Reef aquariums from scratch in Hawaii

LarryGaddis

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum, but I've been following it for awhile. The more I read, the more I realize I have yet to learn. Hawaii is a terrific place to keep a marine aquarium, but a somewhat difficult place to acquire one. I want to set up a 125-150 gallon drilled reef tank with a large sump situated behind a wall in a storeroom behind the display room. So far, I can't find anyone who will ship a predrilled tank to Honolulu. Need advice. Should I just buy a plate glass tank and have a glass shop here drill it? Can tempered glass be drilled? Is a plexiglass bottom a viable option? Thanks for any advice or direction.

zof

I think your best bet will be to find your local salt water fish shop and see what they can do with a special order for you, where you can't get shipments they can since they know the merchants. And they might even have a supplier on the island that makes custom tanks. Plus it might even be cheaper since they will receive it with the shipment of all their other stuff.

onefish2fish

i personally am not a fan of reef-ready tanks. yes, they do make setting up a tank easier, but their oversized overflows take up way to much room to be in my tanks, and alot of them even have 2 corner overflows.
at the same time of not enjoying the reef ready's bulky overflow box, i must say im not a fan of hang on overflows either as they always seem to fail and flood your floor. i personally have been a large fan of the glass-holes overflow boxes as they are pretty small esp. compared to a reef ready tank and they still get the job done. these overflows do require the back wall of your tank to be drilled, which if it is tempered it CANNOT be drilled, period. tempered glass shatters when drilled.

LarryGaddis

Thanks very much. I'll read up on glass-holes overflow boxes. I hadn't heard of that option.