180 Gallon Frankenstein

[QuarterTang]

I guess I am almost to the meat and potatos. The Stand.

There was alot that went into the thinking for the stand. There were a few things I wanted.

1.) It had to be Overbuilt
2.) It had to have no front upright braces
3.) It had to fit a 55 gallon tank under it
4.) I wanted some way to easily move the 55 out
5.) It had to be cheap

That's about it. That was what I was keeping in mind.

oops.
6.) it had to fit in the room.

As if that isn't a no brainer, but this is in my basement. The ceilings aren't very high, so I had to keep it tall enough you didn't have to sit on the floor to look at it, but not so tall that there wouldn't be enough room to keep the lights out of the water.

That all seems simple enough, but I have had a few issues with the basement before, like:

and

This has consequently got me a little concerned about making a masterpiece stand. My basement flooded 3 times in the last year. The pictures there were from the worst. There is a creek out front that kinda gets a little out of control when stuff plugs it up. So until I remodel the basement and get rid of the door on the front side and move it to the back AND completely reseal all of the foundation and floors so it won't flood....It would be a waste. So for now it doesn't look the greatest but it is functional.

 

[kcress]

Really very nice sheet metal skilz you got there. Frankly Masterful.

You might want to consider punching a few holes in the top above the bulb. This will drop the temperature of the bulb and socket hardware dramatically. It will prevent the socket from oxidizing and burning out.


Cross posted.. Me thinks you need to apply some of your water skills to preventing the flood waters not just keeping them out.

 

[QuarterTang]

I had no power in the basement for 12 hours because of that. Everything made it though. But moving on.

The original brainstorm I had was this:

But there were a few design changes to it. Because of the ceiling height issue there was no way to put any supports accross the very bottom. The 55 had to be within inches of the floor and if I put a bottom on the stand then rollers or anything else I was going to use just wasn't going to work without staying withing budget.

That got me thinking too, if it floods again anything close to the bottom was going to get wet. Anything that can't be moved and dried out would rot. So who needs a floor to a tank stand anyway?

So there is no bottom to the stand.

The other big change was the legs and how they connected to the frame part that the tank was going to sit on. I just didn't like it. So I cut an inch off the height of the legs and ran a 2x12 under it (the pictures coming shortly will make it make sense) and that center brace toward the top.... I turned horizontal instead of vertical.

pictures! pictures!

haha, wrong picture!

 

[QuarterTang]

If you haven't noticed yet, I would rather post up a bunch of pictures than explain every detail. I hope you don't mind.

I'll try to point out any changes that didn't go into the end result though. Some of these you are going to see parts of them came off or were modified.

The start of the frame:

With legs:

There is that 2x12 under the frame that the legs were sitting on. Also, make sure if you ever do something like this your table saw is sqaure. I am an idot and didn't even check and wondered why nothing was fitting quite right. You'll notice the orange square about half way through, that came in handy.

With the 2x12 center cross brace horizontal:

end braces:

Momentary lapse of thought?

Got my head screwed back on:

backside:

Front side:

 

[QuarterTang]

Progress.

Finally, I thought I was getting close. That was about a week of work. I don't follow my own plans very well, and I kept changing bits and pieces. Now I thought thought I had put alot of thought into all of this. 2x12's and 2x4's you buy them, but that doesn't mean they are level. So I put the tank up on the stand, that took three weeks btw, and the top part was not level.

ummm.. I think I have a picture here somewhere. I think I am missing a few hundred pictures....be back in a bit.

 

[QuarterTang]

Well... I really think I lost a few hundred pictures. Looks like I am missing an entire memory cards worth of pictures. So I will have to make what I have work.

There is the tank sitting on the stand. When I first put it up, I thought it looked great, but this of all things had to be right, so I grabbed the feeler guages and check the tolerance around the edges. It became obvious very quickly that I was going to have to do something before the tank got the wet test.

on this corner closest me here....

there was a full 1/8" gap between the tank and the stand. Since I assumed that the wood was square and true before I put it together it cost me another few weeks. I had to wait another two weeks just to get someone to come out and help me take the tank off the stand (It is heavier than I care to move on my own) then about 2 hours of removing the top section and running it through the table saw (I made sure it was square too ) and get the top leveled out.

I apolgise I had pictures of that part somewhere, but I can't seem to find them.

It was a big gap, but afterward no problem. I had thought about planing the boards on the stand, but didn't have a planer. I also thought about using router, but I didn't have one of those either, so the table saw was it. I did have a belt sander, but that just isn't a good idea.

The table saw and a triangle are definatly nice to have.

 

[QuarterTang]

Here are a few more shots of the stand from different angles.

 

[QuarterTang]

Really very nice sheet metal skilz you got there. Frankly Masterful.

You might want to consider punching a few holes in the top above the bulb. This will drop the temperature of the bulb and socket hardware dramatically. It will prevent the socket from oxidizing and burning out.


Cross posted.. Me thinks you need to apply some of your water skills to preventing the flood waters not just keeping them out.

Thank you for the kind words.

Maybe

And I wish it was that easy.

The Maybe part, When I do the final reflectors, it will be from one solid sheet. many of the edges won't have overlapping flaps rivoted together. The minscule gaps should provide enough air movement to prevent a heat build up. I have a fan that runs accross the top of the tank anyway and there really isn't much heat there.

As for preventing the floods, where I live, I have two creeks that merge just on the front corner of my property, when we get a heavy rain I get the worst of it. It really wouldn't be that bad, but some of the properties downstream have decided to bury the creek with culverts and they don't provide enough flow for the worst of the rains. The flooding never has lasted more than an hour, it goes down VERY fast, but when oh say..... a foot bridge gets washed up against one of the culverts and no water can pass. That's what happens. I would like to think that I could prevent it, but unless everyone downstream gets bigger culverts, I am stuck.

Moving the basement entrance doesn't seem that bad to me. I actually wouldn't mind it anyway. I plan on finishing everything in the basement anyway and I have already had to dig up one side of the foundation once to relocate a collapsed sewer drain. So digging out a basement entrance doesn't seem that bad.

 

[QuarterTang]

My fingers are about worn out, so time for a break. Next up is the wet test in the garage along with plumbing.

 

[kynsee]

Im still impressed, I just might have to have you build me a halide fixture.

 

[QuarterTang]

Im still impressed, I just might have to have you build me a halide fixture.

I am sure you would enjoy it more if you built your own. They really aren't that hard to build. Just a little time.

 

[kynsee]

No. I'll probably end up smashing it. I'm on a tight budget and don't have a lot of time. I'll probably have to take a two year vacation for something like this.

 

[Tank2379]

Crazy Build but Nice... :thumbsup: I can't wait to see the Plumbing....

 

[QuarterTang]

I am back for the next round.

Where was I?... Plumbing. There isn't going to be a whole lot to this really. Plumbing I think gets out of hand with some people. It can look really amazing and have lots of valves and bends and splits. But for my application I didn't need all of that.

That's it, all done.
Ok not really. A very generous friend hooked me up with some flexible PVC. That is going to come in handy. Also, the big grey bin came from a generous friend of friend, that will be the holding tank while I tear down the 55 and stand up the 180.

But back to plumbing.
It is very simlpe. I made two durso's and two sections of straight pipe for the overflow. When I got the deal on the tank, it came with more lokline than I knew what to do with, so on each return there are two lokline streams coming up.

The overflow looks a little crowded, but it works just fine.

 

[QuarterTang]

Really it is one line coming up with a Y one the lokline.

I would post up all of the pictures of my homemade durso's, but those are in with all of the pictures I can't find. Also most of the wet testing pictures are in there too.

I wanted to make sure that the tank and stand were not going to collapse in the house so I filled it up in the garage. For a testing sump I used a 20 gal long glass tank.

the back side of this has four drilled holes for closed loop, but I didn't feel like using them. So I bought bulkheads and plugs to cap those off.

Then back to underneath the tank...

This is really going to be simple plumbing. I hope no one was expecting something magical here. The bottom of the bulk head gets a rubber boot that will connect to a 1 1/2" flex pipe and the other gets a 1" Braided , clear low presure hose to connect to the pump. Now plmubing is done.

I am reallt sorry I don't have better pics of these.

Thats is all that it is two independant drains and two independant feeds.

 

[QuarterTang]

For the sake of converstation, there is a hose hanging on the backside. It does nothing. I got a couple of bulkheads that had the hose nipples built in I had thought about getting a new Zeovit reactor and making it a direct feed to the tank, but that meant spending a bunch of extra money on a new reactor and in the middle of this tank build I was laid off from my job and income got pretty short. That dictated many of the simple ideas that came to be on here. So they got swapped out for regular threaded bulkheads with caps.

The pump of choice for this tank was Mag12. Two of them actually. I have one on each of the return feeds to the tank.

 

[QuarterTang]

Also, the last few pictures there show the start of the basic hood that I will be using to hang the lights on. It got changed up a little bit later on, but it is also a little temporary. Again, because of having to get a new job some corners had to be cut and that was unfortunatley one of them. Also, no matter how much measuring I did in the room where the tank was to go, I still couldn't get a very good idea of cieling height and space in front for how to make the front panel come off or move out of the way, so I decided it best to wait until it was in the room to build a fitting hood for this creation.

Getting back on track, the tank flowed great, with both pumps running at five feet of head, I am about 2000 gallons per hour turnover from the sump. That also supplies lots of flow in the tank. The loklines allow me to direct the flow in four directions. Adding to the crappy used power heads I have in the tank I have enough flow.....for now. (drifting off daydreaming of vortechs and a wave)

 

[QuarterTang]

Since I lost a large portion of pictures I will have to skip ahead to what I do have. Preparing for the move.

I cleaned out the 200 gallon bin and brought it inside the house. This tank was to sit where the 55 was so that meant the 55 had to be torn down and moved out before I could bring in the 180. The room is very small and there is a computer desk, a tinker desk, and a couple of bookshelves. Putting the holding tank in the same room (that would be nice) was out of the question. So it went down the hall in another room.

I think that drawing makes the room look bigger than it really is. But it shows the door to the left that everything will be coming in through and the tank in relation to the room.

Next I had to fill the 200 gallon bin and make some fresh salt water. My RO/DI is rated at 100 gollon per day, and it doesn't really do that much, but it works.

This took a while. I was making water in the two 35 gallon cans and pumping it into 5 gallon water jugs to take into the other room. I didn't have enough line to run it into the other room and budget was tight so manual labor was the only way to go.

While looking for some of the bbuild pictures I found a few pictures of the water station. Here you go.
Puratech 3 stage

Rubbemaid

Tunze water level controller pump line feeds through the wall.

Added a second drum for premix salt. Heater and power head go in, and pump and line run out through the wall to the tank. I did it that way so when I do a water change, the plug for the pump is on the side of the wall with the tank, I can drain out ten gallons from the tank and plug in the pump from the new salt water and unplug it when it is full to the mark on the sump.

Inside

Gaping holes in the cheap wall. That would have looked better if I had the right drill bit.

With both drums there and the five gallon dirty water jugs. I drain out ten gallons into those to carry to the slop sink in the basement.

 

[QuarterTang]

Filling the bin up by hand is very lobor intensive and time consuming, but it got done. I hurt when I was done. Not that I had that far to go with it. But it was lot of work. Just the thought of doing it again when I put the 180 up was terrifying.

The idea was to make enough fresh salt water in advance to be able to fill the 180 up and make the transfer from 55 to bin to 180 all in one day.

That didn't happen.

I was able to tear down the 55 gallon tanks and move everything to the bin in one day, but filling the 180 and moving everything from the bin to the 180 had to wait a week.

I get two days off every week, Sunday is the only day I get off on a regular basis, but when my wife has Sunday off too, well any married guy on here can tell you how much time you get for playing with the fish tank.

So I had to wait for another day that I had off and the wife had to work.

I didn't take alot of pictures during this process. I do everything myself, and I was covered in salt water all day. It made picking up the camera unappealing. I made a huge mess, but here are a few pictures from tear down day.

This was what the tank looked like coming apart. I drained the sump first and carried water to the bin.

To avoid any cycles, I did keep most of the water from the 55's. With Zeo, there is a lower chance of a mini cycle anyway, but just to be sure I reused most of the water.

The other room with the bin in livestock moved and lit up with the pair of 150 MH's.

Inside the bin, all the livestock and corals. The bucket kept some of the fine sand from getting everywhere. I had more sand than that, but much to my dissapointment, I didn't have enough buckets for it and frankly I was exhausted. So the majority of the sand from the 55 which was a mix of CC and large grain aragonite sat in the 55 tank for the week. I know it was dead after that and before going into the 180 it all had to be cleaned and soaked with carbon to freshen it up.

 

[QuarterTang]

I had 2 Koreila 4's and two Tunze nano's in there for movement along with the hodgepodge of ViaAqua and mics pumps for circulation. No sump in there and no skimmer. I did take the center section of the Zeo reactor with the Zeolithe stones out and put that in the bin, but no circulation pump. I have some real problems with electricity in my house....

So pluggin in anything else blows the breaker.

Who wants to come help me upgrade the box and rewire the entire house? I am taking volunteers.

Seriously, it needs done and is on the list of to do things early next year. It is an old house with a 100 amp box and nothing makes any sense on it. The combination of outlets and lights from the upstairs and the basement makes no sense and it is a miracle that I can keep this tank running at all right now. I have to split up the load on two different breakers and you still can't run the coffe pot and the microwave at the same time or the tank will shut down.