While in the military, I use to do a lot of scuba diving. Since I was stationed mostly in the South Pacific I had a prime seat for some awesome reef creatures. I have wanted to build a Reef Aquarium since I retired but being in a wheelchair not able to reach the inside of the tank to clean and maintain it has stopped me in the past. However, with the iBOT in four wheel function raised all the way up, I can reach into a 48" high tank just fine.

I want to thank Richard and Andy of Memfish for helping me get this all together and educating me along the way, Dave of Kermit's Reef for pointing me to the right books, all the members of WTMRAC for putting up with all my beginner questions and last I want to thank Andy McCord of Independence Technology - without his help with the iBOT none of this would of been possible.

How We Did It

Making rocks:
I started out by roughly figuring out what size tank I wanted and what I wanted it to look like. Since I had a few months before I was getting it I did a lot of research and started out making DIY rocks for the aquascaping.

I used 3 parts play sand, 1 part shell and coral bits, 1 part portland cement, 1 part (give or take a bit) water. I mix all that up to a good consistency then I add 1 part rock salt and stir it in. Then I poke it into a mold that is really just a box of wet play sand shaped how I want it and put holes all through them.

I made 3 tubs full of different sizes and shapes then I soaked them for 6 weeks to leech out all the salt and get the PH right.

The Tank:
I bought a used tank 45" wide, 36" front to back and 21" tall that included the stand, sump, skimmer and pumps.

The bottom is drilled with 7 - 1" holes and (3 in each overflow and 1 between the overflows) and 4 - 1/2" holes (in each corner for the return from the closed loop).

This was a perfect setup for me except for the stand was a bit too tall. So my next project was to build a new stand.

With the stand complete I painted the back and bottom of the tank flat black and mounted it on the stand.

Plumbing - I have learned a lot from this little project and one thing that really sticks out in my mind is that "I am not a plumber" and I don't want to be either. So many pipes in such a tight space. I'll briefly explain how I did the plumbing:

The drain - I used four of the 1" holes in the overflows for the drain. 3 of them drop straight down to the skimmer side of the sump one is reduced to 1/2" and includes a gate valve that drains to the refugium.

The Return - I plumbed a Mag 12 pump (1200 GPH) to two of the holes in the overflows. I did use ball joints and unions where needed.

The closed loop - I'm using a Gen X-40 (1200 GPH) to pull water from the 1" hole between the overflow boxes and send them to the 4 - 1/2" holes in the corners. I started out using one of the new SQWD's to alternate the flow from one side to the other. However, it stuck after one day of operation so I pulled it out and plumed in a straight tee instead. The SQWD is a neat simple concept but in my opinion they need better built parts inside it. Needless to say it went back to the store.

Aquascaping
This is where the fun starts.

I mounted the bottom layer of DIY rocks on 1/4" plexiglass to help keep them off the glass bottom.

Since all the rocks I made had plenty of holes in them - Cindy used 1/4" plexiglass rods to stack the rocks on top of each other.

This made a pretty strong wall with no chance of an avalanche.

We added about 120 pounds of live sand and filled it with RODI water.

Got all the salt and parameters right and I added about 23 pounds of live rock to the top of the DIY rock structure and then clipped off the rods.

Then we added 2 bags of Bio-Spera and a few fish to start off the cycle. And now we wait for the cycle to finish.