Bushman goes large

For those who never saw the beginings of my round tank 2 years ago and my adivtion to this hobby I will stsrt this thread with a few very early shots, then where I got to and and now the big upgrade to my current dream. Like most of you I will either pack it in after this tank or probably even want to go bigger.

Almost 2 years ago to the date I started my very fisrt tank, a round tak although many people said it would be very hard work trying to keep the glass clean. They where right it was a real pain in the but.

Day one 2 years ago



Slowly the system matured and it got better and better but many hard leason on the way with the odd expensive mistake

The sump was moved out of the cuboard below because of damp and space problems


Then the first of the stock went in, that green carpet was a nightmare and eneded eating half of my fisrt fish in the tank. it was removed soon after.

The tank slowly got better and better and I was loving it but tragedy struck while I was on leave my secretary or some one spilt a large amout of water and the base of the tank started to collapse over night. This was an emergency time and I had to call in all kinds of favours and start all over again. My dad, northlands pets and a few others all jumped to my help and in 72 hours the tank was started up again but with a few changes from the aqua scaping to the design to the lights





New lighting box with MH and a new computer, sump, calcium reactor where all addded.

Then time went on and the tank slowly settled and SPS corals where added and I thought I was becoming a real pro. I was getting good growth and the tank looked better very day

Tank moving on



tank getting even better


SPS growing well and tank at posibly its peak

Then I had my fisrt baby, went on holiday and BANG, the system just went on a slide down hill with an invation of flat worm killing some of my LPS corals, a crash and it went south. All the ahrd work over the prvoius 2 years just seemed to dispear and the system just has never recovered. I am not 100% sure what happened but it a combination of being left to someone else to look after, not spending enough time onthe tank because of a baby, too mush frozen food and poor water supply.

So with a lot of planning and thinking I will be starting all over again


NEW TANK, 1670 LITRES OF HOPEFULLY PERFECTION

Keep watching as I start the journey

Wow that tank was really looking awesome. Hopefully the new one will be at least just as awesome. You should find it a lot easier working with a custom tank instead of trying to retrofit and modify everything etc...

Sorry for all the TYPO's I just been rushing through this part a bit

Its been two years since I built my first salt water reef tank. At the time I did not listen to some valuable advice and built a system in a round tank. The tank has had its highs and lows but all in all I have loved every min of having the tank. However it has had a number of very seriuos limitations and circulation and placemnet have really been a head ache.

So in december I started to plan a new tank. I have spen hours reading threads on this site and others and have finnaly come up with what I belive will be an incredible tank. I will need a lot of help on the way and want as much imput as possible.


The new tank:

It will sit in the middle of my lounge and act as a room divider with three of the sides being viewed. The size will be 2000mm long x 950mm wide and 750mm high. The sump will be on one of the short sides and will have 3 holes drilled in it. One for the drain and 2 for the returns but will allow enough room on either side to accomodate my 4 x 6200 tunze power heads. The return lines will be plumbed back down into the tank running on the bottom of the tank with multipul exits.

Sump: still not sure on the design and would love some help from all you reefers. I will need it to fit below the tank and leave enough room for my chiller and skimmer ect ect ect. I do however want to run a DSB in the sump.

Pumps 2 x Ehuim pimps running side by side one always backing up the other.

Water movement, 4 x TUNZE 6200 powerheads controlled by a 7095 multi controller.

Sytem: aquatronic computer

Lighting : self made light box haging from my roof with 4 x 150 MH lights and 8 x 80watt T5

Skimmer: New Reefteck Skimmer

Calcium reactor: will need to change my Deltec reactor, I have had lots of problems with it and would not buy another Deltec. Any suggestion would be great.

RO/DI unit: Here I have had the most problems as the water I have to use comes from boresholes and has a ppm of 1100 up. I ahve a 7 stage RO unit but will be adding a proper water softener, a 2000 litre tank to the system.

Chiller; I plan to by a Halei chiller but I am open to suggestions.

Stand: Will be making this out of 50mm steel myself. This will stand 1 meter high and have 3 uprights. Does this sound oaky????. It will be bolted to the floor.

Live rock 120 kg plus 40 kg of ceramic rock

I am in the proccess of getting as many quotes on the tank build and the extra equipment as I can and then hopefull be started in the next 2 weeks. I have already built the light box and will be building the electrical box.

This is the view of the tank currently



This will be the proposed new view of the tank, so pretty much twice the size of the original tank



And here was the insperation. I will not be doing as much SPS as this tank that featured in reef central but will be doing more LPS and soft corals

Here are the plans and drawing and bits of paper that make up the design of the new tank

Next was the equipment to be collected changed and bought. Here are just a few examples of what I had, and what I have bought.



Had to play a bit with this stuff could not wait


Built a light box that took hours of work, but have decided to no loger use


Skimmer to be used

Here is the light system that I have purchased to replace that huge black box that I built


The new RO/ DI AND RESIN SYSTEM taking my 1890ppm water to 1- 20 ppm. This will make a huge different to my tanks health and happines I hope.

I will have to cont later, photo bucket keeps crashing. Not sure why but will keep the pics coming.

This is going to be a cracker. Look forward to your progress reports.

Re Calc RTeactor...Never used a Deltec calcium reactor, but have found Aqua medic to be reliable. Currently running a two chamber ReefTek as well which i have also found reliable after 16 months of use.

this is gonna be one wicked system.you got some awsome equipment bushman!i hear that those Deltec Carx work extremely well

That is/was the best aquascaping I've seen in a round tank. Your new one should be awesome!

Sounds like some real good planning that has gone in there Bushman, and with that much thought it will be a stunner

Wow, bushman. You suppose to do small things like the small bushman.

That is going to an awesome tank, another attraction other than the Kruger in your part of the world

Awesome tank. Sorry to hear about the losses. Can't wait to see your new tank.

silvano14 said:

Awesome tank. Sorry to hear about the losses. Can't wait to see your new tank.

Click to expand...

Silvano, What's with your tanks parameters ?

bushman said:

This will be the proposed new view of the tank, so pretty much twice the size of the original tank

Click to expand...

Should have rather added another round Tank, you would save a lot and I think it looks quite cool...