50 Gallon Artisan C.A.D Lighting Build

Your sump is almost done

It's this kind of thing that gets me through my boring work nights. I can't wait to see pictures.

I know there is water in that thing, where are the pics

Edited by tcfab - October 03 2010 at 4:04pm

Here's a few pics of the progress up to this point....

Tyler (tcfab) made a custom sump that fits the stand like a glove (you may have seen these in his custom acrylic work post)







Went with the SWC 160 Cone skimmer (thanks again to Tyler for all his assistance and guidance during this build)



Got the sump all plumbed Saturday. Went pretty smoothly other than one bulkhead that just wouldnt cooperate. Had to cut it out, get new one from MSM and redo it. Went with flex hose and ball valve/unions from Bulk Reef Supply. Much easier to do with with the flex hose in a confined area like this that the reg schedule 40 white PVC.



Here's a shot of the tank from Sunday after I had mixed salt water Saturday night and added the sand. Went with Caribsea reef grade sand since I'll be running two MP-10's and don't want a sand storm from the finer sands. Lighting is accomplished by a 6x24W ATI Sunpower T5 fixture. Absolutely love the fixture and the choice of bulbs (have to thank the guys from Reef Geek on my bulb choice...told them the look I was going for and they nailed it). It has a crisp white light with blue tones to it. Really makes the corals pop!

Got the skimmer tuned in, doors on, and aquascaping done. Corals are sparse (going from a 24 to 50 makes it look like barren), and browned from being in a temp tank, and had to frag off dead pieces from getting stung by other stuff in the cramp quarters, etc. Second MP10 should be here soon, and power strips to clean up all the cables will be here soon.


Still trying to decide on a controller. Leaning towards the Reefkeeper Elite, but that changes from day to day.

Looks great... nice tank, and I cant wait to see it loaded

I love the rimless look too and the starphire glass is amazing compared to my old Biocube.

It's and ATI Sunpower, and I ordered it from Reef Geek.

It is rather bright, but not sunglss bright. Poor point and shoot camera. I went with 3 aquablue, purple+, 6500K, and blue plus.

Note: I may have the aquablue and the blue plus backward. Gonna have to look at my invoice.

Got my ATO (auto top off) all set up and running. Used an old 10 gallon tank I had laying around for the resevoir. The eggcrate top to stop my 3 yr old son from experimenting to see how many hot wheel cars it will take to displace 10 gallons of water, and keep my baby girl (although just learning to crawl) from doing a header in it. I then painted it to match the walls/trim to make it a little less obtrusive to the wife.

It's a dual float system that I purchased from www.autotopoff.com. Tyler (tcfab) added threaded mounts for the Madison MC8000 float switches. Here's a few pics.