550ish build thread

[TChristman]

Thank you dahenley.


The tank will be built on site by a local tank builder. He does a majority of the custom glass builds in the Atlanta area. He said he would rather build it on site than to move it and deliver it. The tank is 8 ft by 3 ft so I can understand why he would not want to move it.

The stand is not 100 percent complete. Why do you have a suggestion?

 

[thor32766]

wow look the fish room. this will look unbelievable when done!

 

[TChristman]

Made major progress today with the tank and the floors. Tank construction has begun. The floors are shaping up much better. Some goodies came in the mail today sea-swirl and premium aquatics. Thank you both for great customer service as always.

Some pictures of the progress today:

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The glass truck arrived

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Tank builders bringing in the glass

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The bottom being set in place. This is just shy of 1 1/4" thick. Nice and light.

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Thickness of the bottom piece.

 

[TChristman]

More photos...

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The front going up. This is Krystal Klear branded glass which is 20% clearer than starphire.

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Front glass

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Prepping the side

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Side

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From above after all the pieces in place

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A little dark but the view from the front.

Tomorrow the flooring should all be fixed and looking sharp as well as the eurobracing for the tank.

 

[Trademark]

very nice clean build

 

[willj313]

nice basement

 

[dahenley]

see if you can sneak a peek at what silicone your builder is using?
(please) thanks

 

[TChristman]

It was a GE 100% black silicone.

 

[bullitr]

looking good dimension buddy:beer:

 

[Ixthys]

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The stand

Typically stands have the vertical posts (your 2 pressure treated 4x4's) directly under the horizontal support. It looks like you are relying on the strength of the screws to support the top. Depending on where the frame of the tank sits, you may have some of the weight transferred to the 4x4's, but then you are relying on only the 3'x8' plywood for support across the 8' span.

Also, I personally would be concerned that the 2x4's in the back of the photo aren't strong enough or stable enough.

Just my 2 cents,
Craig

 

[TChristman]

There are horizontal beams across the top. The plywood is sitting on seven rows of horizontal beems running across the top of the stand.

 

[TChristman]

I thought that I would update with some pictures. The tank is up and curing. Could most likely add water today but I am waiting on some equipment. The sump and skimmer came in along with some rock but I will wait and post some pictures later in the week. Should have almost everything moved down to the basement this weekend. Still waiting on the return pump. Seems like forever on the back order.

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The fireplace is finished

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Never thought I would think an eight foot tank would like small

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The stairwell came out really nice

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From the fish room

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Eurobracing complete.

 

[slief]

Personally, I would add some (lots) additional vertical supports to that stand. You have far to much weight distributed over far too small of an area in my opinion. There will probably be more than 5000 pounds between tank and water on that stand. Would you park full size SUV on it and let your kids sleep under it day in and day out? "Danger Will Robinson!!!"

Think of it this way, a handful of 4x4's cost pennies compared to what you will have into that setup to risk it having an issue due to the lack of structure below it.


I have a similar dimension tank and I would not feel very comfortable with the lack of vertical support that you have. My tank is 96"x48"x24" tall and is made from Acrylic. Yours looks to be glass. I would expect some shrinkage of the studs and the less you have in there, the more likely things will settle. To much settling on one side and not enough on the other could cause catastrophic issues.

That said, maybe mine is a bit overkill. We packed the frame with 2x4's and 4x4's but considering the tank was built in back in 1997 and its still going strong and still level, I would say the extra effort was worth it.

I hope you dont take offense to my comments. It looks like you have a great build coming along.

Here is the door side of the tank before it was dry wall'd in.

 

[slief]

Another note. It looks from your pictures that your verical posts dead end into the plywood that the tank will sit on. That or they dead end into 2x4's that are laying flat instead of sitting upright. If that is the case, they really should dead end into the framing/joists below the tank.

If you look at my stand picture above, there is a complete 2x6 frame around the perimeter of the tank. What you cant see are the 2x4's standing on end every 12" spanning the width of the frame with 2x4's doubled up towards the center. The plywood rests on that frame. That frame rests on top of the vertical 2x4 and 4x4 posts that support the tank. Those vertical posts dead end into the above mentioned fram that the tank sits on.

We used a combination of stacked 2x4's and 4x4's. There are certain benifits to stacked 2x4's vs 4x4's when it comes to structure. As I said, maybe a bit overkill but structural integrity of the stand was one of the most critical factors when we built the tank in. The last thing in the world that I would ever want to deal with is tearing the tank apart to fix the stands structure or even worse, coming home to a disaster due to an under engineered stand that was built to hold several thousand pounds.

From the looks of it, it does not look to late to beef things up a bit under your tank.

 

[TChristman]

The front part of the tank sits on the wall that was drywalled in. There are no 2x4s anywhere. Even the wall is studded with 2x6s. All of the wood is 4x4 or 2x6. The front wall is studded with 2x6s as well. The front 7 or 8 inches of the tank rests on the studded wall and plywood. You think 16 inch 2x6s is not enough? The two front 2 x 6s are in addition to all of the wall studs that are supporting the tank. The back part is being supported by 2 4x4s and 2 2x6s.

 

[ahumahuma]

Nice build. In wall tanks look smaller than they really are. Keep the updates coming.

 

[Zoa Robber22]

looks like a great project...Good luck!!!

 

[powerlogix]

Nice build so far, will be looking for update pictures.

 

[TChristman]

It has been awhile since I updated. Had a battle with swine flu and work season has started so my free time has been limited.

The tank builder installed the removable black acrylic that will act as a background. It looks really nice.

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The equipment was all moved from the garage to the fish room. Wednesday I should have water. Plumbing supplies are coming in on Monday and the drain hoses will be here on Tuesday. The fun is about to begin.

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The sump has been in for awhile. It was built by John at Advance Acrylics. He does great work and I am a repeat customer. 72 x 24 x 18.

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Just a little sand and salt


Some other goodies

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More updates should be up by the end of the week. I hope that you enjoy as always I look forward to your feedback.

 

[TChristman]

A couple that I left out.

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With that black acrylic background.

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Some dry rock ready to go!

I ordered some very large pieces from Bulkreefsupply, some shelf from Marco and some other from Marco. Should be an interesting blend. I look forward to aquascaping this 36" wide tank. Fairly open with large pieces and lots of places for coral. A couple of the rocks were taken out of the boxes so I could throw the boxes away.