1/2"durso standpipe in both corner boxes. The sump is a 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank with approx. 3" sand-bed, with lots of critters, even some peanut worms. The hose runs directly into a 5 gallon bucket that has some LR in it to hold it down.  The skimmer is one of Ron's Satlwater 4" CC skimmers. A Medo linear piston air pump provides the air for it and the skimmer on the other tank.

A 1/4hp chiller, and 3-250W VisiTherm heaters maintain the temperature.

In the tank there are four Maxi-Jet MJ-1200 powerheads. The Main pump is a Iwaki MD100 RLT. The skimmer, calcium reactor UV and refugia are run by an Iwaki MD30RL.

There is a 20 gal Rubbermaid tank as a refugia with approx. 2" sand-bed with lots of critters too, hooked in which has 4
mangrove trees growing by leaps and bounds. A UV sterilizer keeps Snailwoman happy :-).   An Aquadyne Octopus 3000 is monitoring and controlling the systems.  A 20lb CO2 tank running a Knop C Calcium Reactor is in-line right now, but, I have built a 24" dual chambered Calcium Reactor which I hope to have on-line soon. A Digital Oceans LW401 LightWave controls the Lighting and power heads.

The lighting is 2-140W 50/50 VHO lamps,  3- 175W 10,000K MH,3
Spyder reflectors, and  four 25 watt blue incandescent lights that are for moon-light, the MH and VHO all use IceCap ballast. All this is housed in a DIY hood which hangs from the ceiling with chains. I will have pictures on the website soon with pictures of the equipment and the hood in detail.

Seamat