well its been quite a while since ive been on this board, let alone even thought about a tank with all thats been going on and all of my other hobbies. Ive grown up quite a bit since my old days and purchased myself a nice little townhouse and im even getting married finally! Its been a really great few years and ive been successful enough to stay busy and do well at work and such.
so..... its now time to start another tank.
I just purchased Madreefers 180 gallon coast to coast overflow all glass tank. I will be putting it in my front room right next to the kitchen. I have also decided that im going to be biting the bullet and cutting a few holes in my floor/tile and running all my piping directly into the basement. I have a 55 Gallon glass tank with a nice stand and the whole works i will be using for the sump/fuge, and i may even go so far as to putting in a pool for some live rock to cure and act like a filter. Luckily i have plenty of room in my basement and this would be the ideal place for the whole setup. Im more than likely going to be going all out with a calc reactor, uv sterilizer, and the whole 9 yards this time around.
The initial plan is to start it out as a swim only tank with a nice deep white sand bed and maybe a few small mounds of live rock. I plan on attempting to keep a few sharks happy and possibly a nice ray of some sort. It will more than likely stay that way for a couple years until the live rock has cured long enough and i have accumulated enough in my pool to dedicate it to the display tank and make it an all out reef tank.
I plan on building the stand with my father (15 years experience as a cabinet maker) out of either rose wood or some knotty alder. I will also be running an open top on the tank with hanging lights rather than a big massive hood. I just really dont like the look of the hoods and i want as much access as possible for me to get in the tank anytime i need to. Ill more than likely just run some screen of some sort over the top of the tank to stop "jumpers" from ending themselves.
Anyways, ill keep you guys posted on the progress as things go. I have a few other projects i need to get wrapped up before i can start devoting some cash to the tank. I have 2 fully custom banshees for me and my fiancee that i am building from the ground up. I even went so far as to build a paint booth in my garage and go all out on a very nice devilbis GTI millenium gun and a nice 7 HP 80 gallon compressor. The Z06 is also taken apart currently and will probably be getting a turbo setup this winter and a new 422 stroker to replace the 408 stroker currently in it. Wish i could have gotten it done sooner but i had a few problems with my duramax (darn injectors went out) and it definately put a hamper on the financial situation seens how injectors are roughly 400 a piece, and obviously there are 8 of them :(
anyways... look forward to talking with everybody and im 100% open to ideas and criticism on my plan of attack for this setup.
thanks everyone
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Reef tanks just require alot of tender loving care to get started and i just want to take my time and do it right. My last tank was kinda a mess there for a while because i just kept throwing things in it and messing with it. Im going to take this hobby very very seriously this time around now that its in my own home and such a huge cost. 
Mark Peterson wrote:
