180 build from scratch!

[michika]

So as some of you can guess the tank lift party didn't happen this past weekend. Thats okay, we ended up putting it on the stand tonight.

First the stand needed a hole for the plumbing

Kevin cut in the hole, I watched, and plugged my ears.

A hole!

A padded hole

Then through the magic of photography the tank is suddenly on the stand!

The glass needs to be cleaned, and then our next step is the floor, adjusting everything so its all level.

The rock is still cooking, and it is thankfully far less foul. I hope it will be ready soon enough to get this tank full of salt water in the next two weeks, maybe 4 weeks if I need to wait.

 

[erics3000]

You gota be getting stoked by now...Looking good

 

[michika]

Right now I'm just thrilled to have regained about 1/5 of my living room. Tomorrow though I'll be itching to go to the fish stores to pick up my bulkheads that never shipped from elsewhere.

I will probably just be standing on the sidelines tomorrow though when Kevin cranks up the beams beneath the tank, the whole idea of there being spiders down in our crawl space makes me cringe and shudder.

 

[jnarowe]

spiders are tasty.

 

[michika]

Smarties are too!

 

[fareforce]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12502282#post12502282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
spiders are tasty.

My dog is always hunting, and eating spiders. I love taking her dow to the crawl space with me.. lol


Ohh yeah. Tank is looking good! Time to get some water in it. Well almost.

 

[jnarowe]

:lol: Hey, I resemble that!

 

[Hop]

:lol: This thread cracks me up in places (jnarowe)!

Looks good Catherine, can't wait to see more through the magic of photography

 

[BLKTANG]

Ok leak test.

Looks great.

 

[michika]

Leak test after the floor is done, so maybe this weekend. No promises, my RO/DI is a slow producer.

 

[fareforce]

Why dont you do the leak test with normal water, then if it passes, drain and fill with RO/DI?

 

[michika]

Leak test will be with normal water of course. I don't know what I was thinking (was I thinking?) when I posed that. I'm starting to make RO/DI now though because 200g is going to take a LONG time to make.

I had no luck with bulkheads today. I even went to Emco, a plastics supplier, and just my luck, they were doing inventory today and on Monday. I visited two stores, again, out of stock. I"m going to visit a third tomorrow morning. Seriously, the rule stands, when you need something its no where to be found!

 

[Hop]

Do you have farm supply stores there? It is the only place I can find bulkheads within 100 miles of my house. Although they are more expensive than ordering them online here.

 

[michika]

I would assume so, this is Alberta and all. Its about the same price to order online plus shipping, as it is to buy in city from an LFS. Emco, the supplier, is about $3-$7 cheaper on most exotic plumbing parts you can't get at the hardware store.

So if I call up a store and ask if they have sch 40, or sch 80 bulkheads, or do they have another name at the farm supply stores?

 

[jnarowe]

tank adapters is what they call them.

 

[lemkerailroad1]

nice build going on here

keep up the work, will keep following this thread

 

[michika]

I got my bulkheads! I also got salt, some free sand still in the bag, new filters for my RO/DI and some nice brain freeze from my Slurpee.

Anyways, I need to preserve this link for my own information. Voila the link to my 28g long Tank O Death, also known as the first tank not to make me a profit on SPS. Now my little red house will bring people here, rather then there.

Alright so we are onto the tank filling for testing purposes portion of our day. I should have bought a Coke or Pepsi Slurpee so I could mix it with Crown Royal if this is a success.

I swapped out my RO/DI filters when we got home, resin too. House water is 237, out of the old RO/DI was 2, and now it is a nice round 0! As well apparently our RO/DI makes 100gpd...so I suppose it won't take that long to fill.

Photos later!

 

[michika]

Alright the first part of this weekend's photo montage!

1st we moved the RO/DI to a better place, from under the kitchen sink into the utility room. This allows us to fill a larger container with RO/DI rather then the 3g storage container we had before.

Then out came the Acetone, and as per Bow Valley we cleaned up all the extra silicone that was in places it shouldn't be.

The tank clean up

Then into the dreaded crawl space to reinforce the floor

Again, through the magic of photography its suddenly done!

The inaugural bucket of the water test

The second bucket of the water test, which by the way went very well.

 

[michika]

Anyways so right now we are re-filling the tank with RO/DI water which we've been making since Friday. I am also skipping over the rest of the water test photos because they are boring, and we are onto better stuff now!

 

[fareforce]

Grats on the sucessful leak test!