Matt's 5000ltr Display

[d3hree]

There is quite good air circulation under the floorboards with a couple of air bricks on the outside wall.

The aim would be to have no water on the floor at tank side. If I need to get in I would switch off the return pump and surge pump allowing the water level to drop.

The tank will run 2-3" lower than its maximum normally to allow for the surge water when that fires so I would expect that turning off the return pump and surge pump will allow me enough room to not overflow the tank when getting in.

 

[d3hree]

Next was the provision for sockets above the tank. These will accomodate light ballasts for both MH and T5, moonlights, OM 4 way and pc fans.

With the sockets being above quite a large expanse of water I will use baby proofing caps to seal any unused socket to prevent moisture build up

 

[d3hree]

The plug socket for the PC fans will be controlled via the ghl temp probe and will turn on at a certain temperature.

I bought 5 large pc fans and wired them to a 12v transformer

 

[d3hree]

Through this cavity wall is where the garage and the fish room is.

The drain plumbing is 2.5" (63mm) and the closed loop feed manifold plumbing is 3" (75mm) so I am going to need a lot of quite large holes through this wall.

I felt I had a couple of choices.
1) I could acro the wall, add an rsj for support and remove a course or two of bricks enough to allow me to feed the plumbing through the wall.
2) I could drill large cores through the bricks, maintaining the loadbearing properties of the wall.

I chose the later.

I bought a couple of 5" diamond tipped core drill bits

And an extension arbour for the sds drill so I could drill straight through the cavity.

 

[d3hree]

Part way through one hole

3 holes done, a total of nine holes needed.

3 x holes to drain to sump
2 x holes for extractor fans
2 x holes for closed loop manifold
1 x hole for surge.

 

[d3hree]

two holes were for the extractor fans. 2 linline fans, one will extract air from above the tank and one will pull in air from outside.

Both fans will be controlled by a humidity probe.

There is more ducting to add so that the inlet of one is away from the outlet of the other. I also need to add an inline carbon filter for the air being pulled from outside.

 

[kintaro]

nice mate more pics pls

rgds
yvan

 

[Michael B]

Awesome build - cant wait for the updates

 

[hpfunk]

Great work on the planing. Its funny that no matter how much you plan, you always see a better way latter on. The old saying "hind site is 20/20".
I'm in the 2nd year plus of planing my 5000g propagation system, I can't seem to settle on anything for more than a couple of months. Anyway great build, Ill be watching.

 

[d3hree]

kintaro,Michael B thanks for the comments guys.

Great work on the planing. Its funny that no matter how much you plan, you always see a better way latter on. The old saying "hind site is 20/20".
I'm in the 2nd year plus of planing my 5000g propagation system, I can't seem to settle on anything for more than a couple of months. Anyway great build, Ill be watching.

Thanks hpfunk, glad to have you along for the ride.
One reason I spent a long time planning and went into the detail that i have done is that i am determined to put right all the errors I made in my current system. However it would be naive of me to expect to have a perfect tank at the end of it...is there such a thing?

 

[d3hree]

Here are the last few pictures to get you caught up.
Unfortunately work is demanding I have no free time at the moment so progress has ground to a halt. I hope to pick up where I left it in a few weeks or so though.

Having drilled all the holes i was able to batten out the first wall. I cant explain how tough I found drilling the cores. For a guy who drives a desk and computer all day and night for work my hands felt shredded after drilling these cores.

The standard red bricks were fine and each hole took about 20mins but every now and then I hit a brick made of a different clay or something, like an engineering brick and hitting one of these added about 2 hours to the time needed to drill one hole. Coupled with the noise and having a young daughter meant that it took me 3 weeks to drill the cores.

Anyway, they are done now...thankfully.

Once the battens were fixed to the wall I was able to add a side of ply.

Once this piece of ply was added it began to give the sense of scale to the tank. The ply is 52"x52"

 

[ksed]

Updates:beer:

 

[d3hree]

I am working about 130 hours a week at the moment and have another 2-3 weeks or so of this. Then I will have a bit of time to carry on with the tank...cant wait.

It shouldnt take long to get the carcass put in and then I will be getting a firm in to fibreglass and seal it.

 

[cartouche]

Nice to see another Brit doing a great build !! I'm watching this 4 sure...

 

[kinlayan]

looking forward to seeing this build progress

 

[d3hree]

Nice to see another Brit doing a great build !! I'm watching this 4 sure...

Thanks Cartouche, I hope that there will be more to watch soon!

looking forward to seeing this build progress

Thanks for stopping by Kinlayan, if it turns out to be half as nice as your tank I will be a happy reefer!

 

[Angler02]

I like the pvc idea as well, I have seen a plywood build with triggers in the tank and they actually ate through the fibergalss and plywood behind the live rock creating a leak. As far as your stand I believe it was rocketengineer that started the stand thread and had the specifications on wood and the distribution of weight. I used his method of building for my 210 reef and actually overbuilt my stand for my own piece of mind. Instead of 2x4s I used 2x6s and the top was made of 2x10s. Here are a few pics.

 

[Angler02]

After these pics I added braces in the middle. However like yo9u said your stand will be braced to the wall as well, so that could definitly change the game.

 

[d3hree]

Thanks Angler, nice stand! Are the uprights 2x6?

I like the idea of the pvc lining I too have read horror stories of fish eating through the resin, urchins too. I also have concerns of scraping coraline off of the resin over years will that also weaken it?
I looked into the pvc idea when it was mentioned earlier but I could only find it avaliable in grey in the sizes i want.
I did have an idea of lining the inside of the tank with glass so that I could happily scrape away any algae build up and the fish can pick at it all they want.
Because the glass wont be load bearing aslong as i get it flush to the walls I thought it would be ok. 10 x 5 sheets of float glass that are 6mm thick are drastically cheaper than inch thick glass.

 

[dave.m]

If you were to go with the PVC lining you could then spray-coat it with gunnite or similar. I believe that's how Royal-Exclusiv does theirs. The thing I'd like to know is how to attach the PVC sheet to the plywood surround. You'd want something that was non-toxic and wouldn't off-gas VOCs.

Dave.M