My glasscages 90G RR - Pics!

[logman17]

OK-

I have been "reefing" since October of last year. Of course, as a newbie, I made a ton of newbie mistakes from incompatible livestock to wrong equipment to many other I'm too embarrassed to mention. I started out with a inexpensive 47.5 gallon Juwel non-reef ready tank and figured it would be big enough to last me for awhile. As with everything else in my life, I quickly have outgrown the tank and decided to upgrade to a 90 Gallon RR tank.

I did a lot of research and pricing of various tanks from many different manufacturers and after much contemplating and talking it over with my better half, I decided to get Tom at glasscages.com to build me a 90 gallon tank, stand, and canopy.

I mentioned that I did a lot of research and even after the mixed reviews I still went with a glasscages tank. There were two deciding factors that led me to make that decision:

1) Price - I could only afford half the tank from Oceanic and all-glass won't drill holes for closed loops.

2) Location - living in Nashville, I wouldn't have freight and I could inspect the tank before I took delivery. Plus, If I got a "lemon", as others have posted about, I could easily go back and *AHEM* complain.

Anyway - after 1.5 months of thinking, buying, building, driving, and most importantly posting and asking questions, my tank is in the infancy stages and I thought I would do a post showing my progress.

Disclaimer: I am not a photographer and don't take very good pictures. These are the best I can do, sorry for the poor quality on some of them.

OK-

We'll start with the drive to ASHLAND CITY, TN - which is not the easiest place to get to or find. It is about 30-45 miles WEST of Nashville:

ANd finally - YES this is the shop:

More to follow!

 

[logman17]

So I picked up the tank. As one of the four guys said to me as they were loading it up: "acuario grande, coche pequeno", which roughly translated means 'big tank, small car'. I thought it would be smaller, but it just barely fit into a Chevy conversion full sized van:

Overall I am VERY HAPPY with the quality and construction of the tank. It is extremely well-built and the "starphire" or low-iron glass is a viewing pleasure. I will post some pictures of the silicon seams next, as that was the major complaint that was posted here on reef central.

Tom, the owner, couldn't have been nicer and the size of the place was tremendous. He told me they were the nation's largest builder of custom reef tanks. I would do business with them again and would recommend them to anyone who asks. The price was incredible, I was able to get holes drilled where I wanted them, and best of all, it was ready in 3 days (although they quoted me 2-3 weeks).

The stand and canopy are nice, too, but they are not the best I've seen.

 

[logman17]

Here are 3 pictures of the silicon seams. They are not the best pictures, but I thought I'd post them anyway:

The silicon work was good and I really have nothing to compare it to, but I cannot find many areas with any pools of silicon or sloppy seamwork that many have found in the past. Overall I would rate it a 8.5 out of 10 in terms of construction and a 10 out of 10 of value.

I wouldn't want to broadcast prices all over RC, but I can tell you this:
A 90 gallon tank with 1.5" overflow, 1" return, 2 - 1" closed loop holes, black acrylic overflow cover, black acrylic background, 3 sides of low iron/"starphire" glass, stand, canopy, all bulkheads + 3 extra for the sump, tax, and euro-bracing cost less than what Oceanic wanted to charge me for just a 72 bowfront with overflow and 2 - 1" closed loop holes.

 

[musicman]

pretty sweet man! That's gunna be one heck of a setup!

 

[logman17]

So I got the tank, stained the canopy and stand, and started out to plumb. I have never plumbed ANYTHING before, so it was a great learning experience. I neglected to take pictures of the actual plumbing porcess, but was able to snap some of the tank after my first trial plumbing run.

I chose to use loc-line as the main return line from the sump as well as the closed loops because I like the flexibility of it and considering I had no idea what I was doing I figured that flexibility was a major factor.

Here is a shot of the back of the tank with the closed loops installed:
On the left is closed loop #1. It has an Aqua UV sterelizer 25w unit with the wiper. The right side has provisions for the chiller that is on my current tank. The small ball valve on the leftmost corner is a water change outlet. I can put a 1" hose on it and with a turn of the ball valve the water will drain out of the tank and into my neighbor's flower bed (J/K........ or am I?). I chose to put it here because if I somehow get busy and forget I'm draining my tank, only 25% of the water can be lost as the drain hole is 7-8" from the top of the tank.

Here's a closer shot of the left side closed loop with the UV:

Top-down shot of the left side:

The inside most lines on both closed loops are connected to penductors from HTH sales.


And a closer shot of the right side:

Top-down from the right side:

Provision for the chiller:

A shot of the closed loop #2 pump and inside the stand:

Again:

Closed loop #1 pump inside the stand:

 

[logman17]

More plumbing:

Here is the setup inside of the tank from the closed loop pumps

That was the original setup, since I have put true unions on the flexible line for easy removal and cleaning. I will post some pics of that when I take some.

Top of the closed loop #1 with the loc-line from modularhose.com:

Again:

Closed loop #2 with the loc-line:

Top view of the initial setup:

 

[logman17]

Sump Plumbing:

This is my first sump, so plumbing was difficult and considering the fact that my sump and skimmer was having "production difficulties" for nearly a month, I had to plumb it without actually having the sump and skimmer. Thanks to fishdoc11 I used the durso stanspipe method and am really glad I did.

Here are some pics:

Here is the return line with the split and the loc-line going from 1 - 1" line to 2 - 3/4" then splitting again with the loc-line:

Here is the under the stand shot of the return and drain lines before I actually had the sump.

That's all for now. I will post again soon and show you the progress I have made since then. Thanks for looking.

 

[logman17]

Oh yeah. Someone has asked me about the hardware specs. I realized I forgot to post them so hare they are:

Closed loops both use the same pump, a Blueline aquatics 40 HDX rated at 1270GPH at 0'.

The sump uses the same 40HDX but the estimated GPH after head loss is about 800-900 GPH, about 8-10 times turnover.

The skimmer pump is a Blueline HD20X pump pushing about 450-500GPH, which is about 5-5.5 times turnover.

The sump and skimmer are both made by A.E. Tech. The sump is the UHF Pro 48 found here:
http://www.superskimmer.com/sump_tanks.htm

And the skimmer is the Evolution 500 found here:
http://www.superskimmer.com/etss_evolution_500.htm

The chiller is a JBJ Artica 1/10HP unit (might have to upgrade) and the UV is a AquaUV 25w unit with wiper.

I will post pics of the lighting system and first wet run pictures later this afternoon or tommorrow.

 

[theop]

Looks great. Any pics of the finished stand/canopy?

 

[logman17]

Not yet, but I will take some this evening and post.

 

[logman17]

Here is the closed loops after the unions are installed:

And the overflow lines after I finally got the sump:

Here is an overview after the sump and skimmer are installed:

Skimmer:

Tight fit!

 

[killereef]

Does it feel good to get new toys.

 

[logman17]

The lighting is a Coralife Aqualight Pro with 2x150 HQI using 14.5K Giesemann lamps and 2 x 96W actinic PC with 3 x 1watt moonlights

I had to dremel the inside of the sides of the canopy to fit this fixture in here. The way the canopy is designed it doesn't measure exactly 48" inside dimention, more like 47.25".

I liked the idea of using a complete fixture instead of a retrofit, plus I got a really good deal on the fixture new.

Here are some pics:

 

[logman17]

Stand and canopy:

 

[logman17]

Finished with the plumbing, lighting, sump, and skimmer:

I still have to run the electrical, mount the ballast's, plumb an auto top-off and figure out some kind of a fuge before I transfer any livestock. I have some live rock coming thursday, so this should be good enough to start the cycle and cure the rock.

I also have to figure out a substrate. I'm thinking of getting a 1/2 sheet of starboard and using epoxy to glue some crushed coral like this:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=372666&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

Does anyone else have any ideas about this?

Also thanks to all of you who have answered my questions and helped with advice so far. It really shows how good the people in the MTRC are.

 

[doodoobrown]

looks really good. i am thinking of getting a tank from him as well. i cant wait to see what it looks like when you have it loaded with goodies

 

[theop]

Looking at the pics, I can't tell how the canopy opens. Is there a front panel that lifts up and comes off, or is it hinged somewhere?

Looking at the glasscages web site, I may order my next tank from them.

 

[rm41400]

The front of the canopy is like a pocket and the front piece just slides straight up and off. No hinges or anything.

 

[kevlouie]

I thought glass cages was in Dickson. Why did you go to Ashland City? DO they have another shop there? Tank and system look sweet! I'm gonna start turning my 55 gal into a sump soon, and maybe start the construction for my 300-400 gal before too long as well. Are you gonna do a sandbed or go bare?

 

[logman17]

Oops-

glasscages is in Dickson. I'm west Tennessee illiterate - it all runs together to me.

theop - the canopy just slides up and off. in one of the pics you can see the front off and on top of the canopy. I actually like this way as it doesn't add any height to the front for arm access.

The stand operates the same way -
slide the wood piece up and it pops out for removal.

I really like the glasscages tank and stand and canopy. Some of the things are unusual - like the extra large overflow and the fact that it is glass so you'll need to buy a acrylic overflow cover if you don't want to see the plumbing (until the coralline covers it), the "euro-braced" bottom (makes going BB without starboard look stupid IMO), etc... but the quality of the actual tank construction is massive and just the weight of the tank is amazing. Plus, like I said above, the price was outstanding.

I found the best way to get Tom to reply quickly and in a good mood is to email him at the gmail address on his website and leave your phone number. He always got back to me early the next day.