My 58g Oceanic Build (Pic Heavy)

[Jrod4]

Acquired an old 58g from my girlfriends father for free(nothing is ever free I have come to realize) and I have had the tank up and running for about 4 months now. I have been wanting to make a build thread so here goes nothin...

Pic of dirty tank on ugly stand:

Starting to build the stand(using the rocketengineer template)

Stand base complete:

Skimmer arrives in mail, Aquamaxx EM-200

Skimmer in 20g tall sump tank under freshly coated stand base:

Building a template for drilling overflow holes(Beananimal setup)

I cut grooves into the template to help water flow as I drilled to maybe help cool the drill bit(no idea if it actually worked or not)

Template on tank preparing to drill holes:

Three holes drilled successfully:

I was satisfied with the ebay diamond bit from Hong Kong:

More pics coming...

 

[Jrod4]

Getting a feel for the pipe fittings for BeanAnimal overflow:

Painted back glass with black Krylon Fusion paint, turned out quite well:

Attached a 3/4" plywood base to bottom of stand and painted it with gray primer:

Also put 3/4" plywood in between stand and tank:

Got some glass cut locally and not putting the overflow together(didnt want to do a C2C because tank would be seen for the most part from the sides as people walk through the house and didnt want my crappy silicone talent showing on the glass):

More pics to come tomorrow...

 

[Jrod4]

Sump with baffles siliconed into place

Made a temporary holder out of wood to allow me to silicone the overflow in easily:

Siliconing is an art, an art talent that I do not have:

Plumbing nearly complete in the back, bought some clips to help secure the pipes from moving around:

Plumbing leading to the sump:
Had to crisscross the siphon and emergency pipes for easy access to the gate valve

 

[Jrod4]

Above the tank shot of the two returns going over plus the fittings have been inserted into the overflow:

FTS with my crappy PC light on top:

Sump with Sicce 3.0 return pump, fuge chamber on left side that will be fed with small pump.

Tank lit up with live rock I got from Coral Reef systems in Columbus OH, they have some great stuff

Minimalist approach that didnt last long:

 

[therra978]

Wow you are very crafty. Really nice Build too. How do you like the skimmer?

 

[Jrod4]

Macro algae added to fuge, chaeto and caulerpa, with a Par38 LED flood light type bulb from ebay.

Meeko enjoying the macro algaes moving around in the sump:

Sump setup with skimmer on right side, return and fuge pump in middle section and fuge on left, and an 8 gallon tub on right side I have filled with RO/DI top off water:

FTS with added dry lace rock:

Quarantine tank setup and two clowns:

First frags added:

couple acans I dont know the ID for:

radioactives:

Ricordia and birdsnest:

 

[Jrod4]

Duncan:

Blasto:

Frogspawn:

FTS:

Dragons breath added to fuge:

Clowns finally added to DT, rock work messed with for the 100th time, never could find the right combo:

Added a bunch of zoa frags, no idea what kinds they were:

 

[Soolaimon]

Looks very nice. I'm starting my first real tank build and you gave me some ideas. I like how you feed the refu with just an additional small pump.

Also reminds me that if i ever want to post a build thread of my own i better start taking pics!

My tank is 60 gallons and i'll have a 20g sump as well. I'm currently getting an overflow box built so i'm working on refinishing the stand for now.

 

[Jrod4]

Wow you are very crafty. Really nice Build too. How do you like the skimmer?

Thanks! Skimmer is awesome. I originally got it because of the great reviews mixed with the cool color combo. I didnt care for the red ones even though they probably work great as well. Seems like it skims out poo pretty well. I've got it currently setup to feed directly to a gallon jug in the back of the stand so i dont have to dump the cup constantly. I have 4 fish in at the moment(including a lawnmower blenny that seems to poop 20 times a day) and the water clarity has been great. Skimmate is nice and dark. For the price its awesome. I got it from petstore.com with a 10% coup, and a couple months ago I was cleaning it and I broke the bubble plate and petstore.com sent me a brand new skimmer no questions asked. I will post some pics of it tonight along with more pics of the build. Its been a couple months since the pics I just put up.

Because I wanted to get the max volume out of the sump, I had to raise the skimmer on an eggcrate basket I made to get it to that optimum 9 inch water level or whatever it may be. When the return pump shuts off the water flows down from the back siphon and nearly fills the sump, but doesnt overflow, and thats what I was going for.

 

[Jrod4]

Looks very nice. I'm starting my first real tank build and you gave me some ideas. I like how you feed the refu with just an additional small pump.

Also reminds me that if i ever want to post a build thread of my own i better start taking pics!

My tank is 60 gallons and i'll have a 20g sump as well. I'm currently getting an overflow box built so i'm working on refinishing the stand for now.

Thanks, I put the fuge chamber on the side so I could control the water flow into it. I just worked with what I had from old freshwater tank setups, so basically its just one of those cheap penguin powerheads attached to some vinyl tubing pumping water over the glass and then it overflows back into the return chamber. I think its about 160 gph which seems to be perfect for the chaeto to tumble around. My first chaeto died because I had no bioload but now all the macro algae is booming(since got rid of the caulerpa, it was taking over).
I also use a couple of the penguin powerheads in the tank to move water, I am waiting to get a nice powerhead for now. The penguins seem to be working fine and blend in with the black background pretty well.

 

[Jrod4]

Decided to put a sliding door on the tank stand instead of your typical wood skin with cabinet doors. I like the sleek contemporary look. I am currently working on the sides of the tank.

Sliding door finally completed with addition of top layer. Middle pieces are spalted/ambrosia maple and the slats in between are dark stained cherry I had laying around, and the cherry pieces stick out about 3/8th inch to create some texture. They are mounted on 36 inch industrial strength drawer slides. Top piece of wood fits snug almost touching the tank glass, and most importantly covers that ugly fake wood trim on the tank.

Added some more live rock from Ohio

 

[Cymonous]

Tank is looking good. You keep mentioning getting stuff from Ohio. Where are you located?

 

[rustyjames]

I really like the sliding door. Look's great. Can you tell us a little about how you built it?

 

[Jrod4]

Tank is looking good. You keep mentioning getting stuff from Ohio. Where are you located?

I actually live in far east TN but we dont have any great LFS unless you drive west to Knoxville. My girlfriends family is located in Columbus and when we visit I go to Reef Systems coral farm there in New Albany and they have tons of stuff. And they take really great precautions with all their livestock. I bought my blue sided fairy wrasse there and drove it back 6 hours to my house.

 

[ThisGuy12]

Very nice build, well done. have you considered painting the PVC piping so it's a little less conspicuous in the overflow? Or perhaps painting the front and side of the overflow to hide it and blend in with the black background!

 

[Jrod4]

I really like the sliding door. Look's great. Can you tell us a little about how you built it?

I will try to add some more pictures of it later this weekend but basically I had some scrap spalted maple lying around and I wanted to make it with some texture and color contrast. Its built like you would a table top, just one big flat piece glued together with good ole fashioned Titebond 3 and a crap ton of clamps. I attached the drawer slides to the door before attaching it to the tank stand. It would be easier to get it lined up straight this way. After the slides were attached to the door, I lifted it up the height i wanted it off the floor and then clamped the slides to the stand where I wanted it. The door hung off to the side as I drilled the screws in to attach the main part of the slides. Its about a quarter inch off the floor and 3/4" off the stand because of the thickness of the slides. I will be making hinged doors for the sides that will cover the gap that the slides make. The top piece of wood on the sliding door is wider so it can cover that 3/4" gap. The slats in between the maple pieces stick out on the sides of the door as well as the front, and when I build the side doors, those slats will line up with protruding slats on the side of the sliding door. It extends about 1.5 inches to the side of the tank on each side, so when the side doors are attached you wont see them from the front.

The maple has a water based polyurethane coat on it and the cherry slats just have a kona stain on them to help contrast against the maple.

My original plan was to have one big door attached by magnets and I am glad I didnt do that because of how often I am sliding that thing open and messing around with stuff underneath. And its pretty heavy, but it slides really well.

The slides I found online for 50 bucks for the pair, but I had to search hard, most places charged an arm and leg. My favorite part of the door is the top piece is wide enough to allow me to rest little things like fish food or refractometer. I will make a canopy to match once i upgrade to a new lighting system.

 

[Jrod4]

Very nice build, well done. have you considered painting the PVC piping so it's a little less conspicuous in the overflow? Or perhaps painting the front and side of the overflow to hide it and blend in with the black background!

I did consider it but never got around to it, I think my ideal situation would be for coraline to coat the overflow glass or have some sort of zoa colony encrust on it. It is somewhat of an eyesore.

Would the krylon paint do well in the saltwater? Or would it flake off eventually? I think if they were black it would help the looks of the tank a lot.

 

[Jrod4]

Took a while but got the side doors done. Next is the canopy to hide that ugly brown trim.

Added a RB photon 32 and tossed the PC lighting. A few new corals and everything looking good. Now I need to figure out a way to keep my dog from going back behind the tank and unplugging things while I am at work.

I need a real camera.

 

[Jrod4]

 

[Cfabia1]

Nice build.Are you going to put the same kind of slider door for the canopy?