- - well, my wife and I are starting don the road of building a house - actually a large 2 story addition on a little house.........but i digress.......I've decided to build my office in the new basement and build an 8 foot long, 30 inch tall and 30 inch front to back tank...........i would like to put a ray or two in there but also have a "reef" type environment as well.....my question is.....is this do-able? if so, should i build the reef on one end and have an open area or build 2 smaller reefs with the center open.......I have to figure out filtration based on where i build the reef structures as well

the tank will be plywood, so i'll be able to put bulk heads just about anywhere i want/need to ........ this is going to be a 375 gallon tank and i'm thinking about pulling a 30-40 gallon sump off each end for filtration with a 3-4 foot "gutter skimmer trough" on the back into a 20 gallon with a monster DIY skimmer

any other ideas are more than welcome and do's and don'ts ....especially fromanyone with ray expierience....im just starting to research them,

Snowboss

wow boss..man no help from me. but after reading this. i got to say. i hope u do this!! lol. even tho i wont have no part in it wat so ever, would be cool to see some pictures or even videos. shit theres aquariums dat dont got a tank like dat. good luck bud. keep us posted!! i mean im not the best source. but if u gonna put up 30 - 40 g sumps. i think 50 would be better. it would equal 200 gl sump on a 375gl tank. not too shabby..:) well i think. but man this sounds cool.

ill be sure to keep good photo/video documentation for sure......the more and more i read on salt water rays...the more and more i'm shying away from them.....very easy to hurt them {they're all skin, and a scratch can kill em with infection} maybe after a few years I'd try one......

All super points on the sumps and such, thanks

yes the tank will be in the wall......well a false wall with a tank room behind it

MAK....I was leaning towards a 1/2 inch piece of safety glass, unless you can convince me to go with acrylic? only reason is I am constantly cleaning and I'm worried about "greying" up the front of the tank with scratches and such [not that glas won't scratch, just seems to be less likely}

the thought behind 2 "smaller sumps - -agin is for maintinence .....when i was running two HOB filter on my present tank I was able to service one filter every other week and leave one alone.....then switch the next week......might even be taking this monster HOB out I have now and going back to 2 smaller filters, just for that reason.....again pros and cons????

Snowboss

agreed

Unfortunately, for a piece of what is basically just melted sand, that sounds like a good average price.

You gotta give us pics as it comes together, right?

yeah Schigara.......melted sand......lol .....sucks don't it....the things we do for our little wet freinds......................this project is just in the planning stages right now....we should be building the house by the end of April {hopefully} so probably a safe timeline would be water in the tank by fall...........it's very exciting to be able to look at other peoples setups, my own expieriences and try to improve on everything I can from the start...............thank-you all for your input....theres a big notebook mby the computer labeled "tank project" and all ideas, advice and opinions get entered in there ...so keep em comin .... lol this will be a "rate my fish tank" comunity project...............Snowboss

PS - -just don't forget whose wallet we're spending out of people...LMAO