.Marshall’s Fish Room (110g build) (1 Viewer)

[.Marshall]

Hi all,

I’m starting a new build thread to capture the journey and final product of my dedicated ‘fish room’ dream. I built my home in 2018 and designed this room to have dedicated 20amp circuits, a floor drain, a water source, and more electrical outlets than one could dream of. It took me a couple more years than I would have thought to start progress (see IM 40g build) but we’re here now and I’m happy to share it with you all.

I bought a brand new custom Reef Savvy 110g (54” x 22” x 22”) from a TCMAS member that needed to exit the hobby abruptly. It is built like a brick s**t house with reinforced seams, starboard phantom bottom, and eurobracing.



I am now noticing I have more photos of it in the previous owners house than I do my own.

I had a custom steel stand manufactured by Chris at Midwest Custom Aquariums. Again, I need to get better at cataloging my progress and taking more photos, but here is a Sunday project glueing down the plywood to create a base for the sump.



The sump is from Synergy Reef Systems in Tennessee and it’s a custom 44” sump. I am very happy with it so far, I haven’t unwrapped it yet, but it should add to the aesthetic of the fish room.



Here are some updated photos of the fish room and the 110g in place.

**for the Tang Police** don’t @ me! I got her from Biota as a baby and she will be going into the 110 ASAP!




Stay tuned!

 

[spsick]

eurobracing.

Is that @jlanger stand? I hope he’s ok.

Man, a brand new Reef Saavy tank is the come-up of a reefkeeprs life!

 

[.Marshall]

Is that @jlanger stand? I hope he’s ok.

Man, a brand new Reef Saavy tank is the come-up of a reefkeeprs life!

I do believe it is a @jlanger stand, I didn’t buy it, so it’s still out there somewhere!

Couldn’t pass up the reef savvy, I had a reef savvy frag tank in 2012 and it was beautiful..

 

[jlanger]

Is that @jlanger stand? I hope he’s ok.

Man, a brand new Reef Saavy tank is the come-up of a reefkeeprs life!

That stand and canopy was indeed a project that I made for the previous owner. I was made aware that he needed to exit the hobby, but that he was NOT selling the stand and canopy. Because if he was selling it all as a package, I would've bought it myself.
My system is still running and my stand and canopy are doing just fine.

 

[jlanger]

I do believe it is a @jlanger stand, I didn’t buy it, so it’s still out there somewhere!

Couldn’t pass up the reef savvy, I had a reef savvy frag tank in 2012 and it was beautiful..

Congrats on buying that tank. It is a beaut, for sure.
It took years for that tank to finally get to [his] house and I was saddened to know that the whole set up wouldn't come to fruition. I'll be following along to see what you do with it.

 

[.Marshall]

110g Update!

Finally finished the plumbing on the 110g build. Unions, unions, and more unions, and it still made me anxious when glueing everything in place. If I have one leak, it’s definitely on one fitting on the return. We’ll find that out soon enough!





I also glued down some rubber matting around the tank because A) I like the way it looks and B) gives me good traction so I don’t fall off the platform when I’m neck deep in the tank.



Other things I’ve been working on:
- trimming out the front of the tank.
- trying to figure out how to mount the UV sterilizer.
- fret about how I’m going to aquascape with live rock.

The next project needs to be the aquascape, then I’m basically ready for water. Or maybe it’s the other way around? I just don’t think I can get it all done in one day and I've been curing rock in my garage for almost a year now.

Almost forgot! The poker table is coming along as well.. I had to mock up what a 60” table top looked like in the space.

 

[Fishfoo]

Great progress! Everything looks super clean and well thought out.

Is that a Bashsea sump? I was kicking around the idea of upgrading sumps and they were the front runner when looking around.

 

[.Marshall]

Great progress! Everything looks super clean and well thought out.

Is that a Bashsea sump? I was kicking around the idea of upgrading sumps and they were the front runner when looking around.

Thanks! I’ve had a lot of time to think about it (I built the house in 2018).

It’s a Synergy Reef Systems sump. He had a good Black Friday sale that I took advantage of. I looked at Bashsea and Geo’s Reef but Synergy check all my boxes. You should add Poseidon’s Creations (mostly on instagram) to that list if you’re looking at other sump options. I ran across them way late in my decision making, but they look like they’re doing some really nice stuff.

 

[Fishfoo]

Good to know, thanks for the info. The current Geo sump I have is well built, but way too small for the price and all of the sections/features are crammed into such a small space, leaving little room for other things like biomedia and an appropriate sized skimmer. That's why I liked the Bashsea's. Nice and spacious. Will check out poseidon as well. Not in any rush so may do the smart move like you and wait till black friday or another sale.

 

[.Marshall]

We got water!





Now I need to aquascape.. which has me a tad anxious with all the rock I’ve been brewing up for a year. Wish me luck!

 

[Gojjie24]

Looks amazing! Very thoughtful planning.

 

[.Marshall]

Aquascape preview

My wife snapped a picture of me adding additional branches to the ‘scape. I was finally able to get back at it after healing my finger tips, pro tip: always wear gloves!



Some notes:

- ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES.
- Nyos reef cement sets way to damn fast, but once it sets, the two rocks you had will be one rock.
- E-Marco 400 with some crushed marco rocks powder is my preferred reef mortar.
- E-Marco 400’s highly malleable qualities come back to bite you if you need to move live rock back into the tank, I’d say it needs at least 2-3 hours to set before you can move it.

Probably 1 or 2 more nights of adding pieces to the structures before the first two go in the tank. I have another structure that is less complete, and then I will probably need to find a very large (long?) marco rocks base-foundation piece to complete the scape.

 

[Jjdurrant]

Looking good!

 

[.Marshall]

Cycle update!

I finished about 5/6th of the aquascape and added more cycled rock to the sump. Recently, I have been noticing a lot of pods on the glass so I'll take that as a win considering I've only had water in this tank for a month. For a bit there I was second guessing if cycling rock for almost a year did anything, but seeing the pods on the glass was a welcome sign of progress.

As for the aquascape, I was paying close attention to the two angles I would view the tank the most; front viewing, and viewing from the right side. Without going into too much detail, I wanted an uninterrupted viewing angle from both, so a left to right slant in rock work.

You'll see from the top-down photo, I have another structure to put together. It's not real high on my list, hanging the lights and working on the dosing equipment is up next.



Also, if it wasn't evident, I'm going bare bottom. This tank is going to be almost 100% SPS. Flow, flow, flow.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Varig]

Looking awesome!

 

[.Marshall]

First fish

It’s been a few months, taking it slow, but I’ve added the first fish. Two Bangaii cardinals graduated QT about a week ago and I added them to the DT.

I also put up the lighting rack which will ultimately have two Radion XR-30 Blues (1 G4 and 1 G6), currently only have one running because I didn’t want to blast a new tank with light. I am slowly ramping up the schedule and I will add the 2nd Radion within the next week.

I also finished trimming the tank with PVC trim. I manufactured a front access door out of 1/2” PVC board which turned out great. Installing the hinges turned out to be a giant PIA but it looks good, granted it’s a little too heavy for the heavy-duty hinge to hold the door open but it doesn’t let it slam shut so it does it’s job.

On to some pictures;





Tank side:

 

[Reefer Oz]

Dang! That is a nice clean look. Great work with the PVC. It's a tough material to work with and keep clean.

This will be a great build. Keep the updates coming.

 

[Jjdurrant]

Sexy!

 

[.Marshall]

Fall update

The 40L is doing well, LPS is growing well, SPS is surviving. The AIO design of this tank makes it very difficult to control phosphates. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t use reef saver rock, there’s just so much more surface area for beneficial bacteria. I’ve always been dealing with lots of hair algae in this tank but I’m not too worried about it, at some point I’ll probably move all the SPS to the 110g and turn this tank into a LPS/mushroom tank.



The 110g is doing really well, I’ve been slowly adding fish. First 3 Chromis, then 2 Bangaii cardinals. Ordered a couple Lyretail Anthias and a small Whitetail Bristletooth Tang (probably my favorite tang) NY Aquaria. QT’d for a month and they joined the crew in the reef savvy. I recently moved the Yellow Tang from the 40g to its new home in the 110. I wanted the bristletooth to get established before I introduced the yellow.




My latest pickup came from World Wide Corals and Quality Marine, a small Powder Blue and another Bangaii. Currently in QT, should be a few weeks before they go into the 110.



Worked on the dosing setup this weekend and started dosing Kalk. Otherwise, slow and steady, and all is well in the fish room.

 

[asifiqbal2]

Coming together nicely!
At some point we need a meeting to come see your setup