My 60 tank build.

I finally got my 60 gal emptied of cichlidsand now in the process of getting it cleaned out and moved around to start up FOWLR and possibly later a reef (depends on how long the navy keeps me here). I will post pics as I go.

Is it required to have an over flow box?

its not, but while its emptied I would drill and put it in. It allows you to move all the "crap" that comes with a tank down to the bottom. as well as keep a consistent level of water, even as it disipates(because your changing water level will now be in the sump).

ya like derrick said its better to have an overflow there are less chances for overflowing the tank.

I agree, you'll definitely want to put all that unsightly junk under the tank rather than where you can see it. and I have heard that HOB overflows lose their siphon and overflow the display tank.

yeah hob overflows are no good its all to risky i mean it might be a diffrent situation for you but i dont want 60 gallons of saltwater all over my floor. my parents would kill me

I used to have a HOB, and when I did drain my sump, luckily my tank was low, so it just went to the rim. But other than that its a royal PITA to get the siphon again. I would go with a bean animal, or modified bean(no emergency) in your tank. If you are worried about space, you can do an external overflow, with a 1 inch c2c for good surface skimming.

also, make sure to paint the back(black IMHO) while its out and dry. once its together it looks hella nice.

that sunds pretty cool actually. keeping everything out of the tank

i've seen it done before and it looks really nice, and doesn't take up much display space all. downside is now your overflow is outside your tank. so all the plumbing is outside your tank(even more)

this is what I am talking about, I found this picture over on reef central. here is the link, and it was posted by wrx...
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1541946&highlight=bean+animal

ya thats the same thing i saw. although i think his tank was custom made for it but i think you can just cut out the section of glass that you have the overflow behind and your set. if you dont want to do thoes cuts im sure you can find a glass company that could do it for you.

If I had the muhla to get a new skimmer and a sump I would. But I'm working on a budget and equipment from first failed attempt at a saltwater tank. Now that I look back at my first sw tank I already know what I did wrong so I'm going to avoid that this time. But I bought a bottom shelf skimmer for my first tank so I'm going to reuse it. I think it might be called a skilter(skimmer/filter), and its hob. And magnum 350 canister filter. I really wished I could afford all new equipment.

The water holder.

look for some used stuff. check out socalireefs.com there is used equipment on there all the time.

Added rock just need some sand and water.

dosent look like that much rock. is it enough?

For now it will be. I'm still going to add some live rock once I get water in it.

thats more than enough rock. sometimes less is more.

Ehh not really with reef tanks but your doing a fowler so i think thats fine

oh yea I forgot he is doing FOWLR, for a reef its good though

Here's a great article by Scott Fellman on less is more. Thinking "Negative": An overlooked Aspect of Aquascaping

How deep of a sand bed should I do.

inch and a half. or to the top of the bottom ring. not too much, because if you try deep sand bed, and happen to stir up the sand, you could have a EDIT Ammonia spike. There is a benifit of deep sand beds, but from what I had read, unless you are very careful, you could kill everything in your tank.
I used to have a lot of sand, and after strong encouragement from SLP and from reading, I ended up giving away my extra sand(used to have a 72 gal bow front)

Well I drove up to Oak View today to get some live sand, and ended up with 8 five gallon buckets of water 3 buckets of live sand, maybe 20 lbs of live rock and a nice coral frag for $30 . What a great deal. The husband and wife are just as much in love with reefing as all of us are. They have several tanks and most of them are slam full with amazing displays of color and life. It just so happens that they have been reading through our forum, so I invited them to join us on the 17th. I really hope you guys can make it down. He mentioned to me that he has several items still for sale such as pumps, lighting and lots of other stuff. I asked his permission to advertise his stuff for him. He said yes. So if you would like his contact information pm me and I will shoot it to you. Watch out he is CHP!!! Lol jk.....

Hey forgot to tell you, when you get the RODI water, You need to mix the SW outside of the tank!
And edit from before, deep sand beds that have been stirred up have an ammonia spike, not nitrate.
Send me his info also please

Yeah I knew that it would spike and I needed to mix it out aide the tank.

Water and sand added. Now I'm just monitoring water quality.

You dont even have the overflow done. Why do you have water in it? Your skipping quite a few steps. You need to take your time. Slow it down and follow all the steps in the right order. Nothing good comes from moving fast in this hobbie. You need to do your research and slow it all down

I wasn't going to do the overflow from the start. I decided to do that after I filled it up. For now I'm not going to do the overflow. I'm going to save up and buy one as it stands right now.

So what do you have for filteration? That skimmer is nowhere near big enough for a 60 gallon tank

This skimmer does over 300 gph and I have a canister filter. The skimmer is for a tank up 90 gallon tank.

Just because it can pump that much water through the skimmer dosent mean it can skim a 300 gallon tank. Thats the size pump i have on my skimmer also but its a bigger skimmer its rated for up to a 200 gallon tank. So its not the amount of water your pump does its what the actual skimmer is rated at. Canister filters are a no go. The trap ditrus and stuff and raise your nitrates. Although yours is a fowler so i dont know

I tend to agree, skimmers are marketed on the speculative side. If the skimmer says it's rated for a 125 gallon tank, usually that's unwritten code for a 60 gallon tank. A good rule of thumb is to cut the number in half.

It seems that you went with a sump and then decided to change your mind. May I ask why? Is it because of the flooding incident? I was reading about your micro bubble issue and having your skimmer in a sump will definitely fix your problem.

These kind of hiccups aren't uncommon, many new reefers go through them from time to time, I found a lot out the hard way, I wish that I knew about these on line forums earlier, I would have saved so much money by reading and learning from others (expensive) mistakes. But you live, You learn and what doesn't kill you makes you smarter.

So I'm not looking at a bare tank, I printed out pics of the fish I want and I taped them to the glass. I have walked in the the room several times now and was like "WOW" there are fish in there. LMAO.