1000 Gallon Saltwater Tank FILLED with Rare Corals + Shark Pond Project!

All right, reefers. We've got a familiar face next to me, but we've got a brand new one. Brad, thank you for having us over. Gio, good to have you again on the channel. Today, we're going to be talking about a insane tank. If you're checking out the system we're looking at right next to me, it's out of this world. This one's a big one. So, this is going to be quite the interview. Let's go ahead dive right into it. Brad, what's the dimensions of the tank? And how big is this system? It's 8 ftx 5 ft by 40 in tall. So, it's uh 1,000 gallons. There's the garage. I think it's a 3 or 400gallon sump. And then we've got one other uh kind of frag system tied into it. And then how do you get to this point, right? I mean, when did you start reefing? And how did you get to this point where you're like, you know what, I think I need a thousand gallon tank in my living room. All right. So, uh I I was in uh when I was young, was probably 5 years old. My uncle had uh and things were way different back then. and everything was manual testing and you know kind of guess work. He had like 125 gallon in the in his wall and he gave me uh uh a yellow tank that he had in quarantine and a 35gallon tank and that's how it started when I was like 5 years old. Uh I back and that was back in Canada uh back before I moved down here and then I got out of the hobby for about 10 years you know school moving around a lot uh I actually grew up racing pro motocross so being on the road for racing uh didn't have the tanks anymore. We sold sold everything off. Then when my daughter was born, she's now six. That is right when I got back into it because for me it was such a I loved learning. I loved the science when I was a kid. Wanted to do the same thing with her and it was a way that we could share share something together. So been back in it for 6 years. Uh and then a year ago when we moved to this house, uh we decided, you know, I one of the things I was looking at when buying a house is where could I fit a monster tank? Uh, and because I knew that, you know, I had a it was like 250 g. It was completely packed head, you know, stuff was getting shaded. I'm like, I need something big. You know, I don't want to run out of space, but then you always run out of space eventually. Uh, but yeah, we uh that was kind of the first thing first thing when changing the house here when before we even moved in was getting the system up and going. So, you said you kind of got into this home about almost a year ago. The tank is under a year old at this point. Just over a year. Just over a year. So, the first thing we did when we bought the house was the tank and we worked building that system for a month and then we moved in uh just from like 2 mi down the road. Moved in about a month later and that's when we did the transfer. Now, that's how to do it. You focus the entire house around the fish tank. That's that's what we're talking about. That is the best way to go about it. Now, let's talk about your livestock. You said you kind of have a mixture of things in here. Obviously, we've got a bunch of gardens of different things. Why did you go with the mixed reef? How did we end up with all of these truly sick corals? I mean, there's some crazy stuff in here, man. Uh, always just loved LPS, the colors. Uh, but then whenever you're dealing, like I said, my last tank was same just just actually a little bit taller. It was much smaller tank, but it was a tall tank. Uh, but when you're dealing with uh to get to get light onto the sand bed, you're obviously going to cook anything you put up top. So, uh, you know, it just makes sense when you have a tank this deep that if you want to, you know, keep if you want to fill the tank full of coral, you're going to have to have some stuff that handles some real high light up top versus, you know, everything else down below is where the LPS is. Very much like the natural reef, right? We've got an old SPS up top and we're kind of slowly working our way. The scape, looking at it, you know, this way looking in, I love the scape and how it's been developed. Did you guys build the scape here on site in the tank of your guys' cells? Yeah. Uh, so I I basically have been building it out over time just like anything. I mean, the last tank took me, you know, 2 years to kind of perfect the scape. It's still a work in progress, but uh, you know, Gio's been helping me out the last couple months now, and we've just slowly building up over time. You know, I don't want to throw in too much fresh, dry rock at one point, so we'll slowly we've been slowly building it up taller and taller, and hopefully we will, you know, get everything to where the acros are coming out of the top like the old system when it was nice and mature. For sure. And then the fish in the tank. There's a wide range of fish. Seems like you've definitely decided to go with a lot of good utility fish in this tank, but there's definitely some fish in this tank that aren't utility fish. They're for looks. Let's talk about your choice on the fish you went with in here. The other thing, too, that I think people tend to forget is with our tanks, it's crazy when you get a system this big, right? You really allow the fish to grow out to a sheer size that they would normally grow out to. How did we decide all the fish in here? Uh, it's kind of a mixture. So, uh, most I'm going to say the majority of the fish in here are tangs and rases, and that's just preference to what I like. And obviously, they're the most reef safe, uh, for for a lot of the nice fish. You know, I love some of the angels and stuff, but every time I throw in, you know, uh, you know, Japanese mass swallow tail, you know, he's been sitting in my sump for 6 months because he started eating my meat corals. So, you know, you got a $1,000 fish sitting in a sump for the last 6 months. uh he'll eventually move into the outdoor uh pond with with the sharks and everything else. But uh a lot of it's just a mixture of the fish that I like and then when uh like I said, I got back into this is a hobby I kind of share a lot with my daughter. Uh she picks out fish and if they're reef safe, they go in here. If they're not reef safe, they're currently in with the sharks in the garage. All right, cats out of the bag. You've already said it. Now we got the talks of doing a giant shark pond in the backyard. Let's talk a little bit about that project cuz hopefully we'll be able to come back down here and whatever amount of time it is once that's up and rolling. Let's talk about the project that's going on in the backyard. Yeah. So, uh always always wanted a giant pond and uh well kind of it's kind of halfway between a pond and aquarium because we do have right right off to your left we've got you know 3 3-in acrylic that is going to form the uh the windows into the house. So, uh, wanted something big enough that I could, you know, we have a tough time scaping this because of, uh, the lights and everything here. So, we wanted something that we could actually go snorkeling in the backyard with. So, that's the size of the pond. Uh, unfortunately, when it comes to the acrylic, unless we get some, uh, some polar reef type magnets, we are definitely going to have to get in there to to clean to clean the acrylic. And you know, it's something I grew up uh He says we Yeah, I've I've I've gone diving, you know, since I was a child all across the world. I mean, like Bora Bora, just about every single island in the Caribbean you can think of. You know, sharks have always been sharks and reefs in general have been uh kind of a passion of mine since I was a kid. So, you know, to integrate that into my house, to me, it's just it's peaceful. It's something that I'm always learning, always growing. Uh yeah, and like I said, you know, as much as my we got into this together, my my daughter, she she likes she likes the fish, she she's, you know, whatever about the coral. She thinks that, you know, cool colors, whatever. She has her favorites. Uh but really, like the sharks in the garage, she names them. She feeds them. Like she is the most passionate of anything about the sharks. So, what I said was, "Okay, we're going to build something we can swim in." The shark whisperer basically. I mean, she's at the right age. We could toss her in here and have her start scrubbing the tank, but that's what Gio's for. Gio, let's talk about what is your role with this system here. And you know, I'm sure people are kind of curious. We obviously saw your tank. Why are you here with us today? Well, so I do come here pretty frequent. Uh I help Brad with whatever he needs help with. When it comes down to, you know, gluing stuff, um you know, the rock work, like we said, we've been building that up. Um, now that we're starting to add some sticks, um, we had to raise the scape a little bit and, uh, we're still going to work on that slowly. But yeah, um, maintenance-wise, I mean, you know, changing the reef max in the back, I mean, this thing is fully loaded when it comes to equipment, and it's a lot to do for one person. So, uh, that that's the reason why, you know, you need somebody this size system. And that's the thing too is I was doing it completely by myself for the first 8 months and it was it it was brutal because you know I'd work all day and then I'd come home and just have more work. Especially before the tanks really uh matured. You know that first year is always where you're going to get the swings. The most work is in the first year. You know my my old tank uh you know I never I didn't do a water change for a year and stuff was insane. You know it was so dialed in. Uh but especially in that first year I just didn't have the time the energy. So thankfully I got got he's helped me out. I think that's very true in the fact that, you know, that first year that you have your system, there's a lot of tinkering during that first year. It's not just something you set and forget. You really kind of got to get in swing in things. And like you said, you got a full-time job. A lot of people watching at home, they've got a full-time gig. You know, reefing isn't our full-time job. We wish it was, right? I mean, but sometimes it's hard to work all day long, come home, and then you immediately got to start scrubbing 1,000 gallons worth of, you know, acrylic here. But let's talk now about the maintenance side for water changes, things like that, and then also the equipment. We'll talk kind of start from the top and work our way down. What kind of lights are we running on top here? Uh we went with the ATI Stratton Pros. Uh I got six of them up top. Uh they are amazing for spread. Uh the thing is like like I was explaining to you earlier, uh they they're super powerful light. So even though as tall as this tank is, I only run they only peak at 40%. And that's because I started bleaching stuff on the sand bed when I had them at 50%. Uh they are very powerful lights and you know that they've been great. They've been great for me for you know the the year I've had them. I kind of got them when they they first came out. You were mentioning too as well to me the schedule's a little different, right? So people like to do this a lot where the schedule kind of starts a little later in the day. So you can end up enjoying it once you're back from work and all that good stuff. What's the schedule for the lights themselves? So the schedule is Yeah. Uh, you know, at one point I had the typical sunset, you know, or sunrise sunset and you get home in, you know, half the year, the winter time. You get home at 6:00 and your tank's dark. You don't get to enjoy it. So, uh, you know, I transitioned everything over, you know, a few week period. This was probably, you know, 2 3 years ago back in the other system where, uh, the lights now come on at they start ramping up at 11:30 and they shut off at 11:30 at night. That way, you know, it's 5 6:00 is when everything is the most open, you know, peak peak lighting for it. So, we did shift everything uh in that sense. We'll showcase some shots of the sump area in the back. But, let's talk a little bit about that, too. So, completely separate from the system right directly here. It's over on the backside in the garage. So, can we talk a little bit about that system? Yeah. So, uh first thing we did was everything is plumbed through the wall. A lot of stuff off the shelf. they don't make for sized for 1,000 gallons. It's even harder uh when we started researching for the pond in the commercial systems. Uh so the sump was custom built. I believe it's 300 g. It's it's 8 ft by 3 ft by I'm going to say what 2 ft tall. Uh everything in there is uh everything in in there was like the calcium reactors, the ozone reactors, those were custom made by Geo's Reef. Uh, not this geo, but another geo's reef. Uh, everything else is pretty much exclus other other than I run five roller mats on the system from Red Sea. Uh, just about everything else is Royal exclusive or a biz just because uh in the past I I know that those products are bulletproof. Uh, especially on a tank this size, you can't afford for something to go down. And I actually had there was there was one issue that I had with one of the new uh one of the new Royal exclusive pumps and it was just an odd thing that went went on. We don't know if it it was corroded by ozone, but it has a carbon fiber shaft. And I couldn't believe, you know, the service with them was, you know, they uh I I met I I called them at 6:00 p.m. the one night, sent them a picture, and by 8:00 a.m. the next morning, I had a full fully new system. So, you know, it was I explained to them the value of everything in it and they no no questions asked, they sent it over. So, uh you know, a lot of the stuff the equipment wise has been sourced uh you know, German products. I mean the ocean motion sea swirls that I use for for moving for moving the wave makers uh the panoray uh however you say it uh those were you know l luckily for for me my brother was over in Germany uh this past summer and uh was they they won't ship to the US they won't even ship out of Europe so uh luckily they shipped they expedited it to him in Germany and he brought them back back back back to me uh so you know a lot of the stuff is uh Germanbased uh uh couple reasons. It just the stuff seems to last longer and it's, you know, more bulletproof. Things are made out of better materials, whether it's titanium uh or whatever. Uh the other thing is the how cool the systems run. I remember when I first switched from uh I I think I had Ecote Tech pumps in the old system and you know, between the pumps and the UV, it would raise the water several degrees. Uh, I switched to an Abyss pump and all of a sudden I never heard my chiller go on once. Wow. Uh, because just switching the main return pump dropped dropped the temperature in the tank by like 4°. Uh, so when I built this system, you know, with all those things in mind, I just kind I just went with, you know, the German stuff from the start. Gio, I'm curious to ask you when you're dealing with this tank, what's the what's one of the more difficult parts of maintaining this tank and dealing with this system? Sure. So, I think uh the fact that it's acrylic, right? I mean, you kind of need that because of the size obviously and dimensions of that, but um cleaning acrylic, you need to be very careful um as it scratches super easy. So, that's a big thing. Um the depth of the tank, that is probably one of our greatest challenges. Um especially when it comes down to coral placement, too. Um, so I would say for me that's that's the number one thing is the acrylic and the depth. Yeah. I I mean you're basically swimming anytime you got to get into that tank. You just showed me your goggles you got. You got to do some swimming to really get into this tank. As for the numbers, what are the numbers we're shooting for in this system as far as what parameters? You know, your nitrates, your alkalinity, kind of those numbers right around there. What are some of the numbers we're shooting for in this system? I've never been much of a numbers chaser. It's always been stability. Uh, ever since starting to keep SPS, then I I did have to bring the nutrients down quite a bit. Uh, I pretty much maintain the nutrients uh between an algae scrubber and then just how much I feed the fish. Uh, but number-wise, uh, I've always noticed that ganis, for instance, uh, tend to love higher magnesium. So I do run mag high usually right around the 1500 range. Calcium I've, you know, everything's on a calcium reactor to begin with. So alkalinity and stuff stay stable. I do prefer lower elk uh than most because I've noticed that the uh the chalicees like a little bit of a lower range and then a lot of the uh Malaysian SPS also naturally comes from a lot lower alk. Uh although you know that brings other challenges with you know maintaining pH and you've got a little more swings. Uh al alkalinity I t my my sweet spot is about seven. Uh calcium typically st it's stable between 430 and 450. I mean, when you're dealing with water volume this size, uh, you don't really have big swings, uh, per se. Like, you have to something really has to go wrong to to when you're dealing with, you know, 1,500 gallons total system volume. Uh, something has to go really wrong to have a big swing. So, you know, things are pretty stable at this point. Yeah, you definitely aren't going to have huge swings. And I think that's one of the reasons why we try to push people into a little bit bigger tanks when they're getting into the hobby. you know, try to have a little bit more water volume just cuz you have a little bit more room for error, especially if you're new in the hobby, being able to learn and understand it. You mentioned feeding. What are we feeding the fish and the corals? What are the different things we're feeding? Uh, I don't So, everything in here, if it's coral wise, everything's broadcast fed once, maybe twice a week. Uh, the products I typically use are, again, I don't even know how to say it's German, that coral and zuk, dirt zuk. Uh, I've had a lot of success with their products over the past kind of two years. Uh, if anything does require spot feeding, like say a fish nips at a coral and I'm afraid of, you know, I can see something setting in bacterial wise, I'll treat it. We've got the system in the back where that's where I'll do spot feeding if necessary. Uh, but nothing really in here gets spotfed. uh fish. It's literally a slushie of like 10 different types of frozen foods with, you know, got loaded micis. Uh there's a it's varying because there's a lot of fish in here. We've got small fish that are an inch long. We've got fish that are a foot long. So, you know, it I have to kind of feed a slushie where it's everything from caviar to mices to to uh krills, stuff that's a lot smaller than obviously the corals are going to pick up. Uh then I pretty much I nutrient- enhance that with silkcon and then I feed uh because of the amount of tangs and you know I've turned stuff that's supposed to be a carnivore into into a herbivore just based off of the amount of seaweed I feed. But the nori sheets I on any given day I'll probably put in like six full sheets of nori uh because they're always they're like they'll follow me around the tank for it. Yeah, I'm sure they're willing to take it. That's a great point. I think people tend to forget that too with some of the different fish species we're putting in systems. The mouth size is going to be completely different. I look at the cleaner rass that's not going to be able to take down the giant pieces of micis and the things that maybe the tangs are going to be able to take down. Now you've duded something that kind of debunks a lot of what people are talking about. Gio had the same situation. You've got tons of scolies. You got tons of aanthos. You've got bower bankankies. You got all these, you know, meat corals that want to eat all the time and you're not really going out of your way to spot feed them. You're basically just letting the tank feed it. Yeah. I mean, they'll if if there's uh I I do feed pretty heavy, so a lot of times they're they're going to pick up whatever uh is is not fed by the, you know, eaten by the fish right away. But, you know, I I remember when I first started keeping Ghanis, you know, I've always loved ganis, for instance, and I remember a couple years ago, they're like people are telling you you can't keep them. They're so hard to keep uh longterm. And ganis are one of the things that I've had so much success with. And to be honest, I never spot feed ganies. Never have. Uh they just they they pick up whatever's in the water column. As long as you've got good water movement and the nutrients are kind of flowing around the tank, they're they seem to be happy. You do have a tip that I'm interested to for everybody to hear at home. You've got a group of Australian hammers and you said you kind of found a little, you know, snippet of it of advice that's really kind of worked out well for you. Yeah. So, it's it's specifically the what the the Australian wall hammers are the ones they call hybrids, which they're kind of like a a giant branching hammer. They will branch uh they have big like 3 4 in heads. They they had they will split. It'll take a long time for them, you know, sometimes 2 years and they have split on me. But the ones that are, you know, big fat polip, the ones that are typically the that people, you know, love that the super bright colors, uh, the two things that I I found to keep them longterm, uh, for one, lower light than typical euphilia, even indo hammers, you know, uh, the smaller branching hammers you get from Aussie, they can handle more light, more flow. the when it comes to the big walls and you know slashhybrid hammers uh I use reverse flow on them which is basically I've got power heads positioned directly above them as well as returns so instead of blowing uh you know flow at them to keep them moving it's always sucking uh you know water away from them to keep them clean. Uh, and that's that's a big thing because with them, if you've got no flow at all, it's almost guaranteed you're going to get, you know, something's going to build up and you're going to end up in a bacterial infection and you're going to lose it. Uh, you know, so by constantly drawing water away from them, it pulls anything that may settle on them away. And I've had a lot of success with keeping them. The only other thing with those specific hammers is I've uh I typically keep them a lot lower light compared to, you know, what a lot of other euphilia and even other hammers take. Uh, you know, I typically keep them in less than 100 PAR. And if I move when I do move them up, it's very slow and incrementally. You know, the big thing with cleanup crew, right? And I think Jake Adams really hammered this home a lot was we have to be the cleanup crew, right? We need to be one of the main herbivores as you're working through some of the cleanup crew. I know you're one of the main cleanup crew members here in this tank, Gio. But let's talk about some of the different cleanup crew members we have in this tank to keep a,000 gallons, right? This is a lot of space. I know some people put in, you know, a lot of cleanup crew into smaller systems. How much cleanup crew are we putting into a tank this big? Uh, a lot of them are self-reroducing at this point. even stuff that doesn't typically and that may be because of the volume of this tank that it's a lot more I guess akin to uh being out in the wild the stuff that doesn't normally I guess self reproduce in smaller tanks uh but there are there's literally hundreds of naria snails uh I've got probably I can see five or six active harlequin shrimp at any given time for some reason so I've got a few different cleaner shrimp and the the cool thing we discover covered with the harlequin shrimp is I I do have some basslets in here. Rainbow basslet. If I put a peppermint shrimp in, for instance, doesn't matter night or day, he will snipe them in a second. Uh, and they're 2 3 in shrimp. Whereas harlequins, I don't know what it is, whether they can't see them or they they just, you know, scare them off. The basslets don't touch them. The harlequins I've put in here, you know, less than an inch and they'll be out roaming day in the daytime on corals and they're not touched at all. So, you have a good amount of harlequins to kind of keep the uh the inevitable asteras at bay. Uh, and then aside from that, just a mix of snails. Uh, but obviously the biggest kind of cleanup crew that I've always uh liked, I don't really typically ever never really cleaned a sand bed in any of my tanks. Uh, but I always have had a ton of either sand like not not either, a combination of sandifting stars, different types of neerius. Uh, there's there's one under here that you can barely see the top of. He's literally like a a 6-in necessarious type snail. He's he's huge. Uh so multiple varieties of sand sifters. You've got a bunch of different species of clowns in the tank. Do you think you kind of have that success due to the sheer size of the system allowing them to have their own little 1 ft cubic space and they kind of be able to set up shop right there? Is that what do you think has the most success of being able to have cuz I'm seeing all kinds of different clowns and then I also see a bigger clarky or something of that sort. one of those uh omenis the ones from the sea of Oman. Okay. Uh yeah. So the clowns are they're are hit and miss. Uh the dominant one is definitely the white female and there have been some that I've had to take take out because even though it is 1,000 gallons, she will chase them around the tank. Uh, I think a lot of that came down to luck because she's she's kind of uh there there's a herm of her and uh there's her and three males that all kind of usually share the one big gnie and uh she typically lays eggs with the one male once a month. Uh and I don't know if it's that the other males she she's just fine with them. Uh but there there definitely has been, you know, times where she's bullied them out other ones out. Uh, this tank is really impressive. I mean, there's so many things we could talk about. You know, you've got the clam right up front here in the middle. How long have you had the clam in your tank? Uh, we haven't actually had that that long. Probably about 6 months. But, uh, we just haven't found a spot. We We've been slowly, as we've been changing the rock work, we've slowly been gluing stuff up onto the rock work. So, there is still, you know, a ton on the sand bed in terms of corals. Uh, but I mean, he's been happy kind of wherever we put him. Uh, but eventually, you know, we'll we'll find a spot for him. But he's always, you know, it's always been open. It's always been happy. A unique aspect of these bigger tanks is flow, right? Getting flow right. We've talked about it in some tank tours here recently. Flow is extremely important. I think it's one of the top tier things. And when the most important, right? I I would agree with you in that fact that it's probably one of the, if not the most important thing in reef keeping. something that people probably when they walk in, you know, something that I kind of caught my eye, but a lot of people if they come into the tank or see the tank, they're not going to think and see that there's return nozzles on the bottom. Let's talk about how you've decided to kind of bring some flow from the bottom and why you're doing that. Sure. So, uh there's four total returns in this tank. Uh two of them are at the two ends and they're disguised in uh like uh rock tubes. So, you most people don't even recognize. You did pick up on it. Most people don't recognize that those are returns. Uh but just because of the the volume of the tank and the size, you're also pushing across not only 8 ft long, but 5 ft wide, right? Uh you know, it it it was one of the things that I factored in when building this that flow would be, you know, an issue if I'm just pushing stuff from the top of the tank. So, you know, it does really help uh push anything that's kind of settling on the bottom back towards the top where the overflow is. Yeah, I think that's essential for these bigger tanks. And with a scape this big too, you want to try and get all that flow kind of working in throughout the scape. And so I think you guys have done a really, really good job with that. I want to hear from you. I know it's like picking your favorite kid, right? Luckily, you only have your daughter, so it makes it a little You got two daughters, so it'd be hard, right? Picking one of your favorite kids. If you had to choose some of your favorite corals in the tank, what would be some of your favorites, you know, and why are you leaning into them? I know you you have a crazy selection, man. I I've walked in. I've seen some really cool tanks. I've seen some really cool corals. And you've got a selection of some amazing stuff. Uh whether it doesn't matter whether it's cars or corals or whatever. I like stuff that other people don't have. So, you know, uh the pieces that always that that I'm drawn to are grafted pieces. I love grafts. Uh whether it's two species that have, you know, formed together and they're not killing each other, which is really cool. You know, I've got a lot of uh bower skull graphs together. Uh I do like, you know, meat corals. Uh canthophilas. I love some of the glitter patterns and how bright they get. Uh I guess the the ones that I've always been most drawn to are going to be uh gnis. I I've always loved uh bower bankies and the eanthos. The other thing I want to ask you too, what salt are you running in the system? What's the salt that you're mixing up? I don't I have no idea how to say it. It's that it's German salt that HW Marin mix. Uh so basically I I I ran the uh I ran Tropic Marin until kind of the incident where everyone had Tropic Marin Fallout. Uh I switched at that point. And I also did lose uh quite a bit of things and uh you know I'd heard heard great things about that and like a lot of things I run I'm actually my background's German uh I I switched over to the that German salt and honestly things I noticed you know uh that it mixes right where I I like to keep my uh you know aside from the OP I just spoke about you know it mixes to the proper levels that I like. you know, it's a little lower uh in terms of alkalinity when it's mixed. It mixes very very well. You know, typically no cloudy water or anything. Mixes very very quick. Like the whole I mix 200 gallons at a time typically. And the the whole process takes it'll it'll mix completely with in 2 to 3 minutes. Uh so I switched to that about 3 years ago and then uh yeah, never looked back. It's kind of a cheat code in a way that you have this tank here and it's almost in a way it's crazy I'm saying this. It's like a growout because you have a tank that's going to be outside and it's going to be even bigger. When we're talking about the stocking just real quick of that outside tank, obviously we're going to go with some of the sharks. You said you want to put corals in this too, right? This is an outdoor saltwater pond that we're going to light up with. What are we lighting it up with? And we're going to go for corals. Yeah. Uh haven't really decided the coral route yet to be honest. It's kind of a work in progress, but I did I didn't want to be underpowered with lighting. So, uh, I did have Orphic build me four custom, uh, commercial units that will, uh, that will spread the entire the entire area and pretty much light up whatever we choose to put in there, whether it's LPS or, you know, sticks up top. Uh, we'll have that adjustability that we can kind of put whatever we want. Yeah. I mean, for me personally, it's like a reef keeper dream for me. If I had the ability to set up a pond outside, that's something I ultimately would want to do. I just want to say this tank is super impressive. You guys have done amazing work and I think like you said, this isn't something you can do alone. You know, I think this is you can. It's just really hard to be able to do something like this alone. It's not going to be easy, but you guys have done an amazing job. I am really excited to hopefully be able to come back down here, you know, whether it be 6 months or months past that. To see this system when it's start to fully grow in, I mean, the fact that it's just a little over a year is insane to think. You know, the sheer size of some of these corals, it's going to be really impressive. And then I can't wait to see that crazy project outside. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, sure. It's it's uh it's great to have you and yeah, a tank, you know, systems this size. Like I said, I was doing it by myself for eight months, but it was exhausting. And, you know, thankfully I've got Gio uh another good friend of mine who owns a shop, uh Phil, he has helped me out. It's been there's been multiple nights when it's, you know, the three of us here uh picking stuff up. So, it's definitely it definitely pays to have some uh some good friends to help you out. Nothing better than some late night talking tanks and having some drinks, right? Trying to figure out a saltwater pond. I always ask everybody, again, Jake Adams used to do this and I think it's key to go into people's homes and ask for a piece of advice. You know, everybody wants to come into this hobby and they want to get right to it and have an amazing system, right? So, how do we get to the point where maybe we're not having a thousandgalon reef tank sitting here in our living room, but what's a good way for people, you know, a good tip for everyone if they wanted to start developing a system that looks as beautiful as this? Uh, planning is crucial on whenever you're dealing with big systems. Planning is crucial because if you get it up and running, it's not so easy to go change plumbing to, you know, for instance, if you realize that there's you don't have enough flow, you know, you can't very well go back and put bulkheads in the bottom of a tank. Uh so whether it's this or the pond, a lot of it comes down to uh planning, running numbers as far as flow rates. You know, different different parts of the filter need different flow rates. So we've got flow meters just about on every part, both this and what we built for the pond. there's a flow meter going to every p you know essential piece of equipment because everything whether it's the UV the skimmer you know whatever it is uh you know biomedia they all like different flow rates uh so it's much like the flow rate in the tank for the corals you know it it the the big thing is when you're dealing with big systems is planning and research absolutely you know my grandfather was in the military and he used to hammer it in my head all the time the five Psor planning prevents poor performance anytime you go through that kind a methodology in your head, you're bound to have success. But with something at this size, you definitely have to do a lot of planning. Gio, I wanted to hear from you. Any last thoughts on this tank before we kind of wrap up here today? Um, no. I mean, it's an honor to to work on this. I mean, it's not often that anybody has this size of a tank and especially the project that, you know, we got going out back uh with the pond, you know, that's going to be incredible. So, super thankful to be able to be a part of it. Truly. Well, if you guys have enjoyed this one, uh, this is a lot of fun. I probably could be here talking about this tank all day long, but I want to take the time to actually sit back and soak it up myself. So, I know you guys want to see more. And if you guys want to see more of the future of this tank, the future of potentially the pond, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you guys can see it. If you guys have hung out all the way through though, if you have any questions for Brad, be sure to drop them down in the comments below because I'm sure he'll be able to help us out and answer those questions. Thank you guys again. 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