It begins... 345-gallon Starphire in-wall system
- Thread starter mrcrab
- Start date
mrcrab
In Memoriam
Alright. I have a temporary sump in and water is flowing. Yesterday I put a small school of chromis in the tank to cycle it.
Today the electrician is wiring the box.
Made the bases for the rock column ala Sanjay.
Anyone have any idea if commercial grade quickcrete hydraulic stop cement will be okay?
I've heard a couple of people talking about Thorite but I don't know if that's the brand name or what. The ingredients say Portland cement, graded sand and proprietary additives. The sand didn't wind up sticking. This stuff cures extremely fast, a matter of minutes. I'll have to break of the bigger rocks tomorrow and see it I can put on a thin layer and get some sand to stick to it then ad the bigger pieces later.
First I taped the dimensions I wanted the pillars in on the driveway. I've left 6" clearance front and back and 8" on the sides. Then I placed the bases where I thought I'd like them and cut the fiberglass rods to all different heights except for the 2 largest which will actually poke out of the water. I then concreted the rods into the bases and finally tried to camouflage the bases with sand and rubble.
Picked up the 120 gal AGA sump. First compartment will be for skimmer, next frag area and finally return pumps.
Today the electrician is wiring the box.
Made the bases for the rock column ala Sanjay.
Anyone have any idea if commercial grade quickcrete hydraulic stop cement will be okay?
I've heard a couple of people talking about Thorite but I don't know if that's the brand name or what. The ingredients say Portland cement, graded sand and proprietary additives. The sand didn't wind up sticking. This stuff cures extremely fast, a matter of minutes. I'll have to break of the bigger rocks tomorrow and see it I can put on a thin layer and get some sand to stick to it then ad the bigger pieces later.
First I taped the dimensions I wanted the pillars in on the driveway. I've left 6" clearance front and back and 8" on the sides. Then I placed the bases where I thought I'd like them and cut the fiberglass rods to all different heights except for the 2 largest which will actually poke out of the water. I then concreted the rods into the bases and finally tried to camouflage the bases with sand and rubble.
Picked up the 120 gal AGA sump. First compartment will be for skimmer, next frag area and finally return pumps.
jnarowe
New member
yeah that is interesting. I have been toying around with the idea of building a pillar but I am not really sure, based on my current aquascaping, if it merits the work. I think it comes from impatience with the coral growth as I left a lot of room for coral heads to grow, but that does take some time! 
mrcrab
In Memoriam
Here's a shot of the electrical box. Not completed yet. Should be done and installed on Tuesday. It will be running of 3 seperate 20 amp breakers with the ability to ad one more if needed.
The plumbing was just temporary. Yesterday I glued the bulk of it together and had a small leak today which I just used marine epoxy to fix. Couldn't be bothered pulling it apart.
The sumps in place but I ran out of water to fill it. Making more at the moment and shoould be finished tomorrow.
Unfortunately I failed to take into account the trim on the tank so I couldn't move it as far to the left as I wanted, to try and keep the return pumps in the middle of the main tank. I guess I'll just have one pump putting out a bit more due to the extra head pressure.
No work on the pillars today as I'm in the middle of remodeling a bathroom that has to be done by Thanksgiving per the bosses orders. My pillar time was spent painting...my most favorite job in the world. :thumbdown
The plumbing was just temporary. Yesterday I glued the bulk of it together and had a small leak today which I just used marine epoxy to fix. Couldn't be bothered pulling it apart.
The sumps in place but I ran out of water to fill it. Making more at the moment and shoould be finished tomorrow.
Unfortunately I failed to take into account the trim on the tank so I couldn't move it as far to the left as I wanted, to try and keep the return pumps in the middle of the main tank. I guess I'll just have one pump putting out a bit more due to the extra head pressure.
No work on the pillars today as I'm in the middle of remodeling a bathroom that has to be done by Thanksgiving per the bosses orders. My pillar time was spent painting...my most favorite job in the world. :thumbdown
jnarowe
New member
No recent pics of my tank and strangely no pics of my electrical box. I did it a bit differently in that I brought in 100 amps from my main box (I have 400 amp service) and installed a sub-panel in the tank room. From that I ran liquid tight conduit to 5 different liquid tight single gang boxes. I then installed 4 DC4HDs and 1 DC8 (Neptune) to the 20 amp circuits. I also have another pre-existing 30 amps available in the tank room walls. I surface mounted everything so that I had greater flexibility.
I also designed my entire system to draw the least amount of electricity and still have a very healthy lighting system. My skimmer uses 120W and I have a single Hammerhead providing return flow. That feeds the refugium, display, and auxilary equipment through a minifold. My Lighting is 3 - 1000W MH 20K lamps. The center lamp is in a dish and the two end lamps are on movers. I use 4 Vortechs for in-dispaly flow giving me approx. 16,000 gph and very low electrical consumption. I attribute about $70/month to my 1,200g system.
I also designed my entire system to draw the least amount of electricity and still have a very healthy lighting system. My skimmer uses 120W and I have a single Hammerhead providing return flow. That feeds the refugium, display, and auxilary equipment through a minifold. My Lighting is 3 - 1000W MH 20K lamps. The center lamp is in a dish and the two end lamps are on movers. I use 4 Vortechs for in-dispaly flow giving me approx. 16,000 gph and very low electrical consumption. I attribute about $70/month to my 1,200g system.
