Flying Dutch 700 gallon in wall tank-living room/home office divider - Build Thread

[Euler Kernighan]

...continuing.


it works like a charm! once again my brother in law help me :thumbsup:

another view:

I decide to sand the starborad surface to make it a little bit less smooth:

it is seems it's snowing, uh?

 

[Aquatron]

Hello,

Everything is looking great! Nice pump you will like that

 

[Allan Shiuti]

hi my friend, congratulation for your reef

very nice

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

AND IN THIS CORNER. Classic.

 

[Bello]

Very nice Euler... Thinking of changing my SSB to Starboard too...

Which skimmer will you be using?

 

[Euler Kernighan]

Hello,

Everything is looking great! Nice pump you will like that

thank you my friend, reeflo pumps rocks! :thumbsup:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

hi my friend, congratulation for your reef

very nice

what's up Allan?!

it's my honor receive your 1st post! :lol2:

keep in touch!

 

[Euler Kernighan]

AND IN THIS CORNER. Classic.

Hi NAquarist!

I really enjoy at bruce's introduction! he is the great announcer in the world! :beer:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

Very nice Euler... Thinking of changing my SSB to Starboard too...

Which skimmer will you be using?

going to bare bottom, uh? in this project I opted to starboard just as a 'base' to FSB - just wait for the next post to see it - i'm updating the photos to photobucket right now.


regarding the skimmer, i'm going to use a bubble king supermarin 300 - what are you using?

 

[Euler Kernighan]

FSB - how i did it

FSB - how i did it

...guys be prepared, it's gonna be a long post with tons of pics!


as i said, i'm going to use a FSB prepared with two-part epoxy resin + nature's ocean samoa pink #2 + carib sea fiji pink #1.

ok, let's take a look at workbench:

bags of samoa pink:

boxes of fiji pink:

i just mixed (very well mixed) in a bucket the two substrates - 2 parts of samoa pink + 1.5 part of fiji pink:

and separated 1 part of this mixture:

close:

after that, i got another bucket where i mixed the substrate part with the epoxy resin part A - first the resin:

can you see the viscosity:

then i drop the first part of mixed substrate - 1 out 3.5:

check out how the substrate goes down and resin came up:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

...so it is time to mix - mix very well, i mean mix until the drill machine get hot and starts smoking... i meaning it!

another view:

after the 'first mix' i added the second substrate part - 2 out 3.5, mixed it again and added the last part - 3.5 out 3.5, and mixed again! this is how it looks like:

then i added the part B of epoxy resin:

close:

and mixed very very well again, can you see how the texture has changed:

after that I just drop the whole bulk in the tank and started to spread it out on the starboard, to accomplish this i divide the bottom in three sections, the first was the right side:

so I repeat the "whole mixing process" again to prepare fsb batch for the right side - thanks God, my buddy Macio was helping me! thanks again pal!

here you guys can see all preparation, at first I had to cover the closed-loop bulkheads:

so my buddy Marcio drops the fsb bulk on the starboard then i started to spread it out:

another view:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

...continuing.

after that i started the process to compact the fsb like this:

as of result of compacting the fsb, the resin starts to coming up and forming some humidity points - can you see on the picture bellow? that is really important - some FSB makers make the fsb surface very smooth and the resin of surface helps with that. I prefer not so smooth as you'll see on next photo.

i just spread some dry substrate to make the FSB looks more 'natural':

and slightly compact it again:

at that moment the thermometer marked 110F (43C) but it rises to 118.4F (48C) at the FSB surface:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

it's time for the last part - the middle! this is hard to do 'cause it was make by outside the tank... after prepared the last FSB batch, i dropped it on starboard again:

spread it out:

compact it and i just figured out that more fsb will be needed. thanks God again Marcio was help me and make another batch asap!

dropped it:

spread it:

compacted it:

dry sand:

 

[Euler Kernighan]

i almost forgot to mark the places where the bulkhead were:

here you can see Marcio just making the QA service:

removing the tape:

details...

attention to details:

FTS:

top view:

close shot:

i really like the final product!!!! hope you guys like!!! :bounce1:

 

[dca22anderson]

I love the final product! The real look and feel of sand without it moving and shifting in the currents! Great idea!!!

 

[Bello]

going to bare bottom, uh? in this project I opted to starboard just as a 'base' to FSB - just wait for the next post to see it - i'm updating the photos to photobucket right now.


regarding the skimmer, i'm going to use a bubble king supermarin 300 - what are you using?

Thinking about the Starboard, but won't do the FSB (which looks pretty good so far!), as my sea cucumbers will probably hate it. So starboard with an SSB over it. My tank has unusual bracing at the front and back bottom, so by using starboard, I'll have a shallower SSB, if that makes any sense?

I thought you bought the SM 300 and the Alpha Cone 300? I have the SM 300 , love it!!

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Job well done. I probably would have to add more sand if I plan to add sand sifters ?

 

[cdrewferd]

That looks great.

 

[allsps40]

What if a bulk head leaks??

 

[dirk_brijs]

Hi saw you will set your CL on a timer base.
Dont forget to close up your outlets with some sort of netting or stariner to avoid fishes to get housed in the CL outlets while they are switched off. Especially blennies or any other small fishes.