My 330 Gallon Cube Project

[Theron]

Hi,

I have been a member on this site for a while now, and have received a lot of great information here, especially from peoples build threads. So, I thought I would start a thread for my 330 gallon cube in wall tank.

I just moved to from Portland, OR to Boise, ID a few months ago. During the move my wife told me, "if you sell the mustang you can build a new in-wall tank in the new house". It was a tough choice but I chose the tank.

The tank is going to be built by James at Envision Acrylics. It is almost a cube, 54w 48d 30h and made of 1 inch acrylic so no cross bracing. My current tank is 18d and this time I wanted something very deep. I should be able to pick up the tank in about a month.

Here is drawing of the tank.

The goal with this tank is to make it look natural as possible. I don't want anything man made to be visible, so all the plumbing is coming through the bottom of the tank under the rock. I am going to use the pvc to create a platform for the rock to sit on. I will then have nozzles coming out of the rock structure.

I had a hard time visualizing the tank, and where I wanted to build holes for the plumbing, so I ran to HD and picked up some 1 inch Styrofoam and built a full scale model. This also let me know if the tank would be able to clear the corner of the stairs into the basement.

Here is the tank made from Styrofoam.

Here it is placed in front of the wall. The tank will be in wall.

Trying to get an idea as to the height of the stand. I want to be able to view the tank while standing but also want to be able to see it well while sitting. It looks like 38 inches is about the right height.

You can also see that there is a storage room on the other side of the wall which will be the fish room.

This picture gives and idea what the aquascaping will look like.

As you can see I want to completely hide the overflow with rock. I will probably make the smaller pile of rock on the left a little bigger than that. This model is really going to help me decide where to drill the holes. I have made a few adjustments after seeing it in real life.

That is it for now. I will update later with some of my equipment choices.

Theron

 

[Goodwin9]

Great way to plan out a tank. Keep us updated. :thumbsup:

 

[rhunt]

There is a lot of thought here! I'm along for the ride...
Please keep us posted.

 

[Bax]

I just love the styrofoam modle, I was toying with doing a plywood one for my build, this is soooo much easier!!!!

 

[Goldleaf Reef]

Theron, Great mock up.. Is the tank going to be visable from 3 sides ? or are you going to enclose the tank ?

 

[izzypop]

Theron glad to see the move went okay for you. Go with James external overflow if it is not to late. They are super sweet. I just had another 3 foot cube done last week and they come out awesome. When your in Portland stop by if you want and you can see how my inwall turned out for ideas. Good luck.

 

[Theron]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9112821#post9112821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Goldleaf Reef
Theron, Great mock up.. Is the tank going to be visable from 3 sides ? or are you going to enclose the tank ?

The tank will be viewable on one side only, it is going to be in-wall. In fact that is the next thing to do is design and build the stand on the other side of that wall in the storage room. The back panel is going to be clear so I can view from in the fish room, but I am going to place a removeable black panel behind the tank. The sides will be made from black acrylic.

Theron

 

[Theron]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9113173#post9113173 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by izzypop
Theron glad to see the move went okay for you. Go with James external overflow if it is not to late. They are super sweet. I just had another 3 foot cube done last week and they come out awesome. When your in Portland stop by if you want and you can see how my inwall turned out for ideas. Good luck.

Hey Shawn, good to hear from you. The move went well. I ended up moving the 90 gallon and most of the livestock with me. I would not do that again. I think during the whole move process I had to move the tank 4 times, not fun.

I hear you on the external overflow. He has not started yet. I went back and forth about internal or external. I decided that I did not want to be able to view the overflow. I wanted a nice clean look. Since the tank is so deep, I will not be using the corner anyway. The only hard part is taking the rock up to the surface.

PM me your email address and I will send you an email when I will be up there to pick up the tank. I am not sure on the date yet but it will be end of Feb or Beginning of March. I would love to see your set up. I saw you build thread and it looks great.

Theron

 

[rayman45]

looking good .... little excited with the model..

 

[Headless_donkey]

The model idea is great. I am going to try it! I think deep tanks are the way to go.

 

[Theron]

My wife just shook her head and laughed when she saw the model that I built. But it has really been a good visual aid for me, and it was really easy to build. I had a few questions and concerns about the demensions of the tank and I did not want to make any guesses. I needed to make sure that I could get the tank down the stairs and around the corner. I could have done something in CAD program, but that would have taken me forever. This took me less than an hour. I now have a good idea how I am going to aquascape it and how much rock I will need. I thought the depth of the tank would be plenty, but once I got my fake rock in there, it looks like it will be just right. In fact I could have gone deeper.

BTW, if anyone has any suggestions about where to get good base rock, let me know. I need to think about ordering some soon.

Theron

 

[elfa]

Hi
Very nice idea with the full size model. I think I will do the same eventhough I already have my new tank stored in the garage. It is soo much easier to move around styrofoam than glass when I'm to deside the placement, stand height etc.
Are you sure you want to have the overflow in the corner?
Since this will be an in wall tank you could make a Calfo overflow at the back, avoiding a very visual (manmade) box in the tank.
Do you need to have the sides in black acryl? If you look at your current tank from the front you are not able to see though the sides (try with a hand). I think you would like to look into the tank from the sides when you are in the fish room (I would).

Keep up the good work
Vidar

 

[makoJ]

Man is that a starfire front panel that is crystal clear:rollface:

Great idea going to be following your thread keep us updated!

 

[Scottkelly911]

Wow, I bet that styrofoam tank is soo much lighter than an acrylic or glass one. The Newspaper reef is also a great idea, now you just need some plastic fish in there lol. Seriously though, that's a great idea and when I can go big, I'll definitely steal your idea of using foam to during the planning process. About the over flow, I think a good choice would be to go with an external on the side since you're going black acrylic on the sides. It won't skew the view from either the front or back. Here's kind of what I mean from a top view looking down no the tank. The dots are just to hold the place so it'll allow me to draw it out

________________
|....|...................| Fish Room
|__|....................|
....|.....................|
....|.....................|
....| ____________ | _____________
Wall

 

[Theron]

Ok, I have looked at my overflow design again and it does take up a lot of space. I think it might be a challange to hide it. I have also noticed that is can be hard to access it for cleaning being so high. So I am going to look into doing an external one.

I still like the idea of having the overflow in the corner so I thought about something like this.

Otherwise I might just put it along the side like suggested.

Theron

 

[Theron]

elfa, I am not sure about the calfo style overflow. I believe that is one that would extend the entire length of the back. I am not sure if I want something that long. I am trying to hide the fact that thee is an overflow as much as possible. I really like the clean look of the surface of the water meets the wall. I don't like the look of the overflow teeth at the surface. I will look into it though.

I am doing the sides in black acrylic to avoid the mirror reflection you get with clear material. It would be nice to see through the sides, but I think this will be better for the viewing side.

Thanks for your suggestions,

Theron

 

[thriceanangel]

I don't see anything??

 

[thriceanangel]

Sorry I forgot to open my eyes or something. You don't need to have teeth on your overflow, in fact there are many who believe that you shouldn't have them for the most effective way to surface skim.

 

[asnatlas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9124026#post9124026 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Theron
BTW, if anyone has any suggestions about where to get good base rock, let me know. I need to think about ordering some soon.

Talk to Capt Jer at reeferrocks.com...

This is about 525lbs of baserock and I have ordered another 200lbs from them this past wk...

 

[Theron]

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions about my tank design. After looking at the 12 x 12 internal overflow in the model, I decided that it was too big for my tank and would be hard to hide with rock. I also did not like the access to it and being so deep it would be a pain to get in there to clean.

So I have changed the design and with help from James at Envision came up with an external overflow box along one of the side walls. This will also allow me to make the overflow longer so that I have room for more flow if I need in the future. He is also going to make a removable grill that I can take out for cleaning, or if I want to change the teeth or go with no teeth then I can fabricate a new one.

Here is an updated drawing of the tank that I just sent to the builder.

Theron