45 Galllon Cube. My dream tank...only smaller!

[chrishayes]

Water tested the fuge, no leaks!

Next, you can see that I painted the sides of the overflow to avoid that distraction from viewing.

Also leak tested the calfo, no leaks! I mustve done something good to recieve this kind of karma! That or the tank itself will leak...

Gotta run to get co2 refilled for my plant tank then ill start the pllumbing. later

 

[Buckeye1]

Great build Chris! Very clean and well done. Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

[chrishayes]

Man, my day just plain sucked! After dropping my son off to the sitter I realized my CO2 tank for my 75 plant tank was empty so I figured I better run to Columbus and get some more. Its about a 25 mile drive one way so its about an hour and 15 both ways. I decided to try to get it at geer gas but after waiting in line behind THE biggest idiot coorprate duo ive seen, they were buying helium for balloons but for the love of god they just couldnt make up their mind on if they wanted 2 tanks or 1 or 1 large and 1 small or dual nozzles, the guy tells me he couldnt fill it because it was out of test! I just had it exchanged 6 months ago, so the tank that my normal place gave me was "dangerous"...So, oh well gotta drive 15 more miles to the usual place only to find out they freakin moved! 15 miles in a different direction I went. Got there and can you believe it, they were OUT! Thankfully after ecplaining my 2 hour journey to get a mere 5lbs of co2, a guy drenched in sweat from working all day, says, ill go fill ya one. Then the guy goes to print my reciept and the printer lost its mind and started literally shooting paper out of the machine! That was another 20 mins to get fixed...I said man, i dont need a reciept, but I HAD to sign it for legal purposes. so I waited. and waited. Now, I got my CO2 and im headin back only to get stopped by THE longest funeral procession Ive ever seen. Got home exactly 3 1/2 hours after I left:mad2:

Oh well, got about 2 hours of work done on the tank before I had to go get my son cause my wifey HAD to get her nails done. I mean really, nails are more important than me finishing my tank? I dont think so.

I got all the drain plumbing done and mocked everything up to see how I could run my return. Heres some pics of the plumbing, I think it turned out nice.

Looking at the tank from the back, the left pipe is the siphon line, the middle is the open channel and the right is the emergency. With the use of tubvs and the union on the emergency I can break the plumbing down to remove it. THe only gripe I have is that the tubvs had to be glued up right on the tees so I wont be able to use them again.

Heres shots of full mock up trying to get the return line figured out. Its tough cause I have to be able to remove the skimmer cup regularly not to mention remove the skimmer itself for maintainece. Ill figure it out though.

 

[chrishayes]

And heres the finished calfo, cant even tell its there really with krylon painted street elbows, whada ya think?

And this is what im thinking for return. I have an mp-10 thatll be in here too but I dont know if I like the look of the return off to one side or in the center. What do you guys think?

 

[sandhog]

Lookin good I have a 60 gallon cube with the factory overflow,I wish I had done what you are doing for the overflow.The factory one is way to loud.

 

[FiShScaLe]

Great build so far keep up the good work! Im setting up the same tank so I will be tagging along for the ride keep up the good work!!

 

[juanorz]

I have the 60g cube with 20g sump. I did an external durso on the factory overflow and its as quite as can be. The surface skimming is great and the level in the overflow NEVER goes down.

 

[sandhog]

juanorz,I know it is off the topic of this thread,I would love to see how you did that.

 

[PaulEZ]

Looking good! Tagging along for the finish...

 

[juanorz]

chrishayes,the tank is looking great.will be watching this build I will start another thread and post some pics. I dont want to be a thread high jacker. I added a "T" right from the over flow, added about 3 inches extra to the top of the T and made sure it was above the water line added a cap then just drilled a hole in the cap. the "straw" that was in the over flow is covered with just some plain old silicone. The return is a Mag 5 with a ball valve.

 

[chrishayes]

Well, got the plumbing all figured out. My return is a bit crazy but I had to make it that way in order for everything to lay out right for the overflow of the fuge and to be able to remove the skimmer for easy maintainence. This is what I came up with.

Dont fret, I didnt level the return piping in the photos above. I chose to run the return out the left side(looking at the front). It just made more sense.

Once I was happy with the layout I cemented everything in place then broke it all down once again and painted it using the same krylon fusion as the back glass. SUcked, I had to open the garage door to vent the fumes which let out all my cool air so it pretty much ended my day of work.

 

[chrishayes]

I recieved my bulkead and strainer from glass-holes along with their magic lube. So I spread a layer on all the o rings and installed them for the last time! Then I threaded on the tees so that all I have to do is get the wife to help me carry the tank and stand into the house then I can assemble everything for the last time and put the tank in place then water test it! Should be able to do that this afternoon when my son takes his nap.

I also picked up the JG fitting I needed and put that on the cap.

 

[chrishayes]

ITS ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! FIlled her up and its absolutely, positively 100% silent! I truly was sceptacle of the beananimal system and kinda thought it was too bulky and fought myself through the whole decision making process, I am now a believer! This quite possibly is the most revolutionary thing ive seen in reefkeeping that ive seen in my 15 years of doing it. This and the meshwheel.

It took a little learning curve on the valves in order to get it tuned properly but once i did it was just amazing, all I could here is the water splashing from my locline that was at the surface and a slight hum from the pump. One thing I had to do to get it to work right was change the depth of the full siphon line to 1" below the water line in the sump. It would not start a siphon when I had it lower. You can see that I at least was smart enough not to cement and paint those pipes! I did the same for the fuge feed thats why they are still white.

Another nice note is that my sump has 3" to spare when power is cut! Sweet! Glad I went with the 20 high instead of the 15. Also, I only had one leak and it was on the calfo but it was just a pinhole in the silicone. Not the blowout that was mentioned earlier. So, that got sealed up but stopped me from bringing it in the house to set it up, that and my 14 month old is sick and is refusing to take a nap. Mom looked ragged so I took over. Hoping to get it in the house tonight still. hoping...

Another note to anyone upgrading or replacing a leaking tank, be smart and dont put your temp tank in the location your new tank is gonna go. Im not a moron, but I feel like one after doing just that. So now I gotta move that tank again just to move everything again into the new tank. Duh...

 

[chrishayes]

I also didnt paint the tubvs due to fear that the paint would in some way screw their functionality up. Probably wouldve been fine but I didnt want to take the chance.

 

[FiShScaLe]

Does the tank sit inside the trimming or on top of it? What are the actual dimensions of the stand you built?

 

[chrishayes]

FIshscale It sits on top of the 1" oak. The dimensions are 29"wx25"dx35"t. The top oak trim is 31wx27d. I made it this size to fit the location not for any other reason. I did make it higher than standard because I view it from a tall barstool and I hated looking down into my nc28, I couldnt see that whole tank without leaning down and looking up which with my back injury is quite hard. ALso, not that in this pic in order to accomodate the stand being wider than the tank I had to add two more upper rail spanners to transfer the load to the legs properly.

Notice the 2x4s that are creating the "lip" that youre referring to, thats what im talking about. The sides are doubled up 2xs with the front and rear only single, the short 2x that you see attached to the front and rear is just a nailer for the trim and holds no weight. The two extra spanners are notched, glued and screwed to the others. The tank trim actually sits centered on these, just with a piece of 1" oak on top. This is essential to the structure if you plan to make the stand wider or deeper than the tank footprint.

I finally got the setup in the house and the other tank moved. Ive jsut been too busy working on it to post pics or an update. I will try to get a post together tonight but im busy getting the temp tank back in shape after the move. I also od'ed it with kalk this morning. I didnt think about the fact that when I put the kalk container and the aqualifter at the same height as the outlet to the tank that it would pump more volume than when the tank is higher than the pump...dang it, too used to my dosing pumps. I hope there isnt too much carnage but im not optimistic as the tank is super cloudy

 

[FiShScaLe]

Thanks for the quick reply. It's always something isn't lol. You Od'ed on Kalk and I used the wrong silicone in my sump :/ Looks like we both have some extra work to do :headwalls: Cant wait to see the updates!

 

[chrishayes]

So everythings in the house and setup. Been really busy the last few days trying to get this tank setup so sorry for the lack of updates but everywhere I go with this project it seems I leave a cloud of tools and assorted crap! Im slightly ocd so I cant handle it for long so I have to stop and put everything away just to get it right back out...

Heres a shot from last night after finally filling my brute with water, took two days and I think im gonna need another full and a half to finish. At that rate itll be the weekend before its running.

You can see I used a plate to minimize sandstorm. Speaking of sand, after much debate on bb vs ssb I went with a ssb of carribsea reef floor which has a 1-2mm grain size and is fairly uniform which will allow me to python it easily without losing half of it down the drain. Moby the goby is gonna be ****ed! His shrimp dissapeared 6 months ago and since then hes taken to sifting non stop for some reason. If he doesnt do well with this sand then ill either find him a new home or add a small amount of oolite.

I wouldnt be to upset if he has to go cause he is REALLY tough to feed in my tank and the mojority of uneaten foood is caused by him making me keep feeding just to get some down to his lazy ***. Im also going to get rid of six my sixline wrasse because he single handedly destroyed my pod population in the old tank and im looking forward to having some bugs again!

 

[chrishayes]

Speakin of bugs, I finished the plumbing for the sump and fuge. Here you can see the hangers I used to secure the drain lines.

And the completed sump just need to place my float switch in today and route the lines for the dosing pumps after theyre done with a vinegar bath.

Here you can see that I added a 1"wide piece of 1/4" glass inside the bubble trap on both sides to use with egg crate if I can ever find any. This will give me a place to put floss and carbon because Im not going to run socks. Thats just too much maintenece and id rather have the particulates skimmed. I think I have enough flow through my sump to not allow detritus to build in the skimmer section, return area maybe, but I will suck that out at water change time.

Here you can see I added a piece of white poster board to the underside of the tank so that when the flow in the tank blows holes in the sand it wont look as ugly nor allow the light to pass to the sump. Also you see the location for the dosing pumps. In between will be a standard power strip.

Then the massive dead space up just under the tank I decided would be a great place to mount all the electrical items like the 2 pc4's, sl1 module, mp10 controller and wavemaker. I need to be able to get to these easily so I came up with this.

Its hinged with spring loaded hinges that will hopefully be able to keep it up without having some kind of catch. This when not in use will sit parallel to the tank bottom but when needed Ill be able to just swing it down on the right side of the stand to access it. Should make for cleaner wiring which as an electrician is very important to me! Hope it works...

 

[chrishayes]

Heres a few other pics to show the tanks location.

Im not a huge fan of the light looks wise...I especially dont like the chain, looks too 70's macramae plant hangerish to me. Ill go looking for something nicer today maybe but the important thing is that it works and I must say after never seeing a radium/hqi combo in person, it looks amazing! Totally not 20k looking. I mean its blue but its truly ice white with an actinic pop that even makes my african violets 20' away glow! I think the pendant will just be something that ill have to live with, or ill make a oak canopy to house it in and use aircraft cable like on my plant tank.