Where to buy a quality reef ready tank (either local or online)?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could make any suggestions of good places to go either local to the New England (I live in MA) area or online in which I could order a good quality reef ready tank?

Has anyone ordered pre-drilled tank online that they are happy with? I'm looking to buy something at least 30 gallons in size. I found one site that looked as though they built custom tanks but then looked like they got nothing but poor reviews. Ideally it would be nice to at least see pictures on a web site so that I would at least be able to look at what I was purchasing.

I am running a 10 gallon tank at the moment that I would probably convert to a QT for fish and corals. I also have an additional 10 gallon tank that I would probably modify to make into a sump.

Thank you for any input you may be able to provide.

 

if you can wait, i expect a lot of aquariums to hit craigslist after that storm on the east coast.

 

A few sites that I have found online are:

Quality Custom Aquarium Manufacturer | Toronto Canada and
Glasscages.com - Home

Just curious if anyone has used either of these places and what their thoughts were? I'd like to go with a new setup in terms of ordering a tank.

This may be a bit off topic for this thread, but where ideally is a good place to have the overflow holes drilled and which sizes are good? The tank size I am thinking of is around 30 gallons.

 

Get a Red Sea Max tank. They look so good. I have seen a couple at the LFS and they are really really well designed and set up. They can now even go to 650L!!!!

 

I assume you won't really find much in the way of a 30 gallon-ish factory drilled.

You're best to go with a 40B and drill it yourself. The 40B has best dimensions of the "smaller" tanks. (If I didn't put so much time into building my stand, I would have went with one)
There are tons of threads and vids out there on the how to steps.
If you're feeling ambitious, do a bean animal overflow.

If not, then just do a gla$$-holes overflow.

 

Thanks for the input...I like the idea of having a plug and play system. I currently have a 10 gallon setup, but that is proving very difficult to manage/maintain so upgrading to a 30 gallon tank may help, and if I'm going to do that, I should probably have the holes drilled for me with the overflow box preinstalled.

I'm thinking of starting very slowly and maybe only having a sump with a filter sock and protein skimmer with the possibility of adding a refugium to at a later date. I probably would not add corals immediately either and just go slow to make sure I keep all levels of salinity, etc working. I'm also hitting the point where I will probably need to get my own RO/DI unit as I am getting sick of going to petco to buy their premade salt water every time I need to do a water change.

I'm trying to get going with the minimal amount of things so I can expand as I learn about the hobby so I don't want to make any decisions that could limit me later on.

 

What is 40B? Does that equate to 40 Tall? I would definitely not mind doing that. The girlfriend is slowly becoming a factor. She is starting to take an interest and understands that not much can be housed in a 10 gallon tank.

I'm pretty sure I'm limitted to having only one fish in my 10 gallon at the moment (a clownfish). I just lost my firefish yesterday. I checked the levels of everything in the water..ammonia and nitrite were both at 0 and the nitrate was at 20. I did a 20% water change to attempt to lower that. The water temp was at about 81, which I definitely know I need to lower. The firefish seemed to be eating, although I am not sure if the clownfish became too dominant and stole most of the pellets I was putting in the tank.

Oh well, it is obvious there are a lot of things I need to learn and the 10 gallon tank is not too conducive to doing that because I am seeing there is very little room for failure.

 

check out Aquariums & Sumps, they have tons of reef ready tanks and prices aren't bad. Innovative Marine has some nice all in one tanks that look quite nice, but a little pricey.

 

If you don't wanna drill glass and want a plug and play system, then you should be checking out craigslst for a bio cube or a complete used system. I think there is a handful on there in MA right now.

The Innovative Marine Nuvo tanks look sharp but I don't know much about the LEDs they come with to sustain corals.


I think if you going to a bigger tank your main thoughts should be:

1. go as big (gallons) as you can / do you need a new stand now too?
2. what do I want to keep in it?
3. what kind of lights do I need (can I afford) for that?
4. equipment list: sump, socks, protein skimmer, reactor(s), display powerheads, return pump, heater(s), ato, rodi unit, refractometer. the never ending list that adds up quick!


The tank investment will be pretty cheap compared to the lights, skimmer and the rest of the equipment needed.

Get as much from craigslst as you can!


Ohhh yeah, and a 40B is a 40 breeder NOT a 40 tall.
It really has awesome, awesome dimensions for a reef tank.
36" x 18" x 16" I believe

 

Thank you for that tidbit about the "B" designation. I'm trying to read up on as many of these threads as I can so I can avoid asking questions that have been asked already. In my line of work there are a ton of different acronyms.

I do not currently have a stand. My 10 gallon is actually sitting on a piece of furniture in my room, however, there is no sump, it has an HOB filter.

Ideally, I would like to have a few clownfish and potentially some gobbies, along with a cleanup crew. Maybe a green chromis or two. I would like to eventually start adding corals and anemone as well.