The Tank
The size of this tank is 42” long X 24” wide X 22” high. Coming off a 24” wide cube tank, I wanted to upgrade to a larger tank that still fits the size of the small office I am using to display the tank. The look I am going for is a tank that “floats” on a pedestal stand. In thinking through the dimensions, I wanted to strike a balance between length, depth and height. While I appreciate the practical nature of shallow reef tanks, I enjoy the taller tanks as well, especially as this allows for fish to take up residence at various levels within the tank and makes for a visually pleasing experience. And I wanted to remain “close” to the details of the tank – which one thing I love about smaller nano tanks.
I also thought long and hard about the balance of tank volume (stability) v. maintenance and equipment costs. I have followed many threads where reefers go for very large tanks, and eventually scale back down to something more reasonable.
Maintenance
I plan to run this tank leveraging top technology for automation and reliability. I travel quite frequently so it’s critical that I can run the tank on auto-drive and monitor it remotely. Here are a few things I have planned and will detail in future posts:
• Water changes will be automated. I’m a big believer in stability so I’ll be shooting for lots of small automated water changes per day. No more carrying buckets!
• Controller – This will be my first tank on a controller. The controller will be used for water quality as well as failsafe for the AWC system. It will include high and low water alarms, water spill alarms, cooling fans, etc. I do not plan on running a chiller on this system.
• Dosing – I will dose Alk and Calcium. I am not planning on adding a calcium reactor and may supplement with kalkwasser in my ATO.
If all goes as planned, I’ll really only be cleaning my skimmer and harvesting algae from my refugium. I am still debating running a filter sock or not, so I’d love to hear some pros & cons on this.
Here is a little teaser of what is to come….
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