Getting back into the hobby after 4 years with a 310 Gallon reef

[PBessell]

After planning for a year and working on a new set up for 6 months a friend has convinced me to write a thread. He says my time line and setup is worth sharing. Bear with me as I run through the history of my current project. So here it goes.
After being out of the hobby for 4 years and staring at my 265 in dry storage in the garage it was time to get the insanity started again. Wanting something bigger the original plan was a 400 gallon built in tank. The wife was not too excited about this idea. Somehow she convinced me that a smaller tank would be better and it would leave room for a built in bar.

I found a tank that needed rescuing on Craigslist and that kick started the project. Here are some photos of the initial design of the bar and tank along with the tank when purchased.

 

[PBessell]

After a few months of planning it was time to get the tank polished and stand built. The tank was polished out by a local company. I decided to build a new steel stand. I custom designed for the built in concept, had it built and galvanized to withstand the salt exposure.

 

[PBessell]

I have self-performed 95% of the work myself. Now the fun begins. Demolition and layout of the new room.

 

[PBessell]

Framing and wall removal

 

[cubetank]

looks nice

 

[stagcrazy]

looking good

 

[PBessell]

Plumbing rough "“ I anticipated putting in a tank so when renovating the bathroom I installed hot and cold water supply, drain connection and a floor drain. This became a little complicated. I had to account for the Bar sink and ice maker water line (the easy part) Then I decided it would be practical to have small sink to for washing all the "œfish stuff" out in so I would limit the yelling of my wife about the mess. So the plan evolved. Half of the closet being build has not been turned into a small fish tank maintenance room. So a second rough for a sink and another connection for the RO/DI system to be put on its own supply and valve. The last connection is for the floor drain flush and hose for miscellaneous cleaning. The floor drain will allow the skimmer to dump directly into it which will aid in maintenance and avoid constant cleaning of the catch cup, an overflow drain line from the sump which will avoid flooding of the house in case the RO system adds too much water which I am also using to drain the tank when performing water changes, and the drain for the bar sink. So to make sure I have a way to clean the floor drain I piped a waterline with a valve so I can flush the drain weekly.

 

[PBessell]

Electrical rough "“ If you have been reading, by know you realize, nothing I do is easy. It's all over planned and complicated. In addition to the wiring for the bar (ice maker, wine fridge, lights, etc.) I had to plan for the tank. For the electrical support of the tank I decided to install an electrical sub panel with 4 breakers. These 4 breakers are then wired to a serious of 14 switches and then each switch is wired to a GFI outlet located next to the equipment it runs. I will go into the equipment in a future post. This implements multiple levels of electrical surge protection. In essence this is an in wall outlet strip on steroids. This will prevent the power of 1 item knocking out power to another. The lights tripping the power to the pumps. For instance, the Chiller is on its on breaker and switch, the main pump is on a different breaker than the closed loop to make sure there is always water movement. This took some time to figure out making sure that each circuit was balanced and location of the outlets based on the planned equipment. This also took a commitment that I would never be able to hook up a monitoring system such as APEX to run everything.

 

[PBessell]

electrical pictures continued

 

[PBessell]

Electrical pictures continued again

 

[PBessell]

Finally making progress, drywall installation. I decided to put moisture/mold resistant drywall on the exterior of the tank room. Then on the inside I used plywood. The plywood allows me to screws anywhere that is needed and then don't have to worry about anchors or backing.

 

[PBessell]

drywall install continued

 

[PBessell]

Time for PAINT - finallllllllyyyyyy

I promise, the actual tank build is coming

 

[PBessell]

Trimming out all the crazy electrical I installed

 

[PBessell]

Now that the room is build I painted the stand Black and put the plywood top on. In place ready for the tank to be placed.

 

[PBessell]

Tank placement "“ now its starting to look like something. With the trim even better.

 

[PBessell]

The first of many water tests. This one is to make sure all bulk heads are water tight and that the stand is level with the weight of the tank and 300 gallons of water. I figured the water and the tank weight over 2,500 lbs.

 

[stagcrazy]

tagging along everything looks great man.

 

[PBessell]

Thanks Stagcrazy

If you enjoyed things so far, you will really like whats to come.

 

[csantanavaz]

Looking good!


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