Addiction wins, 450 gallon system begins

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Hop, I just finished reading the entire thread, with all of the planning and detail that has gone into this tank you cannot get rid of it! You have inspired and helped me see the work that does go into a tank of this size. We are planning a 300gal in wall system with a wet room in the garage and this thread has informed me soooo much. Your tank is absolutely beautiful. Trust me when I say I understand the work situation, I am a pre-med student with 3 children and my fiancee just opened his own business so I got recruted as business manager untill we grow the business a little. It is hard to find the time to tinker with the tank but somehow it all works out. I wish you the best of luck and please don't let this speed bump stop you. :D
 
gkarshens My house bill is normally about $200 in the Winter so I am expecting $400 to be the mark. That pales in comparisson with our store that averages $600 year round.

I am using 3 large lamps in the hopes that I will actually save money and also using low amp pumps. I am also using gravity wherever possible like having the refugium actually installed above the display.

edgerat I'll bet you guys have quite a collection of equipment. I have bought stuff from propertyroom.com but it really ticks me off that they cut the cords. Is there really any reason for that? To save time? I got a couple of Lumenarcs for $45 out of the LA warehouse. They are used of course, but still in great shape. Unfortunately the ballasts have not been good lately so I bought those from reefgeek.

Mentioning propertyroom to an LFS owner can get you quite a nasty look but when they press me on stuff, I have to punch back right? LOL...I am going to run 3 - 1000W MH 20K lamps. I have a young avocado plant I may be able to grow next to the tank!
 
jnarowe said:
PS. You are teasing us with the slight shots of your "extra" ride...fess up!
Click to expand...
Was this for me? Is this about my car you can kinda see in the pics of my stand I am building? If so it's a 66 Impala. If you want more pics let me know and I can direct you to some.
 
YEs, yes, YES...I had a 63, 283, 3 on the tree, no back seat, roll cage, cement blocks in the trunk. It would do 70 in 1rst gear. Loved that car until I hit a telephone pole. Great stories though. Still have the emblems and the main roll bar with grip prints from horrified passengers. Not much else was left actually.

I miss that car. My Mom called it the "Taco Wagon" but it was not lowered, had real mag slots, edelbrock manifold, mallory ignition, open headers, and I burned a mixture of aero fuel and lab grade toluene. That thing was a screamer and could run with no coolant or oil. I am NOT kidding. The best balanced engine I ever owned.
 
Hop - I had a major problem last winter with humidity and sheets of water on my windows and I only had a 180 set up then. It got so bad I started getting rust on the door hardware around the house. After a little investigating the house, I found that the drain/breather holes at the bottom of my windows were either clogged or never opened when my house was built. So after taking a screwdriver and twenty minutes of my time opening the holes, no more problem. I was a little worried about it after a set up my 375 this summer, but so far no humidity problems. Just something to try.

As far as electric bills go, try living in Calif., i get a heart attack everytime my bill comes. Between the tank, a spa and an outdoor pond, I haven't seen a bill under 300 in months and we haven't even ran the heater yet this winter.
 
We are having a humidity discussion in my 280g thread right now, in case you want to follow along. (Same forum)
 
Thanks Marc, but my tank room will be virtually sealed and painted with bilge paint. Even where the tank meets the wall I will be using roll flashing and spray foam. I have got taping work ahead of me and I don't look forward to that inevitable mouthful. Anyone in the Puget Sound area want to come over for a mud & tape party???--J
 
I just wanted to thank everyone for the advise and words of encouragement. I remembered something this week... I spent all this money and took all this time to build the thing and I have yet to really enjoy it. It's always being looked at as an ongoing project. I stopped the other night and spent over two hours just looking inside the tank. I remembered why I got addicted to this hobby. I found that those silly corals are growing and spreading, I have tube worms and feather dusters popping up everywhere, pods going nuts, coraline spreading like mad, a single hermit crab eluded by banishment to the fuge, my starfish are starting to pop out a leg every once in a while and my coral beauty has an incredible personality and comes up to the tank walls and acts like he wants to be scratched!

I'm going to spend some time on the next set of days off working on the humidity issues, but decided that I'm going to take my kids somewhere and have some fun. I'm not going to spend so much time on RC for a few weeks, sometimes I'm cruising this place for hours at a time looking at everyone's masterpieces:) I'm not going to feel like I have to get everything done and take on one project right after another. Going to actually come home and enjoy the tank and not feel it's such an on-going chore.

I'm going to reevaluate everything in a few weeks... I still may have no choice, but I'm going to give my head a break... Maybe join a 12-step program :rollface: LOL...

Thanks again to everyone!
 
This is all your fault you realize. ;) If you'd just done it in 14 days like I did, it would have been behind you so you could just enjoy the tank now.

Instead, you planned and dragged this thing out for months on end, and overwhelmed yourself in the process. Bad Hop. :D :lol:

Good for you to take the time to smell the roses, and enjoy what you have. Get your kids' handprints put on the side of the tank like you did that horse. This breather will help immensely.

Even I'll take a day off RC occasionally. ;)
 
HOP: Good to hear you take a breath and relax. And RC can be quite a time-bandit to be sure.

Remember the thread title: "Addiction wins,..." NOT Addiction loses!!

Melev: My tank/room is completely sealed off from the house except when I open the door and the door has seals on it. I really don't think that large systems should be built any other way. It's not always possible of course but that is why so many use part of their garage.

You take a day off RC??? You must be joking!
 
Melev: I am working through that thread but an idea popped into my head to share. You write about venting through the roof and there is a way to save in this area. If your tank room is near a bathroom or kitchen, you can tie into the vent line already going to the roof. A clean-out fitting is the best and easiest place to tie in, and one can be installed fairly easily if you can't find one. A little creative flexible vent hose going to a clean-out will give you direct access to the roof with no hassle of installing the pipe, vent etc.

Do you get what I mean?
 
Yes I do. However, one thing that I was worried about is that the air wouldn't go <u>only</u> up and out, and might go down and through my stove's vent. There is a PVC riser very very close to where i need to put an exhaust fan in the fish room now.
 
I thought about that too but have not had any problems with it. If the cleanout is facing up, that should direct it all up the pipe.
 
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