Building Big Bertha: 800G
- Thread starter bbrantley
- Start date
Untamed12
New member
Funny to hear you lament about the corner. I wanted the same thing on my tank,but just couldn't get a large enough piece of acrylic or bend it sharply enough.
Your solution looks great btw.
In my case, I wanted my corners curved mostly so that there was a smooth inside corner. I can't stand how tough it is to clean the inside of a 90 degree.
Your solution looks great btw.
In my case, I wanted my corners curved mostly so that there was a smooth inside corner. I can't stand how tough it is to clean the inside of a 90 degree.
Tell me about it. Big sheets of acrylic are an amazing market.
We have the metal rails installed on the ceiling for the light carriage today, and the tank's supporting platform is fully shimmed and injected with goo. It looks pretty solid now! No air gaps. Also, we used the last of the Sanitred flooring to make one more pass over the floor and build it up a little more. It seems fine.
I'm working now on trying to decide how to lay out the support components in the room... some of which haven't been built or bought yet! It's tough for me to visualize it all, so I'm thinking I might take a more gradual approach. I think if I can get the skimmer and sump in and running, I can start cycling the tank. The refugium, propagation, and top-off tanks can be added in after.
I'm also wondering how much of a ratio of live rock to base rock I need. Anyone have any idea? My last tank was all live rock, but it seems dumb to get so much more this time around.
Ben
chainsaw5vent
New member
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
chainsaw5vent
New member
wow! very nice! any updates?
Bertha is coming along nicely. She filled up with water last week and looks good - no deflection or any other crazy things. The stand leveled itself out under the weight, so we're getting decent even loading across the floor, I hope!
The aluminum light rack/rail is almost completed. Turns out we put the holes in just barely the wrong spot, so we have to redrill them so that it aligns perfectly over the tank. The tank alignment is actually not that critical (the reflectors are smaller than the holes), but the slight bit off causes the rail to hit the trim on the door in the middle of the room when it is slid across the room. So we'll fix those up shortly! We did load it up with all six MH ballasts and it appears to flex slightly but not intolerably. I couldn't resist lighting one up, and it looks pretty cool!
I ordered a big pile of salt and sand from Drs. Foster & Smith last week, much to the FedEx man's chagrin. Apparently he couldn't fit all the boxes into his truck for Friday's delivery, so he had to come back today. I missed out on Friday, but he decided to grumble and complain about how many there were today. I was only a little sympathetic, especially since I helped him carry them all from his truck onto the porch. After the second box, he asked me, "you know I don't get paid by the box, right?" After the third box, it was, "do you know how much I get paid per delivery?" I responded that, "I'm pretty sure I don't want to know," with kind of an uncomfortable laugh that was supposed to be right on the fence between being courteous and helping him realize that I really didn't care to hear his whining. When I shared on the sixth box that, "I don't really have any control over the shipping agent anyway with this vendor; they choose it and foot the bill," he couldn't help but tell me that he only gets $5 per delivery. Crazy, huh? Anyway, I live in a rural, neighborly place where everyone knows everyone, and we try to be careful not to insult anyone lest we suffer the fallout for the rest of eternity. But, this guy drives up from the city to deliver this route, and I was in a good mood until he started complaining about how much business I was bringing his company. I left a complaint with FedEx customer service and, hopefully, I won't find all my future packages broken and left in the rain for life.
Anyway, I got 10 buckets of Reef Crystals (on sale) to complement my leftover 8 buckets of IO (I'll start the tank with the IO since it won't have much coral load for a long while). I got 20 bags of 1-1.5mm sand and 10 bags of the finer-grained stuff for the refugium. That should be a good start! Right now it looks hilarious; I have all those boxes kind of stacked on my porch (they didn't survive shipment too well so they are kind of falling apart, but the bags inside look fine), 18 buckets of salt, and then about ten more boxes inside the door with lighting ballasts, reflectors, glass, and a couple pumps. I've been on the road and busy with a lot of other stuff, so I haven't gotten to unpack most of it yet! (I guess it helps that I already know what it looks like; I ordered "samples" of everything, including the lighting stuff, a long time ago.)
To further complicate matters, we're having our floors refinished starting Wednesday, so all the dogs and humans have to move out for 3 or 4 days. I can't say I'll be too sad to leave the big pile 'o mess for later!
I'll take pics tomorrow and try to post some later this week from the hotel.
Ben
That's what I thought, too. I'm definitely not losing sleep over it, let's put it that way.
I ended up taking the pics tonight because I decided I was too far behind not to spend some late-night hours unboxing and organizing stuff before tomorrow. Here's a shot of the tank from the main room, lit with one 250W XM 10K for now:
From the inside, and obviously a temporary setup:
A couple of 300CFM fans to exhaust/exchange fish room and outside air, plus a AIR-2 humidistat/thermostat to turn them on and off:
Some 400W ballasts and a Sequence Dart:
Ben
DamienHanna
New member
Sweet deal on that salt from Drs F&S...I zipped on over there and ordered a bunch of Reef Crystals for $35.00 a bucket and $15 shipping. I got 10 buckets which should last me 6-8 months easy.
So thanks for mentioning that in your earlier post; I was down at the LFS this weekend and the guy is charging $99.99 for a bucket of standard Tropic Marin. I've used it for a long time but there's no way I am going to pay that much anymore; I had been buying it from Marine Depot for $70 delivered but this is the best deal yet. I've tried many brands of salt over the years and to be honest I've never seem much of a difference and I really believe that when it comes to salt mixes the premium charged for some brands is not worth the effort. I ran a comprehensive set of tests on the Tropic Marin special reef mix and it's nothing special; it didn't even buffer up to 8.2 and only had slightly elevated calcium levels. Not worth an extra $20 IMO...
--Damien
So thanks for mentioning that in your earlier post; I was down at the LFS this weekend and the guy is charging $99.99 for a bucket of standard Tropic Marin. I've used it for a long time but there's no way I am going to pay that much anymore; I had been buying it from Marine Depot for $70 delivered but this is the best deal yet. I've tried many brands of salt over the years and to be honest I've never seem much of a difference and I really believe that when it comes to salt mixes the premium charged for some brands is not worth the effort. I ran a comprehensive set of tests on the Tropic Marin special reef mix and it's nothing special; it didn't even buffer up to 8.2 and only had slightly elevated calcium levels. Not worth an extra $20 IMO...
--Damien
jnarowe
New member
Ben,
Looking great! That FTS is sweet. What kind of ballasts are those? Your floor paint looks really good too.
DamienHanna: $99 for a bucket of salt? That's laughable. Try Ocean Pure some time. It's about $30/200g box and has plenty of Ca, alk, and Mg. In fact, my Mg has been pegged at 1475 since the day I started my reef.
Looking great! That FTS is sweet. What kind of ballasts are those? Your floor paint looks really good too.
DamienHanna: $99 for a bucket of salt? That's laughable. Try Ocean Pure some time. It's about $30/200g box and has plenty of Ca, alk, and Mg. In fact, my Mg has been pegged at 1475 since the day I started my reef.
Untamed12
New member
Can you provide more detail on how you've hung the lights? I see that you've got some sort of sliding track up there...what is this track and where did you get it? What sort of wheels are in there?
I'm just nearing time to hang my lights and I'm struggling trying to find an appropriate track system.
Also...are you going to mount the ballasts such that they move with the lights?...or are the ballasts going to be stationary, while the lights move away from them?
Brad
I'm just nearing time to hang my lights and I'm struggling trying to find an appropriate track system.
Also...are you going to mount the ballasts such that they move with the lights?...or are the ballasts going to be stationary, while the lights move away from them?
Brad
Hey Brad,
Those tracks seem to be what "everyone" uses, and they're pretty good. They are made by Stanley and they are designed for hanging barn doors. If you call around, you should be available to find a hardware store that carries this stuff. The tracks and the trolleys are designed to work together (obviously), so you purchase the tracks in the lengths you want, screw them into the ceiling, and install the trolleys.
In my case, the ballasts will be mounted on the rail right next to the lights. I decided I would rather extend the 120V cords from the ballasts to the wall than extend the high-voltage cables from the ballasts to the lights, and this approach also means I don't have to find the ballasts another place to sit. The disadvantage is that they put a lot of weight on the light tray and they are potentially exposed to more salt/spray.
Ben
