Prepping the Space

Since the 90-gallon peninsula moved to the basement last week, the space has been cleared for the new tank. The new 144-gallon (60 × 30 × 20 inches) aquarium will be in place for years, so this seemed like the best chance to paint and finish the area properly. We chose a very dark navy blue so that photos taken through the tank would have a dark, glare-free backdrop that makes the fish and corals stand out.

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I pulled all the hot-water radiators so I could prep and spray-paint them and undo 50 years of wear. The black line running through the wall in the picture above is the fresh-air intake for the protein skimmer. It’s amazing how fast a project snowballs.

Painting turned out to take much longer than anticipated — it took three coats of Sherwin-Williams Emerald before the navy covered evenly. Disassembling, sanding, prepping, and spray-painting the radiators out in the shop took a couple of days. I also decided to try painting one of the windows white and to save the rest for next summer.

Once the paint was dry I slid the tank into place temporarily to see how we liked it. Nearly a month had passed since we picked it up, so this was our first real look at it in its new home.

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I’ve landed on dual return pumps at about 1,500 gallons per hour, total which will be about 10 times hourly turnover on the 144-gallon tank. After running the head calculations I’m considering the Simplicity 1600 DC pump. Next up is the plumbing layout and parts lists: dual 1.5-inch drains and dual 1-inch returns, reduced to 3/4 inch at the bulkhead. The UV unit will be plumbed inline on one pump’s return; the other return line will run carbon and granular ferric oxide (GFO) reactors plus a spare tap for future use.

Lighting is getting most of the consideration right now: sorting through existing fixtures and deciding what can be reused and what needs to be sourced. I may build a hanging rack from 2020-series aluminum extrusion instead of using the EcoTech RMS hardware, which seems flimsy, exorbitantly priced, and less versatile when combining different fixtures.

Fixtures currently on hand: