A First Plywood Project...

[Sean : EbN]

I wanted to get a pic of exactly how clear that piece of 1/2" Starphire glass really is. I took a big piece of melamine (that white coated particle board used for shelves and cabinets) and stuck it in the tank and got a pic of it inside and outside the glass. So in this pic... the white area above the blue beam is outside the tank, the lover white is in the tank and taken through the glass. I can BARELY tell the difference! What do you think?

Some pics of the tank with the canopy down...

Pics of me inside the belly of the beast. HAHA Not really a beast... kind of a kitten... it's just too small

Here is a pic of that huge Euro-Reef in operation! I really love this thing...

So now that all that is done I'm waiting on those new bulkheads to do a test fill. Hopefully all works well with that. Once I'm confident that the tank won't leak I will start to build the walls next to the tank and skin out the front. Am I in the home stretch?!? Not likely!

Ok well I'll post more as I have it. For those of you who are building tanks right now... GOOD LUCK! Post Pics!!!

LATER!

 

[Sean : EbN]

Ok everyone... so no one responded today... you must be on pic strike?!?

HAHA So here they are...

This is the shelf I put up for the 2 Dual 400w HQI PFO Ballast enclosures. I tried to be as clean as possible with the wiring, I still think its kinda sloppy...

Here are the 2 hanging ceiling fixtures that I got to light the refugium. Please keep in mind that the light is much brighter in person and the refugium is not yet a real fuge, that is just some left over rock that I couldn't fit in the frag tank...

DOC-OCK My NEMESIS! I got him WHOOPED! You can see the Oceans Motions 8way is perched atop a Sequence Reeflo Hammerhead with a JILLION true union ball valves!

Another view...

Shameless Plug of the evening... BUY OCEANSMOTIONS!!! The 8 way unit is dead centered under the tank and his "tentacles are outstreched! HAHA

Next post...

 

[Sean : EbN]

... the fun continues...

This is the 70 CFM vent fan that I hooked up to draw heat from above the tank. I plumbed it to a 3" flexible duct tube that extends 25' into the attic of my other shop area. Sorry for the sloppy hole for the actuator ram... gotta close that up still.

Here is the water! Again... the camera doesn't show brightness very well. These next 4 pics are with all 4 - 400w XM 15K Halides burning on those HQI Ballasts. The water is a bit clody because of me working with drywall around the tank. You can see on the back wall of the tank there are 2-2" strainers, these are connected together behind the tank and run down a 1.5" spa-flex line into the Hammerhead pump. The other 2 holes are 1" in size and have those TRICK 1" Omni-Flex nozzles from Oceans Motions... these things kick butt!

A pic from a different angle. In this pic there is water rolling over the overflow. I have a Mag 5 just sitting in the overflow trough pumping water into the main tank area just to test for leaks and stuff. You gotta love not seeing that overflow! I hope I don't regret the continuous design...

A shot down its length. I promise that tank is 2 ft wide... looks 6" in the pics! should have made it wider. Next time

Final pic... you can see the back bulkeads as well as one of the ones in the back bottom. The frnt holes are barely visible since they are close to the front face frame. I think I am going to make a PVC live rock support structure that will actually have water running through it. There will be 2 of these support systems and both will be tied into the bottom rear bulkheads. This way I can put detritus from behind the rocks where I can clean it out or the overflow will take it out.

So that's all peeps! Don't know what comes next?!?

What do you think?

LATER!

 

[Sean : EbN]

oops

 

[Sean : EbN]

Here is the update guys...

Sorry for the delay! Sunday I came down with the Flu or something like it and then Sunday night my 1.5 yr old Doberman Pinscher got hit by a car. After many hours at the emergency vet clinic he was released with only a little fluid on his lungs and no broken bones?!? I'm telling you that car hit him going at least 20-30 mph How do they do it?? We are just so relieved that he seems like he will be ok. Our dogs are like our children (since we don't have any of those yet) and we would be so lonely without them. So I'm still praying for Bauer (The Dobe) but he gets better every day!

So Sunday while I was sick but before Bauer's accident I was able to plumb up the return manifold with the 4way OM run from the sump by a Reeflo Dart and also I was able to do the framework for the walls around the tank. Here are some pics...

Here is a shot of the top of the tank from the far right end. This view will be impossible once the tank is all closed in...

Another shot of the tank from the front. As you can see from these pics, I ran one output from the OM 4 way on each end of the tank and then 2 in the front about 2 ft apart.

Another top shot...

Here is the rock shelf that I made from 1" PVC. If you look closely, one of the rear footings of this rack is plugged into a 1" bulkhead and that runs the group of 1/2" Loc-Lines attached to the structure. You can't see the underside but there are a few 1/2" Loc Lines that I hope will help blow some of the detritus from under the rock stacks. I still have to finish a similar structure for the left corner of the tank. I got tired of fooling with all the little fittings. Hope it works out or it'll be a huge waste of material and time.

Another angle...

So that's it for the pics tonight. The water in the tank is SALTWATER! I plumbed up the overflow drain and put my Durso's together tonight. I hooked it up to the sump room tanks and open her up... TONS OF WATER! I think my sump may be too small

There is a ton of microbubbles but that can be expected with the new plumbing. With the Dart going there is TONS of flow through the sump. I don't see the sump calming down much even when the pipes get slimy. So I'm thinking of some sort of sump upgrade. Any suggestions? I might even make a plywood sump or I also thought about drilling the current sump with a 2" bulkhead to feed a second sump. I'm just not sure. The current sump barely contains the water during a power shut down.

Back to the drawing board on that one I guess. I need to get my live rock order placed early next week if possible. There just seems to be lots of lags and hold ups. I'll enjoy my clean bubbly saltwater for now.

Thanks for reading...

LATER!

 

[Sean : EbN]

oops

 

[Sean : EbN]

Here is a quick photo update...

Here is the tank with about 3/4 of the rock that is going in it. I will have a little extra rock from the 300 lbs. bunch that I got in. The rock racks sure did save on rock. I wish I had done this years ago. The rack in the left corner is completely covered and I think it looks really good. The right rack is just barely covered other than the rock that I strapped on with the cable ties. Not all the rock is compeletely cured so I didn't want to add too much to the tank.

Here are a couple of pics of the setup with the canopy fully lifted. You can see the aluminum light box with the PFO reflectors with the socket mounted LED moonlights. I really like those things!

Here is the right rock rack when I finished straping the rock on with the cable ties. The really branchy form of this rock made it really easy to do this. The drill is just there for a size comparison. I started to drill holes in the rock but I broke a few pieces so I decided to just string it through the natural holes.

Thanks for looking...

 

[Sean : EbN]

WOW! Would love to see what it looks like now. Most of your photos are not showing up from your hosting site.

There you go Diana... I dug up all that I could!! Just for you!:inlove:

 

[Diana A]

That is awesome! Thank you for posting it. I also use a rock shelf to keep the rocks off the sand

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Wow Sean, sorry to hear about your accident. The tank build is really nice, and well done. It's good to see some long term plywood systems out there.