Hop's 300 gallon in-wall build

[Hop]

Useless information:

If you have read my previous threads or just want to see pictures, you may want to scroll down and catch the pictures.

Long story short is that about seven years ago I became addicted to salt water tanks after spending about 20 years dabbling in fresh water; from keeping goldfish as a kid, to moving to species specific tanks, breeding, planted tanks and then high-end planted discus tanks. I got pretty bored, but always thought that salt water would be too difficult. Well I decided to go for it and set up a 55 gallon FOWLR and was hooked. From there I moved to a 125 in-wall and then a 450 gallon system that many of you may have seen a time or two. During this time I’ve had a few 55s, a 40, a 30 and a 125 going in between and during the 450.

Then I elected to try to combine two display tanks together and shoot for about 800 gallons of total volume. Long story short is that due to a major medical problem, I had to liquidate most of my stuff so I could keep the evil bank people from foreclosing on my house. Now that things are getting back to normal around here, I was fortunate enough to wind up with a custom 190 gallon glass tank, which is going to replace my in-wall 125. It may not be as impressive as the 450, but I am looking forward to this tank I think more than any of my previous tanks. This tank should be fairly manageable while working full time and attending college as well.

So without going into anymore details, sob stories or interesting facts, I’ll move on to the build. Some of these pictures will be redundant for some of you as they start where I was with the 800 gallon build that never got completed.


The wetroom:

So I was fortunate enough to have a wetroom left over from the 450 gallon build. Initially I thought I would have to tear this down, but thankfully I didn't and elected to finish it out.

The old room was finished in greenboard and bathroom paint... Bad idea as it didn't work. So here is the deconstruction of the old wetroom:

And this is what the exhaust fan 4" pipe looked like after 2 years of use... Yuck!

 

[Hop]

So on to the new!

After everything was gutted from the room, bleached, and stripped, I added the floor. I elected on vinyl due to the ease of cleanup and if one tears, breaks or whatever, it's .$79 a square foot:

Next up was the walls. I found some fiberglass shower surround sheets that I applied to the wall with water resistant/hard drying adhesive. Here are the first few sheets.

Here the walls are almost completely up, calked and cured. The room will essentially hold about 3" of water now before it begins to flow out for the door... Which I've tested three times in the last two months:

Next up was the subfloor:

Then I was able to get the laminate glued on and trimmed. This is where you can see the cosmetic blem from the router bit. That get's fixed in a few pics:

 

[Hop]

Moving along:

I almost forgot... Where is this room heading? Here is the concept drawing, but some things have changed since drawing it up:

A little more done and the skimmer in place... It is 4' tall custom built GEO...

 

[Hop]

This is the point where things began to change a little from the original diagram. After looking at numerous TOTM from various places I found that they had beautiful tanks, but the wire mess behind the scenes made me cringe. So I began to envision a build with no visible wires:

Here is the beginnings of a cube I built for growing out corals and giving critters a safe-haven in the same system, but away from the display if needed.

 

[Hop]

I guess I forgot to mention that everything has to have a finished look for this build... So here is the beginings of wraping the wood and fishing everything:

 

[Hop]

Ventilation: This was a HUGE issue with the 450, so on the rebuild I elected to give the wetroom and the headspace above the tank is own fresh air intake and exaust. Here is the exhaust for the wetroom. It is a 100 CFM 1.2 sone bath fan. It is super quiet and will be tied(eventually) to a AC III with a temp and humidity sensor.

The infrastructure mostly done: I only had electrical, which I still have to finish and a few other items. Then it's plumbing and equipment time!
The west wall:

The supports are bow wrapped:

 

[Hop]

The lower end of the east end, with braces installed and wrapped!

The north and west wall:

The door jam painted. Funny the sticker on the door stated that it would only be warranted if painted within 48 hours of hanging. Oops:

I just had to have better lighting over the sink and the work and fragging areas, so I added some low-volt undercabinet lighting:

Starting to tuck the wires which are all ran through 2" pvc in order to hide the uglies!

 

[Hop]

Bulk heads installed in the lil cube and it's in it's place.

Here are a couple shots of how I'm running the various equiment wires at the ceiling line. I was going to paint the fexible conduit white, but decided that it matched the schedule 80 plumbing, so I left it.

Here is a brace removed in order to slide a 70 gallon acrylic RO/DI holding tank in it's place.

 

[Hop]

The 70 gallon tank, freshly made:

Temporarily in position! I place ply and foam under it later, but I don't know if I have pics of that.

Begining the plumbing for the ATO:

And just a overall to show where the valve is in relation to everything:

The plumbing of the RO tank begins. The electrical is hidden under this tank and the access panel is removed:

 

[Hop]

A quick overall shot of stuff back where it goes:

PLumbing the overflow on the 40ish gallon cube... Dirty tank, I know:

Running a wet-test on the overflow.

And a quick top down shot:

Here is what a trip to the hardware store will get you... A box of parts:

 

[jubjub]

holey jebus thats insane

 

[Hop]

And here are a few pics of the 40 cubeish plumbed and ready to go:

It's plumbed with a 1" OM omniflex nozzle rather than loc line. I like the omniflex nozzles much better... All 1" pvc and a ball valve for minor flow adjustments.

Next up was the skimmer. It too is plumbed with 1" for the feed. What you can't see is the drain is plumbed with 1.5"... Also you can see the 3/8 hose from the collection cup drain. I clean my skimmer frequently enough that I really don't need a waste collector... But, I will be running it to a phosban reactor to catch a little more skum if needed and then if that overflows in the event of the skimmer going crazy, it will be plumbed back to the sump. I like the Po4 reactors for this as they are half the price of a waste collector and I can't built them for as cheap as these things are Many, many uses!

A quick over-all shot of the business end of the wetroom:

 

[Hop]

And finally the flexible conduit is now secured.

And that just about it for the wetroom right now. I've got it all caulked and literally waiting for the sump next week.

To be continued shortly with the tank side of things...

 

[Hop]

So on with the tank. I'll try to remember to fill in the flow ideas and stuff as I go, but I think I will forget somethings as I post pics, so if anyone has questions about anything, fire away

Ok so here are a few pics of the tank inside and on the stand I threw together so I can move it around and finish up the plumbing, painting etc.

So here is the backside of the tank.

Basically the three bulkheads on the back are for the closed loop. The center one is about 10" off the bottom and will be the feed. The other two are the returns at about 6" off the bottom and will be connected to two PVC structures to hold the LR. The idea is to keep the crud from landing under the rocks and it will be designed to keep good flow around the rocks themselves and the back wall.

The overflow has 2 1" drains. I didn't see a reason to go higher as I'm only going to be pushing about 800gph through the overflow.

Here are just two more pics. One from the front and one for the closed loop from the front. The glass got really spotted from the rain the other night and I need to clean it.

 

[Hop]

Here is everything taped off and ready to go:

I did paint the sides as it will be viewable from the front only. Due to the way the cut out is designed for the in-wall set up, I do not like the light bleed through that I get from the way the tank sits in the wall... So, I have black sides:

As you can see, I did not paint over the siliconed joints. I will be placing a piece of black over these *slits* to ensure no light passes through, but I didn't want to think that anything in the paint could degrade the silicone now or over time.

 

[Hop]

Just so everyone is aware, this is not the plumbing that will be in the tank. It's similar, but I had to order some specialty PVC fittings so that everything will sit very close to the back wall. When completed the PVC will all be painted black also.

So onto the closed loop. As I think I mentioned, the closed loop structures I initially built, wouldnt cut it in my eyes. Here are two pics of the original ideas:

So I elected on these. They each have 22 1/4" holes, plus 2 1/2" loklines to keep the flow going and crud from settling under or behind the rocks:

 

[Johnsteph10]

Now that is excellent attention to detail!

The trials in life only serve to make us stronger and appreciate what we have even more.

Congratulations and welcome back!

 

[Hop]

The paint is not perfect, but the structure should be completely hidden when up and running. The only thing visible should be the ends of the lokline:

 

[Hop]

And just a few equipment shots

And two dorks that help me as I go:

First is Austin who hides my tools:

And beaker who helps me search the net:

That's about it for now. I'll try to fill in the blanks later tonight. I'm hoping on getting the tank swap done next tuesday.

 

[Hop]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10857468#post10857468 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jubjubrsx
holey jebus thats insane

Thanks! Hopefully it will come together soon