New 75 Reef

[Symbiosis]

I'll hopefully have some pictures to post by the end of today. My goals for this system are to keep mostly sps and a few softies, with the softies being in the low section of the tank. Im shooting for about 1" fine sand bed with approx. 60lbs LR and 20-30lbs base rock. As far as fish, I think i've narrowed it down to a group of Ptereleotris zebra, a Zebrasoma flavescens, a group of Chromis veridis, a Ocellaris clown, and a Synchiropus splendidus after about 6 months to a year. Clean up crew will include a zebra brittle star, trochus snails, scarlet hermit crabs, and two cleaner shrimp.
Some coral's ive had in mind were froqspawn, assorted mushrooms, pineapple brain, and then after the tank matures, some assorted Acro's. I will probably sell the brain coral before I get any acropora as I know brains are need large territories and I doubt I will want to give that much room to one specimen. But who knows!

As far as equipment goes heres what I plan on running for at least the first 6 months:

75 gallon tank with custom overflow
rubbermaid sump/fuge
Aqua C urchin/pro skimmer
1100gph pump (haven't decided on make/model)
300 watt titanium heater (not sure about this, wanna try it, but cautiously)
Return manifold as decribed on WWM for return
46.5" 110watt VHO's x 4 (3 10ks, 1 Actinic)
Custom hood with exhaust
Custom stand

Fuge will have DSB, live rock rubble and Cheato and possibly tang heaven lit by a screw in flourescent. Will also be running carbon in the sump for clarity.

Well thats all I can think of for now. Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

[Symbiosis]

Here's some pics of the tank thus far. Just filled it with water... not that I will be putting anything in it for a while now. At least I know it doesn't leak.


Tank on stand. Will look much nicer with canopy and painting of 'wood' trim

Long shot of inside (with water)

Overflow

Bulkhead, painted black backside

[Symbiosis]

Here's some pics of the stand.


Building materials, haha

Getting a sump in will be fun

Trim on the stand turned out pretty nice

[Teeka01]

That is looking great.

[FragOutpost]

The tank is looking great so far. Can't wait to see it when you get some rockwork established. How many overflows are you going to have? 1100gph return pump seems like a lot. You will need to ensure that your overflow(s) can handle that much flow. Most people will agree that you really don't need tons of flow going through the sump/fuge. The flow through my fuge is pretty light at around 550 gph, but I have a tunze 6060, a Seio 1100, a maxijet, and a rio 600 in my tank for increased flow and I have a 75 gallon. Personally I would use a smaller return pump and slow down the flow through the fuge and use a closed loop or efficient powerheads (like tunze streams or seios) for extra flow in the tank. 1100 gph on the retun pump will overpower a 1" pvc return line easily. Is there any reason that you plan on running 46.5" Vho's instead of T5HO's? VHO's last around 6 months whereas T5's will last around 1 year or longer and the bulbs are roughly the same price. T5's also use half the electricity as VHO's (54 watts compared to 110 watts) and produce far less heat. Plus you can fit more T5's over your tank than you can VHO's. Before making the plunge into a VHO setup I would suggest that you do some research on T5's and get some opinions from other people that are using them. Personally I think that you will be much happier and get better results from the T5's.

Anyways, Thanks for sharing your photos and please keep us updated on your progress. It is always great to see progression photos that start from the initial setup.

[Symbiosis]

Im pretty sure the overflow will be able to handle the input, which after head loss will should be about 900gph, but the size of the bulkead does have me worried. When I took it in to get it drilled I specified a 2" bulkhead. Unfortunately for whatever reason, I recieved a 1" bulkhead. I didn't have time to discuss the situation when I got the tank back, so I am going to have to call them tomorrow. More than slightly irritated the more I look into my situation. Just glad im in no hurry to get any of this up and running. After I talk with the LFS about what can be done, my pump situation my change. If he doesn't want to re-drill it, im going to try and get store credit to help reduce the cost of buying two pumps, one for return at a lower gph and one for a closed loop manifold.
As for T5HO's, I haven't looked into these that much and I should. I'll probably go over it tonight and compare costs for complete setups, etc.
On another subject, just read an article about the pro's and con's on activated carbon in a back issue of TFH magazine. I had heard many of the same agruments to why people don't use it and why people due. Iv'e come to the conclusion through my own experience that carbon is good stuff to run all the time. Just did a 10% water change on my 20 gal and decided it was time to replace the carbon thats running in the filter as it had been in there for about 4 weeks. Had slacked a bit on up-keep so the tank wasn't so clear and needed a good cleaning/scraping to remove some algae and pesky worms that insist on blocking my view. Anyways, after changing the carbon, the water is crystal clear and looks better than ever. I'll be sure to run it in any tank I keep.

[FragOutpost]

IMO - The key to carbon is to run small amounts of it and to change it frequently. There are probably as many different opinions on the use of carbon as there are types of carbon, so find what works best for you and stick with it. Personally I don't run it all of the time but when I do use it I use about a cup and change it after a week to prevent anyhting from leaching back into the water. I usually will drop in some carbon if I notice my water starting to yellow and needs some "polishing".