the claw
Active Member
I've been hinting about moving my 150 reef into an in-wall set-up. Well, this weekend I made it happen. What a project. I had the 180 set-up for a couple of weekes with old water circulation through it from the old tank. I also slipped a couple pieces of live rock into it that I had in my refugium. I got a large rigid rubermaid and filled it with half water from the new tank and half water from the old tank. Both matched pretty closely anyways. That was my safe spot for certain chunks of rocks with acropora growing on it and other solitary corals. I picked a couple of the toppieces off, then started buiding my base. Each rock I blew off all of the detritus I could. Even the cleanest of tanks are messy. I then would put my top pieces on arranging them the best as I could. This took almost all day. After much of the rock was out, I captured the rest of my fish. I lost most of them from a power outage from a twister a couple of weeks ago. By this time the ammonia was starting to spike in my old tank. I captured as many critters as I could. I had planned to move the sand over next, but I changed my mind. I decided to go with a shallow sand bed in the display instead of my deep sand bed. My old one had been set-up for several years and was getting close to crash time. I am still going to keep a deep sand bed in my refugium.sump set-up. Here are a few specifics, with a couple shots. I'm still working on closing it in.
180 gallon with 55 gallon sump/refugium split. 3 400 watt 20k with (4) 6foot VHO powered by icecap660 ballast(2). Two sea swirls as returns from a mag 18 pump. One berlin skimmer powered by a mag 7 pump. Inlet from sump, outlet provides flow for the refugium. At this point, two extra powerheads for added circulation. One double overflow with two back up air pumps to keep it from plugging up. You can see the tank from both sides, which is new for me. I really enjoy the double size. Its like having twice as much livestock.
First pic is the front view
180 gallon with 55 gallon sump/refugium split. 3 400 watt 20k with (4) 6foot VHO powered by icecap660 ballast(2). Two sea swirls as returns from a mag 18 pump. One berlin skimmer powered by a mag 7 pump. Inlet from sump, outlet provides flow for the refugium. At this point, two extra powerheads for added circulation. One double overflow with two back up air pumps to keep it from plugging up. You can see the tank from both sides, which is new for me. I really enjoy the double size. Its like having twice as much livestock.
First pic is the front view
