Juan's 300+ Gallon Apartment Tank

Amps Reef Life · Mar 29, 2016

Juan, glad to see you on Reef2Reef! Been following your build on another forum. Its an amazing build for sure. Pro job!

Cheers!

drernesto · Mar 29, 2016

Amazing setup! Please don't stop the pictures flow

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

ReefQueen said:
Beautiful build, and gorgeous apartment! Did you have to get any special permissions for such a large tank? I know many reefers have issues with landlords over tank size. Also did you have to add any structural support? I'm just picturing the conversation asking the downstairs neighbors to add some floor Jacks in the middle if their living room hahaha

Thank you very much

No permission needed but I did alert the building administration about it, also, I bought insurance to over any damages for the apartment and the building itself, just imagine what 300 gallons of saltwater would do not only to my apartment but the elevator cables and mechanism as well as neighboring apartment too. The insurance covers everything if something happens *knock on wood that it doesn't, lol.

All floor is a concrete slab, and the tank it's sitting over a big joist.

Josh King said:
Very, very, nice! Looking to do a peninsula build for my next tank. Following. Cheers!

Thank you and nice to have you tag along.

d2mini said:
Wow! Amazing build!!!

I'm still wrapping my head around that much water in an apartment but you did your due diligence.
Looking forward to seeing more!

Thank you!, believe me, when I was filling the tank I was really nervous, one thing is engineers telling you there is no problem and another thing is actually doing it.

Chrisfish said:
What an amazing thread, I can't wait to see more! And as @ReefQueen said your apartment and tank are beautiful!! What do you plan to stock it with? Do you have any pictures of your 1000 gal? PLEASE keep posting.

Thank you very much

This is a wish fish list, of course, not all of these fish are going in, I want to keep the 5 gallon per inch of fish rule, maybe I can lower it to 3 gallons per inch as it depends as well as how much filtering my equipment can handle.

revhtree said:
This is an amazing build! We are thrilled you chose to join us and share! Can't wait for more updates!

Thank you Rev, I'm really happy to be here

Jorge Gaitan said:
Amazing, in Guatemala? I Would love to have one of this in Nicaragua.

Thanks Jorge,

rbadger said:
Most impressive build I think I've ever seen! Awesome, thanks for sharing!!

Very kind words, thank you

Trevor40 said:
Very nice build! A few turbo snails will clean that cycle algae right up.

Thank you, and yes, I'm thinking of adding at least 12 of them and maybe other different types as well. Hopefully tomorrow I will add some CUC to the tank.

Anirban said:
@JPSika08 nice clean build....

I was wondering how you fix those wooden side panel and doors to the metal stand....actually I am thinking about doing the same so need a detail idea about it

Great question, when planning the building I was trying to figure out how to approach this problem, I divided each side with three doors, each door has 4 Speaker magnets, one on each corner attached to them, I made a small hole in the middle of the magnet and screw them to the wood, they work really well adhering to the metal frame, the front door is like this as well.

Kman237 said:
Juan, glad to see you on Reef2Reef! Been following your build on another forum. Its an amazing build for sure. Pro job!

Cheers!

Nice to see you here Kman, thank you very much for your kind words.

drernesto said:
Amazing setup! Please don't stop the pictures flow

Thank you, I will keep putting more pictures as I go along

Neptune1707 · Mar 29, 2016

Wow such and awesome setup!!!! lots of great pics!!!! Years ago my brother and I built a wood stand/canopy for my 125g tank....about 6 months into the tank set up, the canopy hood started to bow due to the moisture coming from the tank and the wood cabinet doors bowed as well. It was an amateur painted cabinet, but I'm very curious what kind of wood you are using....has a beautiful grain. Any problems so far with moisture from the top of your tank?

halfmoon61 · Mar 29, 2016

Sweet build

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

Neptune1707 said:
Wow such and awesome setup!!!! lots of great pics!!!! Years ago my brother and I built a wood stand/canopy for my 125g tank....about 6 months into the tank set up, the canopy hood started to bow due to the moisture coming from the tank and the wood cabinet doors bowed as well. It was an amateur painted cabinet, but I'm very curious what kind of wood you are using....has a beautiful grain. Any problems so far with moisture from the top of your tank?

Thank you very much.

As of now no problems with the wood yet.
Don't really know the name of it, locally they call it Finger Wood, it was treated already when bought, it's very tough and heavy, this is why I needed to divide the sides so each door would weight less, also, for the color we tinted it and then applied matte varnish to it. Hope it last a lot.

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

halfmoon61 said:
Sweet build

Thank you very much.

Reef_Obsessed · Mar 29, 2016

Amazing!!!

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

Reef_Obsessed said:
Amazing!!!

Thank you very much.

BkReefBaby · Mar 29, 2016

Really impressive! hows the reef market in Guatemala? I have family in El Salvador and Panama I never really see any good LFS in any of the 2 countries

chgoblknazn · Mar 29, 2016

This is incredible!! I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'm sure it will be bananas!

marcoss · Mar 29, 2016

This is nuts. I love it.

JMacedo · Mar 29, 2016

Amazing build and thread! Definitely tagging along!

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

BkReefBaby said:
Really impressive! hows the reef market in Guatemala? I have family in El Salvador and Panama I never really see any good LFS in any of the 2 countries

Thank you

Not so good, usually it's among reefers where we can find nice corals.
Also, when needed we import them through a friend with import license for them.

Wish I had more access to them like in the US.

chgoblknazn said:
This is incredible!! I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'm sure it will be bananas!

Thank you very much.

marcoss said:
This is nuts. I love it.

Thank you.

JMacedo said:
Amazing build and thread! Definitely tagging along!

Thank you, nice to have you along.

aaron23 · Mar 29, 2016

Wow have you built tanks before? Making a 260 gallon on your own seems like a daunting task....are you not afraid that it will split and burst all over the floor?

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

aaron23 said:
Wow have you built tanks before? Making a 260 gallon on your own seems like a daunting task....are you not afraid that it will split and burst all over the floor?

Glass for my systems is only done by a guy who has been in the Aquarium developing business over 15 years, so he knows his job. Hopefully, this system won't be the exception and water will not be all over the floor.

Maybe in the pictures it seems as I did the tanks, though, due to their size and weight I asked the builder to assemble them in my apartment instead of his warehouse. Imagine carrying this tank 15 floors as it doesn't fit in the elevator.

aaron23 · Mar 29, 2016

Just wow! That is amazing i like the design so far looks excellent!

JPSika08 · Mar 29, 2016

aaron23 said:
Just wow! That is amazing i like the design so far looks excellent!

Thank you very much

Tigerworks · Mar 29, 2016

Oh my! It was only recently that I've been bitten by the reef tank bug. I've been doing a lot of reading and watching YouTube videos for the past few months and only now started writing down my plan. I really don't know a LPS from a GPS yet but your tank build has certainly given me great inspiration. Thanks for sharing and I can't wait to see what's next.