My little 300DD Build

[loglew]

Well... were to begin? I started my first tank over ten years ago, it was a 120 gallon tank that I bought used and dove into the hobby head first. Picking up the tank, some live rock, and a skimmer used. To say the least I have learned a lot since then and owe a big part of that to all of you on this forum! The 120 was great and I enjoyed it a ton... in its prime it looked something like this...

Then came the day that a 120 just wasn't big enough for all the things that I wanted to have in the tank. Lets be honest that day was realistically in the first year that I had the tank, it just was not piratical at that time. At the time I was living in an older home that was built in the mid 1920's and had slowly been remodeling and updating the entire home. It had came to the point of finishing the basement and I decided that an in wall 300DD was the tank I wanted. I found a new/used one from a local reefer that bought the tank new and never even put water into it. Then came the challenge of getting it into my old houses basement.

Once the tank was in I started the planning of how to get the new tank in place and move the exciting tank and begin construction. It was at this point that my wife approached me about moving so she could run for a local political office. We shifted our efforts in preparing the house to sale and it placed it on the market. The house sold in less then a week, much quicker than we had anticipated. I had to scramble to find a rental house and figure out the logistics of the move. I knew that removing the 300DD was going to be really difficult so I hired a couple of movers to move it and a gun safe out of my basement.

That move went great and into storage the new tank went. I cant say the same for the moving of the 120. With so much happening so fast that move didn't get the time nor the planning it should have. I was down to my last week to be out of my house and had to rush things. Some mistakes I made, planning the move on a night that was way to cold and it was snowing. Not having RO water and new salt water ready at my rental. Long story short most of the tank didn't make it and what did I quickly gave away to fellow reefers. I cleaned up all the equipment and into storage it went. Gave away the 120 to a reefer that had a tank seal blow and was in need of one quickly.

It was a nice break not to have a tank up and running while I got busy with work, school, campaign, and planning for a new home. I wish I would have spent a little more time planning for a new tank in that time period as it got pushed to the back of mind and I could have used the awesome advice that is here on the forum. With that being said it is time to start the 300DD with a basement fish room build!

Here are some pics of the progress...

More to come...

 

[loglew]

Current status of the project...

Tank sits between the entry and our office with viewing from most of three sides.

I have been installing and building from the top down... Lights, power heads, and returns are in place...

Now to plumb the return and the overflows down to the basement...I am also going to swap out those white overflows for black ones. If you look close on the side by the door the return line is already black.

The future fish room, with the sink, floor drain, and heat recovery unit already in place. The heat recover draws in air from above the tank and replaces it with fresh air from outside into the HVAC systems return trunk.

That wall (2x6 for pluming and support) goes all the way up to floor under the tank and splits it in half so half the tank is above this room. This adds extra support on top of the extra floor joist that run along the tank with 10 inch spacing as well.

 

[nonstopfishies]

Looking good!

On the black overflow plumbing, you could just keep the white and paint the portion of the glass black(or white?) so you can't see into the overflow boxes since they will get dirty, etc. anyway. Would really focus your attention into the tank.

 

[McPuff]

I give you credit for getting that thing out of your basement. My stairway has a 90 deg turn so it was really tough getting the 300DD down there. I'm not ever taking it out in one piece!

 

[loglew]

McPuff... So that move had two 90 deg turns one at the top where the back door entered onto the stairs and then at the bottom! It was a huge pain in the butt! I also swore that it would never come back out in one piece. So never say never....

 

[loglew]

Nonstopfishies I do like your idea of painting that area of the tank black, I had not even thought about that. However, prior to that I am going to try to utilize the space around the overflows to stock some bengii cardinals in attempt to raise some fry. I know it will be a challenge to keep clean and keep them out of the overflow... but I'm up for it!

 

[McPuff]

McPuff... So that move had two 90 deg turns one at the top where the back door entered onto the stairs and then at the bottom! It was a huge pain in the butt! I also swore that it would never come back out in one piece. So never say never....

Oh good grief... you are crazy! :0)

I hired a moving company but had to help them since they only brought 3 guys. We literally had to stand it on end (not on the landing), spin it 90 degrees, then pull out the bottom to slide it down the stairs. My stairway was too narrow to allow the tank to go down on its bottom. Like I said, I give you a lot of credit getting that thing out!!!