Coral Hind's 600g FOWLR

[surf&turf]

Awesome build. Hit me up before you head out to WV again. I'll drive.

 

+1 Stop by next time!!

[Coral Hind]

Will this be your first acrylic tank?

No, I had a used acrylic 90g back in the late 90's but when I started working for Ocea Aquariums building glass tanks I swapped it out for a glass one.

[tpallas]

So awesome, thanks for sharing!

[Coral Hind]

So it was like Christmas at my house today!! At 9:30am my only helper arrived, a rental forklift. At 12:15 the 40ft trailer arrived with my new tank.

 

 

[Coral Hind]

It was a very close one but the forklift did fit into the garage.

 

 

I then placed 1" PVC pipes under it and rolled it off the pallet and onto the stand.

 

 

[surf&turf]

WOW

[Coral Hind]

Here it is on the stand. I was surprised I was able to do it all by myself. I've since pulled the paper off and cleaned it out.

 

[SunWyrm]

^that's what I said. Looking fantastic!!!

[John]

Where's the mermaid picture?!?!

[Coral Hind]

I'm the only one here right now and I wouldn't make a good mermaid.

[STEVE]

WOW !!!! That is a big tank!!! CONGRATS !!! Cant wait to see it up and running. Good luck with the build.

[tpallas]

merMAN

[Fishie]

thats looks awesome....size does matter !

[Origami]

I love how you used the PVC pipe to roll it around. Brilliant! How long were the forks on that forklift?

[Coral Hind]

The forks were 3' 8". Besides the pipe I also sprayed a little water onto the insulation's foil to help it slide easier. My chiropractor loves it when I do stupid things like move 550lbs by myself.

[BowieReefer84]

So cool!

[Der ABT]

i hear there is the forum where you can post up and have people offer to come help.....

 

Freaking nuts you did that all by yourself...Congrats on getting it in

 

ITS GONNA BE FANTASTIC....ive been keeping an eye out for fish for you....man i cant wait to see this.

 

you going with a mix of t5 and led or just sticking with t5s? cant wait to see how much the fish enjoy it.

 

when are you going to start raising the live food...i think a 450g would be fine for that

[Origami]

You do know that I'm only like 15 minutes from you and would have been happy to do my part to put your chiropractor's kids through college.

 

So the pallet was cantilevered about 4-1/2 feet off the forks? Pretty cool how that works. So, how did they get it off of the truck? Pallet jack and a lift gate, I suppose?

[Coral Hind]

No lift gate on the trailer. The driver used a pallet jack to get it to the back of the trailer and I used a ratchet strap to snug the pallet to the forks so it would stay balanced. I then used the forklift with the forks tilted back all the way to remove it from the trailer and get it down the driveway. I would have had it on the stand faster had I not kept stopping to take pictures.

[Incredible Corals]

I think you might be Bruce Willis in unbreakable.

[steveoutlaw]

Niiiiiiiiiice!

[Ryan S]

Awesome!

[Coral Hind]

This evening I placed into the tank six each of the 40 pound bags of CaribSea Special Grade Reef Sand. It is a little courser than what I wanted but oh well. I then moved in all the large dry rock I had set aside for the tank. I will add the live rock from the 150g tub when I move the fish and corals over. I want to keep the tank open and do pillars as much as I can but with aggressive fish I plan to have need to have lots of hiding places. If there isn't enough places for a fish to call home they will fight for the few that there are. Here is the left side of the tank.



Here is a top view of the left side. It kind of looks like a zen garden from this angle.

[TonyInVa]

Sand, you do use it!!!!! Usually you go bare bottom, don't you?

[Coral Hind]

In my past tanks I have always preferred bare bottom but this tank will have less flow so blowing sand isn't a big concern. Plus I plan to add some fish that do better with a sandy bottom. Hopefully the sands surface area will add a good bit of additional bacterial bio filtering. Because this is coarser than a fine sand I think I might vacuum out small sections during water chanes.