My 195 Build Thread...
- Thread starter Alex T.
- Start date
SPotter
Active member
Alex, there are some guys in my area that have very successful sps tanks run with AI's and supplemented with T5 bulbs for added color pop. I can send you links to some of their build threads on another reef site.
Alex T.
Active member
That would be great. I must live in an SPS no fly zone. I'm surrounded by soft coral and fish only hobbyists. I asked an LFS employee in my area if they ever bring in SPS corals and the owner looked at me and said:
I nearly ****ed my pants. I told him it was a shame because SPS carries great stuff. I haven't been back there in years.
Alex T.
Active member
Yup, got it. I can't believe the weight of this thing.
Jose, you're so lucky I didn't ask you to help pick this beast up. It took all of 4 men to move this thing. I absolutely love it. It's exactly what I hoped it would be. It's shrink wrapped right now.
What the @#!$ do you need pictures for? You're going to see it tomorrow!:lol: I think you're going to want one.
I'll post some pics after I have it set up on the stand this weekend. A couple of the guys that helped today said they would be sick that day and not to call again.
vangoghfish
Member
Yep he got it, and I can't wait to see it too, Alex, try some closeups, so we can see the quality of workmanship you spoke of.
Alex T.
Active member
David, it's still wrapped in plastic sheeting until I move it to the stand sometime next week. I'll post up some pictures when all the glass is exposed.
Steve, I really have nothing more to report right now. I've been really busy with work and haven't gotten much done other than the stand, which is rocketengineer's design for a rock solid stand with no center suppport. This will be great since my sump is 42 x 21 x 14 . Coast to Coast is building the sump right now which will be ready in a couple more weeks.
I need to get better at taking pictures to show some of these things to everyone!
I promise that as I move along this will get more picture intensive as I get the itch to fill it with water. Sorry guys...no pics for now.
Alex T.
Active member
So sorry I haven't been updating this thread. I've been so busy with work that I haven't had much tank time. The stand frame is built, the custom sump is in its' place and the tank was put on its' stand.
But, and this is a biggie...one of the friends that helped move the tank onto the stand rested the rear back glass corner on my tile floor and chipped a 1/16" piece an inch and a half long off. My jaw dropped...and if you understand what a tank like this costs...it may have well have been tears.
Anyway, after analyzing the chip from all angles, it appears to not be as bad as I originally thought. It's on the bottom of the back panel and appears to be a very clean break with no spidering or crack extending outward. With that said, the bonding surface of the 3/4" inch bottom panel (damn this thing was heavy) still has all but 1/16" inch of it's seal still affixed to the 1/2" back panel. Even though the tank is 72x26x24, it is in a very small room...my home office. The six footer is resting a few inches from a wall that is only 7 feet long, so getting it into the room was an almost impossible feat. The logistics of the location mean that I will not have side or rear access to the tank to check if the chip later becomes an issue. I marked all corners of the chip's footprint with permanent marker and began to leak test the tank last Friday. As of now, there are no leaks. I drained the tank this evening, struggled to move the tank on the stand by myself and checked the marks I'd made, and happy to report that there is no additional damage sustained from filling the tank. After thinking about it night and day, I shot off an e-mail to Bob Fenner with some detailed pictures of the chip, and to my delight he stated that I shouldn't worry about the tank's integrity and to enjoy it....so it's time to get moving.
With that said, here's a picture of the tank on its' stand as I was filling it on Friday...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=183288&stc=1&d=1332911861
and a dry fit of the sump with skimmer...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=183295&stc=1&d=1332912412
Sorry for the crappy iphone pictures. I'm going to be skinning the front of the stand this weekend and if I have time, I'll be starting some plumbing. If you can make out the back right hand side of the sump you'll notice a 1 1/2" bulkhead fitting. This will be plumbed through a drilled hole in the back of the stand into an insulated box in the garage which will house my Iwaki 30 return pump, metal halide and VHO ballasts, top off container, saltwater mixing station, all electrical outlets and a dual chamber My Reef Creations calcium reactor that I was running on my previous 150 gallon system. The idea was to keep all non-essential heat and noise producing equipment away from the tank so they would not create excess noise and added heat to the system. My last system was able to support 3 halide bulbs and vho's without ever climbing above 81 degrees in the summer, so I feel that with a larger system I'll still be safe.
I'll work on getting some better pictures loaded up this weekend to accurately showcase the tank, sump and plumbing plan in detail. I'm shooting for a very simple design without a lot of wire and plumbing clutter.
A chipped tank...but nevertheless, onward and upward.
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MammothReefer
Active member
Good to see it coming along. I don't know what your chip looks like but if It makes you feel any better..
Here is a chip I had on a tank of mine.
Never leaked.
Here is a chip I had on a tank of mine.
Never leaked.
Alex T.
Active member
Thanks MammothReefer...here is a picture of mine from the bottom looking up. Just to preface, there is a sheet of poplar that Coast to Coast silicones to the bottom of their tanks for protection from idiots like me. Apparently I'm too big an idiot. Anyway, I broke some of it off so that I could see the chip more clearly. The crazed area on the bottom pane is actually residual silicone that I scraped off after removing the wood. I siliconed the wood piece back to the bottom once I determined it was ok to fill it.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=183302&stc=1&d=1332914311
This picture makes it look a lot worse than it really is. That's why I chose to send this one to Bob Fenner. Although it appears there is some damage to the bottom panel, that is not the case...simply the reflection of the silicone on the glass or even the ceiling light shining down and casting reflections through the bottom panel. The chip looks deeper than it is...only 1/16" inch high at most. I'm pretty sure it will hold up fine, I just hate knowing that the imperfection is there. It's sort of like a scratch on a beautiful new car.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=183302&stc=1&d=1332914311
This picture makes it look a lot worse than it really is. That's why I chose to send this one to Bob Fenner. Although it appears there is some damage to the bottom panel, that is not the case...simply the reflection of the silicone on the glass or even the ceiling light shining down and casting reflections through the bottom panel. The chip looks deeper than it is...only 1/16" inch high at most. I'm pretty sure it will hold up fine, I just hate knowing that the imperfection is there. It's sort of like a scratch on a beautiful new car.
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Alex T.
Active member
I'll trade my chip over a scratch any day! I hope mine doesn't one day develop into something more that could cause failure.
Alex T.
Active member
I did. The chip actually goes all the way through to the where the bottom panel starts if you look at the picture. It exposes a hairline of the bottom portion of the bottom panel...just enough to grab a fingernail on. They were hesitant to give me any kind of assurance. I think they're worried about any kind of failure after they tell me it may be ok. Pat said that if I wanted to I could bring it up to them and have them take a look at it and give some suggestions. Yeah right! I'm going to remove a 300+ pound tank from its' stand and bring it back up to Toms River and then bring it back and re-install it in the same day? I didn't go for that one. It was hard enough to get the help to move it the first time.
Anyway, many others have said I should be OK, and a leak test put my mind at ease a little bit. At least it's on the back where I won't have to look at it all day.
SPotter
Active member
I think you will be ok but I am suprised that one of them didnt offer to come down and take a look at it for you. Seems kind of obsurd to suggest you load up a 400lb +++, glass tank for them to inspect when they could hop in the car and drive down one afternoon to look at it.
Alex T.
Active member
Agreed...especially factoring in the cost of the tank and the custom sump I had them make for me. I know they are very busy right now with every workable platform building tanks, and there are only two people in the company. When Pat's not there, no tanks are being built. I'd be willing to pay them for their time to travel here and look at it seeing how it's my fault the tank got chipped. I'm growing less concerned about the chip, and the stand is built to hold much more weight than this tank will load, so I think I'll be fine. It didn't even creak or settle when I leak tested it. The thing that struck me funny was that no matter how many pictures (15 in total) I sent them from different angles and closeups they said they really couldn't make an assessment. Every time I e-mailed them they called instead of responding in writing. I understand that in this day of unnecessary litigation that they're concerned about protecting themselves, but I clearly stated in my e-mail that I understood the tank warranty had been affected by the damage, however slight. All I wanted was an opinion that would tell me one way or the other what the person who built the tank thought of me proceeding with the build.
In the scope of things, the tank cost pales in comparison to all the other livestock and supporting equipment needed to run an SPS system of this size. In essence, if they said don't do it, I most likely would have cut my losses and started saving for another tank, but they didn't. They said that I most likely could sleep well at night, and that other people have chipped tanks before, asked for advice, and they never heard from them again so they assumed all went well. Nothing right now leads me to believe that I'll have a problem, so I'm not going to dwell on it. Life's too short. I'm making an angled mirror that will allow me from time to time to see the back of the tank from the front so I can survey and compare pictures over time to gauge if it's getting worse or staying the same.
I'm hoping for the best.
Onward and upward!
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