Hi, I am exhuming this because my home reno has about 2 (probably 4) months left and that means it's time to get serious. Also my tanks are gone, I was evicted, I'm living in my parents house with my 3 kids and my wife is about to have our fourth child (due date was yesterday), I need something to live for.
I am no longer looking at a fish-only, no longer looking at a massive tank. Also, the engineering issue above was resolved, the tank is going to sit directly over my existing concrete foundation, I don't see that there is any need to investigate weight distribution further.
I am looking mostly at peninsula tanks. I am between the Cade 1800 S2/P and the Red Sea 950 G2+. There is a chance I come down 1 peg on size on both of these models I haven't decided yet. There is also 5% of me that wants to do a square, maybe 48x48 or a 40x40. These issues are mainly regarding how much of an intrusion into the room my wife will view the shape. She is very into the tank but not into totally cluttering up our new living room.
In the interim I am scratching the itch by rehabbing my sister's 29 gallon fish only into a simple reef. This tank was loaded wall to wall with hair and bubble algae. Non-reef safe fish were removed, I added a Hydra 32, new HOB aquaclear running simple bio media and chemipure, and an aquamax bullet hang on skimmer that almost immediately started sucking sludge out of the water. I also added 4 bottles of ecopods to attempt to curb the algae problem while also adding some beneficial life to the tank. After a number of water changes tester corals went in today and look good. Will get a revised shot asap.