hey 1911 guy
thanks for the compliments from everyone, my shark is getting big and so are the rays, i cant beleive how quick they are growing which OF COURSE means i have an excuse to upgrade!!!
my tank is not in-wall i really dont have a preference with in wall to normal out of the wall setups but since you mentoned the 500 actually ended up turning into a 598 gallon tank as i stretched the dimensions out to 96x60x24
the reason for this bieng i want to have at least 3-4 rays in there, im probably only going to keep my grey banded bamboo and if anythign i would get him a mate and have the two sharks and maybe 3 rays or so but thats all, and i would also just keep the tangs i have now in my 300. i dont want to go any bigger that 600 gallon so i think two full grown grey's would look awesome int here with the rays.. no need for any other shark species in my opinion!
as far as building i ordered the front sheet of glass along time ago so its sitting in my garage for some time now along with all my epoxies and materials( i got black epoxy for the background), i was going to start building this summer but decided against it until my new house is built which will be in about a year or two which will be perfect timing for my shark and rays. my tank will be inwall because i will have a "fish room" in my blueprints for the house ALSO its going to be a plywood tank if you remember so it will only have a front viewing window which will be perfect for the in-wall setup..i will also use my old 205 gallon that i built as my sump/refugium for the 600 gallon. and then turn my 300 into a reef.
if you need any help just drop me a line and i can help you out with anything you need