cnaegler's 300 in-wall

[cnaegler]

Hello everybody!
Ok...well the time has come to set up the 300 gallon that i purchased through Craigslist almost a year ago after the seperation from the wife.. It's a Midwest Custom Aquarium acrylic reef ready tank. It measures 96" x 30" x 24". It was originally a shark tank but i'll be setting it up as a SPS tank. Unfortunately, when i purchased this, it had quite a few scratches on the inside and out, as most acrylic tanks do. Sooo... i figured i'd purchase a acrylic repair kit requiring me to sand the tank through various grits and then buff it out. I thought...no problem..i'll do that in a day or two. Weeeeell...that was a huge understatement. Almost a year later and i finally have that process completed. It literally took FOREVER. To anyone out there thinking...Hmmm....acrylic or glass?.. do yourself a HUGE favor and go with glass! This is my first and last acrylic tank but i'm stuck with it cause i'm not forking out another $2000.00 for a glass tank... at least not in this economy.
Anyways, i moved into my rental...which is an older doublewide i had purchased a few years back. The dining room is now the "fish room". I started the whole process by knocking out the wall between the dining room and living room so i could get to the floor to decide on exactly how i wanted to proceed.

 

[cnaegler]

So, i marked out the size of the tank on the floor and proceeded to pull the plywood to get a the floor joists. I tripled up the 2x6's underneath the legs of the stand and then installed a triple girder underneath these joists perpendicular to the ones i had tripled up already. I built 6 piers out of 8" block. One for each foot on the steel stand. I believe that this will be more than enough to hold up the Approximately 4000 lbs. that this thing will weigh with all the water, sand , rock and equipment...i hope anyways! mOk, that's it for now...i'll post more pics when i get back from the LFS.

 

[mrmikeasaurus]

i know theres a guy out this way that has a 180 that he had to use a bunch or cinder blocks and lumber to support the load

 

[Reef_Daniel1527]

What lights and skimmer are you using?

 

[Reef_Daniel1527]

nevermind i just saw it. Looking good, keep on posting as you go.

 

[cnaegler]

What lights and skimmer are you using?

Actually, i've switched lights and skimmer. I went from (3) 400watt radiums to (2) 48" Current 8x54 watt T-5 fixtures. I have an ETSS 1000 skimmer that's using a Panworld 200ps pump and this tank came with a Turboflotor 5000 shorty skimmer.

http://www.aqua-medic.com/turboflotor_5000_shorty.shtml

Now , i love the ETSS skimmer but i'm trying to run this tank a little more electrically efficient than my 180. That tank is currently up and running at my ex's, holding all the fish and rock for this tank. The panworld pulls 300 watts 24 hrs. day and the Turboflotor, only 65 watts so... I also plan on feeding it with the overflow water.

I'll crawl under the house a little later today to run the electrical lines so i'll get some pics of the support piers.

 

[cnaegler]

Here's the tank when i originally got it home. it's been sanded and polished now!

 

[cnaegler]

Here we are installing the cleaned and sanded tank on it's stand.

 

[cnaegler]

Here's a few of the fish room...

 

[cnaegler]

Ok, i managed to finish up all the tank plumbing including closed loop, return lines, overflow lines and RO/DI storage containers. I also finished up wedging all the support piers and running the electrical from the breaker box to the controller/ electrical control box under the house. I just have to build the "power station" box tomorrow. Heres some updated pics...