My 180 4sided viewable in-wall build

Thanks Gary and yes, we share the same ideas about astetics of aquascaping... I think ghe gyre flow system is a pretty cool looking setup, though i also think it takes up a lot of in-tank space... something that is pretty valuable.... I havent seen a build using a Gyre, only articles and photos... If you go that direction, let me know so I can see the build... I'd be very interested.
 
Picture day!

Here's the tank, on the stand (version 2 of the stand) the day it came in from the cold.
stand-2-2.jpg

stand-1-2.jpg


Here's the tank stand, version 3.0 (haha.. yeah i know.. )
stand-3-2.jpg


Template for the top of the stand to match the holes in the tank.
stand-5-2.jpg


Obligatory kids in the tank shots... ;)
stand-6-2.jpg

stand-7-2.jpg


Plumbing parts. This is about 25% of the plumbing, the other parts are coming in.
stand-10.jpg
 
Rocks, a sampling of what Marco Rock looks like. Its pretty dense, but I really like the look.
stand-11.jpg


Some of the plumbing and rock work in-tank.
stand-9.jpg

stand-8.jpg

stand-12.jpg


Today's goal, and tomorrows, and so on, and so on, is to cover more pipes with rock... then add rocks where i need to finish the scaping...
 
Sisterlimonpot said:
Ahh progress, I like. What did you use to glue all the rock around the plumbing?
Click to expand...

The product is from Two Little Fishies called the AquaStick Epoxy Putty. This stuff is gold... Mix it for about 2min... you'll feel it go "gooy"... use it fast, within 2 min after that it's set-up hard... I love it...

So far, I've used about 8 tubes of it... which is re-donk-u-lus in cost... but I like the result so do not tell my wife what its costing...


I did make much more progress tonight, but i'm tired, it's late, been bent over the tank nearly all day working on the rock-work and i'm too tired to take photos and post tonight... look fwd to an update tomorrow.
 
I cannot believe that it's been over 2 months with very little progress, until last weekend. I do wonder if anyone is even following along any more on one of RC's longest builds to date. lol

The weekend past was a full-focus tank weekend and some significant progress has been made!

The rock work is finished, other than a few bit's and pieces that my wife wants to add which will get added tonight. I would never do that rock work again. The structure is awesome, for my tastes, but level of effort was painful. A good 40hours of work has gone into the aquascaping, and that's just the labour parts. I've no idea how much was spent planning, discussing, modeling, re-modeling etc... Never again.

The plumbing under the tank is at 50% and the rest is waiting on assembly which I can do in about 2 hours. I've mocked up the two closed loops and all the bits and pieces fit nicely I just need to glue it up, and cut some final lengths. It turned out pretty clean for all that is going on in the very small space.

I've made sure that the two CL pumps are easily removed from the stand for maintenance and that the CL ball valves are also easily accessed for tuning the flows. I'll finish this off tonight and start filling the tank with RO/DI water. I'm also going to rinse and add the substrate to the tank. Likely tonight, at the latest tomorrow.

I did a wet test with about 10 inches of water, and had no issues with any plumbing so far. Even the bulk-heads held up first time, which was a nice suprise.

I have a few more photos to post, but honestly i'm driving to get this running by the weekend so photos and posts are taking a back-seat. I've asked for a dozen yellow-headed jaw fish to be ordered on this weeks order for the tank so things need to be ready by Saturday.
 
The rock work has been completed
rockwork-2.jpg

rockwork-6.jpg

rockwork-8.jpg


The Plumbing has been completed (first version)
Pictures009_1.jpg

Pictures008_1.jpg

Pictures007_1.jpg
 
Last edited:
TO DO:

The CL pumps and implementation are not ideal. They are noisy... too noisy for me. I swapped pumps with Gold series pumps and it helped, a bit... but not enough. There are two suspect issues that are going to be addressed;
1) too many bends used for the input - this is causing restriction on the input of the pump causing it to work harder and make more noise.
2) hard-pvc used on the input - this is transferring vibration all over the place... bad stuff

Solution; replace hard-pvc with too many turns with SPAFLEX. Solve both problems with on fix. Also sound-proofing will be added to the tank-stand to help further.

Fix drywall! this has got to be done cause it's been months of living with a huge hole in the wall.

Figure out the "wall side" canopy. I want to have access to the tank from all-sides, but on the "wall side (sunflower pic)" I do not want it to look like there is access. I'm thinking of covering the entire wall in wood, and one of the wood panels can either swing up, or be removable.


In the basement, i'm swapping my MR-4 with an Orca Pro II for lower maintenance. Its, IMO, not as good of a skimmer, but still very over-rated (1200g rating) for my 340gallon system, and maintenance is better for me.

I'm heading to MACNA this year, hoping to learn more about biopellets first hand and maybe swap from Ultalith to pellets.
 
dang amazing, subscribed. is that 2 achilles i see? maybe some stocking lists are in order? sorry for all the questions but im known for them. also did you cement the pvc used in the return? maybe i could do something like this with my 55.
 
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