My fireplace replacement 270 photo diary

[bulldogfish]

Well, after great deliberation and discussio, I have finally talked my wife into letting my remove the fireplace and replace it with a larger tank. So Saturday evening I started to remove the fireplace to make room for the new tank.

This tank is going to be a 6'X3'X2' acrylic made by a local tank fabricator. My plan is to make it viewable from the left side and the front while it being in a wall.

I will have a small room behind the tank to enclose all the equipment and any noise.

Here are a few pictures.

This one is from Saturday. I didn't take one of the fireplace before removing it. I think I thought if I waited too long my wife would have changed her mind.

This one is from Sunday at about noon. I decided to lay a new floor down. The extra thickness won't hurt and I needed a smooth surface to put the linoleum onto.

I then got the linoleum laid.

Framing started this morning. I got pretty far by noon. Here is a picture of my little helper standing next to our handy work.

I had a friend come over this evening to help move the stand that I built into place. This stand is 2"X2" 1/4" walled square tubing. OMG, talk about heavy. Well it should hold the tank. LOL.

And finally both of my kids wanted to show off so.

Hopefully tomm. I will finish all the framing and start on the electrical for this room.

Any questions or comments, please, feel free to post them.

 

[MacnReef]

Good start.

 

[joelk835]

Looks good so far!

 

[eugimon]

very nice. something very poetic about replacing a fire place with an aquarium... almost as poetic as a small clown fish jumping and twisting in the air.

 

[bulldogfish]

MacnReef - Thank you

joelk835 - Thank you

eugimon - Hmm, not too sure how to take that. LOL.

 

[Funky_Fish14]

This looks like an awesome project! I am very excited to see how this turns out because at the moment I too am planning out a 270g Reef(but mine will be 24" high) However my buget right now is broke so I cant have the setup looking as good as yours, lol. Good luck with the project!

And wow, your moving fast on this haha I guess the worry of your wife changing her mind must be motivating eh? The farther you get the better lol.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[bulldogfish]

Chris

This tank is 60" L X 36"W X 24" T. Maybe that should clear it up. Sounds like the one your planning is the same size? And definetely my wife is a motivating factor. LOL. I have to work this weekend, so I probably won't get too much completed.

 

[TheCoralReef731]

I have to say that that looks very nice. Is that a fishroom behind it?

 

[SERVO]

All right Bulldogfish!!!!!!!!!!

Can't wait to see what you do!!!

If you do closed loop and a recirc pump go with 2 Darts.

Good luck.

 

[David Corbett]

Looks good, the room behind will be a great asset, have you done any reinforcement on the floor? That's allot of weight, is there any air ducts in the room behind? David

 

[CAreefer]

One thing I have been looking at in my own place. That chimney makes a perfect vent for ventilating heat and humidity. I would utilize that too. Maybe get it a good cleaning and try to find some sort of fan to help things along. Although the convection should work pretty well. Just my $.02

CAReefer

 

[SERVO]

One thing I have been looking at in my own place. That chimney makes a perfect vent for ventilating heat and humidity. I would utilize that too. Maybe get it a good cleaning and try to find some sort of fan to help things along. Although the convection should work pretty well. Just my $.02

CAReefer

Oooohhhh, Good Idea. I would install a monster fan (attic fan etc) with the capacity to hook it up to a timer and vent out your back room. That would be great! I wish I had mine hooked up to timers. I need to keep them on more than off and I'm going to hate my new electric bill.

 

[bulldogfish]

I am going to look into some sort of fan to install up there. Unfortunately, I am working this weekend and pulling 12 hour shifts doesn't allow for much else.

Servo - Why would you go with 2 darts? I was planning on one hammerhead. Going through either a 4 way or eight way. Need to talk to Paul on this one.

CAreefer - Thanks for the idea. I will have to remove the flume though. Every time it rains hard I end up with a little inside the flume. And ultimately in the room.

 

[SERVO]

When I originally set up my Hammerhead it instantly created a couple of problems.

1) three overflows and one inch returns (Thanks a lot Oceanic *sarcasm*) only allows me 3000 GPH return thru my 400 gallon.

2) I turned on the pump and it cavitated for a bit. This initially made me SOOOOOO MAD. I posted and was a bit flamed. I had never had a big external pump cavitate so I thought, Damn these things are loud! That ended up ultimately working out but the pump seemed so noisy.

I have since discovered that the manifold pluming from the return was touching my electrical outlet strip. The front of the stand is actually the facade of the tank and this acted like an acoustic guitar to amplifly and reverberate the sound of the pump. Well, I fixed that. The biggest problem that I am currently working out is that my Durso's haven't been calibrated and I need to complete some small modifications on the plumming to drill the tops to get the overflows to silence.


The pump has now quieted down, but the thing is too damn big. I don't need 6K GPH to my sump. IMO, a 3K turn over would be adequate. When I say two, I assume, one for your closed loop and one for your return. Good luck.

 

[bulldogfish]

My initial plan for the tank was as follows:

I have 2 - 2inch drains from this tank both of which will go to a 100G rubbermaid stock tank sump ( really cant justify spending big bucks on something that I won't see very much)

I was going to use a Dart for the returns from the sump.

I also have a 2 inch hole drilled for a closed loop intake that I was planning on being a Hammerhead. This was going to be fed through a OM 4-way or 8-way. I really need to talk to Paul at OM about this. But I have 8 - 1 inch holes drilled at various locations in the tank. including 2 in the front bottom.

Does this sound like it will work and give me enough flow for a SPS dominate tank?

 

[SERVO]

I like that plan. Be careful. Word on the street is that if you place the OM unit on to top of the Hammerhead outlet, it may fail when the plastic cracks. I don't know much about that, but I think that I heard some kind of discussion about that.

 

[sherm71tank]

Oh wow! Please keep the pics coming as you progress. I plan on doing something like this some day. * Sigh* I am very jealous!

 

[NexDog]

Chris

This tank is 60" L X 36"W X 24" T. Maybe that should clear it up. Sounds like the one your planning is the same size? And definetely my wife is a motivating factor. LOL. I have to work this weekend, so I probably won't get too much completed.

This tank is 225g. It's still a very nice size though. I've decided on 60x36x30 (280g)because I want to keep big tangs and angels and they'll appreciate the extra height. I'd like to go longer but space doesn't permit it. I'll be interested to see how you get on though.

I've decided on a PanWorld pump that only pumps out 1270gph for my return because I'll have 3 Darts on 3 closed loops. Two of the darts are on 4-Ways. One set will outlet to 4 bulkheads in the back of the tank and then 2 on each end. The third closed loop will be running through two PVC racks that I'm building where the rock will sit. This will keep the bottom and rocks free of detritus. The closed loop on the back and bottom I'll turn off at night.

I made an "aragocrete" barrier at the weekend that winds from one end of the tank to the other and it's about 2" high. What I did was make a box the same size as the tank out of plywood and filled it with earth. I then scooped out the earth where the barrier was going to go making a mould out of the earth so to speak. The crete I made from sand, shells, cement, crushed coral and plastic shavings and I poured it into the mould and let it set overnight. The next day I removed the earth, hosed of the concrete and then took a hammer and chisel to it so it didn't look like concrete anymore.

So my idea is that the barrier will separate the rock area from the sand area. I can still have 2/3 barebottom and good looking sand in the front and the flow from the PVC racks won't disturb the sand. Once rock is piled on the vbarrier and it's encrusted with coraline no-one will know the difference.

Anyhow, that's the concept behind the tank I'm making. I'm still so far away from realising my dream which will be around December. Hell, the tank isn't even made yet and I'm making fake tanks out of boxes to get a hit.

 

[skippyreef]

Nice start!

I am also in the construction phases LOL..

How far from teh ceiling is th etop of the tank and how tall is the wall?

 

[bulldogfish]

Well, I know it has been awhile since I have posted on this project. But, the friggin rain hasn't helped. Seems to always rain on my days off. I did get some work finally completed on this project. I finished all the framing and almost have all the sheet rock work done. Have I said how much I hate mudding. LOL. Anyway, I will try to get some pictures on Wednesday and get them posted. I have to work the next 2 days, so I won't get much done.

I did make it up to Scotts, I picked up my calcium reactor, what a thing of bueaty. And I also have my tank from him also. So pics of those will follow as well.