My rendition of 300

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Questions on your electrical, do you have GFCI breakers instead of outlets? I had an issue with my GFCI outlets on the 400 after a few years of being in that environment. That's when I lost my Naso's, Gold flake and Moorish Idol, along with some other fish due to the GFCI tripping in the middle of the night. Swapped over to GFCI breakers and never had any issues after that.

Just be aware that any electrical equipment you have in there that is not sealed will eventually rust/corrode. You may want to start a plan to replace stuff on a regular basis, especially outlets. Just thought of this when I saw all the equipment hanging on the wall.

But the room looks good. Make sure that floor and walls are sealed well. Salt creep/salt air will get into everything and cause issues.

After 38 years of riding ships at sea, plus all the years I've had salt water tank (1st one in 1977), the only thing I've seen that salt water has minimum effect on is titanium and glass.

 

[SawCJack00]

Looks phenomenal Jimmy!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Your level of handiness makes my DIY projects seem very inadequate. :0) Oh well, I still have fun with it.

This all looks really good.

Question... are you already aware that you'll be moving? Or is this just "what if" talk?

I appreciate you saying that because I see it differently. When I was stationed in Germany as a mechanic, I was thrown into the machine shop to fabricate parts. That's where I learned the necessity of precision, since then I try to approach everything with that mindset. However over the years I find myself getting lazy and I'm starting to accept minor flaws that I know I could make better. I find myself looking at the big picture and compromise with myself to let certain things go.

We don't have plans to move and if it were solely up to me, I would stay here as long as possible. But we have a 4000 sq ft house with 6 bedrooms and in 6 years the last child will be out of the house leaving just 2 of us in this big house. We would have to start hosting friends and family or the cost associated with upkeep wouldn't be worth it. So, just weighing the odds.

Questions on your electrical, do you have GFCI breakers instead of outlets? I had an issue with my GFCI outlets on the 400 after a few years of being in that environment. That's when I lost my Naso's, Gold flake and Moorish Idol, along with some other fish due to the GFCI tripping in the middle of the night. Swapped over to GFCI breakers and never had any issues after that.

Just be aware that any electrical equipment you have in there that is not sealed will eventually rust/corrode. You may want to start a plan to replace stuff on a regular basis, especially outlets. Just thought of this when I saw all the equipment hanging on the wall.

But the room looks good. Make sure that floor and walls are sealed well. Salt creep/salt air will get into everything and cause issues.

After 38 years of riding ships at sea, plus all the years I've had salt water tank (1st one in 1977), the only thing I've seen that salt water has minimum effect on is titanium and glass.

Ray,

Every branch that is in that room has an in wall GFCI. I did this with the mindset that I may swap out some of them and not have them protected. I'm of the camp that not every circuit needs to be ground fault protected, only the ones that will save my life in the event that something abnormal happens. For instance I want heaters to be protected because if water gets inside and my hand is in the tank... lights out for Jimmy. However the devices that are outside the water and have no possibility of electric shock won't be protected. I've experienced GFCI trips that killed off my entire fish population because a GFCI tripped. I do understand the necessity but I also understand that not everything needs to be protected.

I didn't get the GFCI that went inside the circuit breaker panel because I have bad experience with them in that house in Califronia. They constantly tripped for no apparent reason. It led me to research it and those particular 15 amp square D GFCI CB were reported to be hit or miss. I kept replacing them until I finally got a good set of them. BTW their AFCI CB were the same way. However, I didn't consider the possibility of them going bad in the salty environment. Perhaps this is something that I have to revisit, or keep an eye on. The good news is that Apex will alert me when certain events like that take place. The new Apex will even go further to monitor every device plugged into it and notice an abnormality in current flow and alert you that a device might be failing.

As for the equipment you see in the picture, that's my alarm system, it was there and there was nothing I can do about moving it. I did recess the main panel into the wall to gain 2" because when the tank is in place that isle is going to be narrow as it is. With that, we have decided to make a blue acrylic box to go around it to A. hide it and B. protect it from the environment. Same will be done with the 8 channel port switch that I put in there. Everything else hopefully has been designed to operate in the salty environment. On a side note, the 2 redundancies that I put in place for moisture in the form of an air conditioner and humidity controlled exhaust fan should mitigate salty air.

As for sealant I slopped on 2 thick coats of 511 impregnator over the entire floor. when I pour water on the floor it beads up.... I plan to re-applied every 6 months to a year.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

OK, sounds like you have thought this thru. Just keep an eye on your outlets, say maybe every 6 months do a good visual check on the inside of them.
I know you are building a more tech savvy system that the caveman simple system I ran. Hope you never have an issue, but if you do, lets pray the technology works and alerts you. As you say, we both have been there, done that , loss the fish and got the T shirt.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Yeah, I can only prepare so much... hehe

I just picked up the beam...

For some reason I ordered 8' and when I picked i up it was 10'. I guess I can make some stumps to sit on. hehe

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

This is going to be the premise of the style I'm going to build the stand, with the minor changes to accommodate the beam.

This is RocketEngineers contribution to the community. It's over built but many reefers have used it with great success.

And the thread if you want to read it.

 

[neilp2006]

This build looks awesome!! Great attention to detail.

Your exhaust fan is 80 cfm- Is this going to be sufficient for the space (120sqft)? . I'd planned to use a 6" 400 cfm for my 88sqft room, with a plan of slowing it down to reduce noise and still get effective venting. But now I'm thinking that might be way overkill .

Also- any concerns with running all your wiring in the wall?

Again- awesome build!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[halmus]

Just to add to that- if at all possible, add a 6" line for your exhaust fan even if you don't up-size the fan at this point. (If it isn't already 6")

Contractors installed a 4" line in my room. That didn't allow me to upsize the fan while I realized my 80 CFM wasn't cutting it.

I had to rip into my ceiling and add a 6" line after the fact. I hate drywall work especially when i have to worry about not making a mess in an active living space.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

This build looks awesome!! Great attention to detail.

Your exhaust fan is 80 cfm- Is this going to be sufficient for the space (120sqft)? . I'd planned to use a 6" 400 cfm for my 88sqft room, with a plan of slowing it down to reduce noise and still get effective venting. But now I'm thinking that might be way overkill .

Also- any concerns with running all your wiring in the wall?

Again- awesome build!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

When it comes to exhaust fans it's not square feet that you concern yourself with, it's cubic feet. Although you may see a fan rated for sq ft, they're just taking into account that the common room height is 8'. My room is under the stairs and there's also a section that is only 6.5 feet tall, needless to say the ceiling heights vary, I do have the math that I used to calculate the fan size. I had to break the room up in sections to get a more accurate calculation. My total cubic feet of the room is 732 cu ft, I used this calculation to size the fan
I needed.

If your bathroom has a higher ceiling, multiply the width x length x height of the room, divide by 60 (minutes in an hour) then multiply by 8 (number of air exchanges per hour). For example, a 10′ wide by 15′ long bathroom with a 10′ ceiling would need:

10x15x10 = 1500
1500 ÷ 60 = 25
25×8 = 200 CFM rated vent fan

Using that formula, I calculated that the right size exhaust fan would be a 97.6 CFM. The standard for exhaust fans are that you typically want to exchange the room volume 8 times an hour, with an 80 CFM fan I will be exchanging the room volume 6.55 times an hour.

To answer your question, yes it's smaller than required, but not as much as you might have thought. When I sealed the tile/grout I closed the door and turned the fan on, the fan worked so well that when I was standing outside the door I couldn't smell the strong odor. I can live with 1.45 times less air exchange than what's considered the standard

Assuming that you're 88 sq ft room has 8 ft ceilings that 400 cfm will exchange your room volume 34.09 times an hour. that's a lot. based on the calculation above, your room only requires a 93.87 cfm exhaust fan. Although, I like your approach. Having the ability to set the fan speed is a good idea.

As far as running wires in the walls, I'm not too concerned, before I hung sheet rock, I verified that all connections worked by placing the apex in various locations and sending signals to devices. In the future, if something were to happen to one of these connections, I ran extra cable to all locations for future expansion and/or just in case one of those other cables fail. It definitely is a risk to put everything behind the wall but I'm hoping for the best that everything will work out and I set countermeasures on place just in case.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Just to add to that- if at all possible, add a 6” line for your exhaust fan even if you don’t up-size the fan at this point. (If it isn’t already 6”)

Contractors installed a 4” line in my room. That didn’t allow me to upsize the fan while I realized my 80 CFM wasn’t cutting it.

I had to rip into my ceiling and add a 6” line after the fact. I hate drywall work especially when i have to worry about not making a mess in an active living space.

Yes, this exhaust fan has a 4" outlet but I used 6" hose. This was per the general contractor that I used as my subject matter expert in a lot of these matters. I personally would have never done that if not suggested. I couldn't return the 4" hose so I have it for later use....

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

the stand has been build, it took a while to get everything measured and cut, I don't know why but I was having a hard time adding fractions. Usually this is easily done in my head, I had to actually write it all out to ensure accuracy... All initial joints were pocket screwed and glued with titebond 3. See the big massive beam?? that by itself is over 100 lbs...

I used a masonry waterproofing paint to seal the stand, I read some accounts of how this was achieved on wood simply by thinning out the paint so that it can soak into the wood and give it a good seal. I put on 3 coats, then used caulk to seal all the seams

...And yet another trip to the hardware store for paint. I picked out a gray that hopefully compliments the blue. I still have to flip it and paint the top side then I can move it into the room and secure it to the wall.

 

[SawCJack00]

Looks great Jimmy!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Thanks Bill,

It's in place!!

Luckily my measurements were right, I can access all of the outlets.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Well now that you have a stand, we should be expecting water in the tank in say 2 weeks?
Stand looks good.

 

[fishguy597]

Wow it's really coming together nicely.

I haven't had a chance to read the link to the thread you posted. However why is the beam only on the backside of the stand? I like how you had to accommodate for the ledge.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Well now that you have a stand, we should be expecting water in the tank in say 2 weeks?
Stand looks good.

I don't know, I haven't planned the plumbing, nor the sumps yet. I like to call this tank a virgin tank in the aspect that there's only 1 hole drilled and I probably wont utilize it, So I have to drill holes and because I have to order all the bulkheads, gate valves, ball valves etc, I want to get it all at once and not have to nickel and dime shipping costs. That means I have to sit down and do some planning...

2 weeks? I'd love to say yes but realistically, I don't see it...

Wow it's really coming together nicely.

I haven't had a chance to read the link to the thread you posted. However why is the beam only on the backside of the stand? I like how you had to accommodate for the ledge.

Are you talking about the link for the stand? If so, I haven't read it all either. RocketEngineer did a good job consolidating everything after the split. I skimmed through the thread trying to find someone with an 8' tank but couldn't find it. That's why I asked the structural engineers in the DIY section.

What I gathered from reading the thread was that 1/8" deflection at the center of the beam is acceptable. I upped the ante and only allowed 1/16th of an inch deflection. And further more, realistically the beam will only see 1500 lbs, but when talking with the engineer from the company that manufactures the beams, I gave him 2000 lbs load with 1/16th defection criteria and this beam will meet my standards and then some. In the future I have an idea to incorporate a removable shelf that I can stand on so I can work with ease from behind, the beam will be able to handle that extra weight.

Finally the reason for only requiring a beam on the back is because I wanted to have complete access to underneath the tank without having to work around center columns, the front is held up by your standard 2"x4" studs 16" on center. that will hold the other 1500 lbs and then some.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I like how you had to accommodate for the ledge.

Oh and btw, I don't, I built the stand outside and when done I fit it to the existing hole in the wall, in hindsight I wish I built it right to the hole because something was off and there was a 3/16" gap on the back side of the stand and the floor that I had to shim with some of my maple faced 1/4" plywood. To this very moment, I'm still baffled as to why there was a gap, the walls are plum, the floor is level, the stand is square, I just don't know where the anomaly is.

Oh wait, I now know, it's because I sloped the step, the step is not level...when I poured the concrete for the step, I wanted to make sure any water ran off the step. well, that mystery is solved.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

With the help of 3 furniture dolly's my wife and I were able to bring the tank around the back of the house and fill it half way to do a leak test, I wasn't comfortable filling it all the way on the old stand. It sat all night and it was dry as a bone this morning, but I don't know how the tank will do completely full so.... We moved the tank inside

Pushed it up against the wall, the tank is just 1.5" too tall on the furniture dolly's,

Took the dolly's out and stacked some 2x4s under the stand to bring it level and pushed it right into the hole

Finally has its new resting place... woohoo. The whole time that I carried this tank all over the western united states I never wanted to take it off the stand for the sole reason that I didn't want to have to lift it up from the ground... So long old tired stand, you served your purpose.

Some back story on the tank, I purchased it from Shawn Bennett, his contribution to the hobby was keeping corals alive long before anyone else could, a lot of his corals are still trading in the community. Hopefully this tank will do his legacy proud.

On a lighter note, I was bored yesterday waiting for the leak test so I fired up the laser...

A bit too presumptuous to christen the tank I figured this would look good right here

 

[PaulieReef]

Been hiding from the hobby for a few years and was planning on getting back in, after watching this. I can't wait to setup a new tank. Time to get planning! Thanks for the motivation.

 

[Billabong]

At the pace you were going, the tank should be cycled by now. Where's the updates?