need help with game plan for my tank..

then today i started the work on the stands.. i made them out of 2x4's and fence post.. i think i went a little over kill but better to be safe..

the skeloton
tank016.jpg


some more 2x4's for support
tank017.jpg


and there here she is skinned
tank019.jpg


i built the other stand (standing rack) the same way.. i but 2 coats so far off white latex paint, im gunna put atleast 1 more coat on them before im done....
tank023.jpg


here is just one more shot of the room
tank024.jpg



this coming week im gunna try to finish up the drywall and get it painted, along with installing the door and removing the one that goes into the house. then this next weekend i will start tile work in the new room... oh and i still need to put up closet doors to hide the ac unit and the hotwater tank..



jason
 
whould i have even needed a permit for this.. i thought the only reason you whould need a permit is if you change the structual integrity of the house, basicly if i whould have removed walls
 
Yes, you would - you'd need to apply for a "Interior Remodel Permit" - anytime you build a permanent structure ... that wall is permanent.

You might have to show electrical, and HVAC depending on how much you are doing to move that room, and show how the wall you're planning on taking down does not impact structural.

You will need to have someone draw up what you are proposing to do, and get an engineer to sign off, stamp & seal it. Take 3 copies down to the building department & apply for your permit.

$75 to the county, and a few $100's to the engineer unless you know one that will do it for free.

http://www.lee-county.com/dcd/BuildingServices/Permitting/ResAddRemodReq.htm


Gotta Love It!
 
 
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mmmm interesting tank there. this wasnt the tank that was in some lfs was it. i heard of a out ragous tank of similar dimensions that the front was bowing bad. how thick is the acrylic?

as for you hole thing, i wouldnt drill another hole into that tank, it looks like swiss chesse already. i would make one of those holes the drain for your closed loop and the other three for outputs.

on to your other big *** hole problem there. its a 5 inch hole but what size is that pvc fitting there. it only looks like its 3". if that is the case, i would recomend that you build a overflow box over it and make a durso or whatever overflow. and with the other side use it for the returns only. maybe one from the fuge right to the tank and the other (if you have 2 holes in that curent overflow box) right from the sump. if not then you can just do it like everyone else does it and you could just cap that fitting.

orrrrrr.... the only other thing i could think of for that big boy hole, you could make it a long intake ( you know the ones that have a million slits on it) for the closed loop there and use all 4 holes on the bottom like you wanted to for returns. you could reduce it down to 2". you would want to use a reef flow dart or something in that flow rate zone, and those take a 2in intake.

these are just some of my ideas for your plumbing.... and please make sure that your using presure pvc for the returns...thats so much water to be playing with..

CHECK VALVES ON THE RETURNS!!!! from the sump and fuge.

now for your lighting... i would reallllllllly re-think the 400's and go with 250's and keep the top 24" for sps and the rest for lps, zoos, and what not. just my opions.

after you get the lighting up you will have to see what your temps are and the chiller....... oh thats gona hurt the walet a little.
 
The acrilic is 1 1/2 on the front, and 1 1/4 on the sides.. then there is a metal frame that goes around the top and bottom of the tank.. i really don't think this thing will bow..

the reason i went with 400w, is i don't see how i whould have been able to keep anything on the bottom of the tank if i whould have went with 250's.. before i made my purchace for lights I though about it, but i decided to to go with the 400's so that i will be able to penatrate the bottom, and be able to keep my coral a little happier.


thanks for the ideas with everthing else, when i get home from work i will read everything a little closer, and weigh my options..

jason
 
well if i may throw another idea out there since your planning on trying coral out at the bottom of that beast. you will have to somehow slope your rocks from front to back from bottom to top. you will need to do this to try to get lighting to the bottom cause you will have shading issues with the rock haha... i hope that made sense.. thats why i recomended the 250's but the 400's and corals to the bottom is do-able..i would keep lps at the bottom either way.

gl this will take some trail and error for sure. the biggest thing is going to be keeping the crap off the bottom suspended enough to get it into the filtration... i hope that your going BB on this.
 
hay guys, a little more work got done today.. i finished up the light rack (well almoast) and got it hung up.. the celing(sp) in the garage deffinetly is not square. I ran into a problem where at one end of the rack there is about 5 inches from the bottom of the rack to the top of the tank, and the other end there is about 3 1/2 inches, so im gunna have to do some changes to the rack to compasate for this later.. let me know what you guys think of it.. the rack can be pulled back a good 6 feet so that i can have plenty of room to work on the tank.. the cords will be cleaned up before this is all over..

IMG_4253.jpg


IMG_4254.jpg


IMG_4256.jpg


IMG_4255.jpg




devil man, thanks for all your imput on this, im deffinetly thinking about every thing your saying.. if you look at my first post i have a link there that shows basicly how im gunna do my rock.. im deffinetly gunna do some pillers, i want to really show the height of the tank..

as far as the 5 inch hole, it is set up for a 3 inch pipe.. I still don't know what im gunna do with this. but i was talking with another guy on here and he suggested the same thing as you. using the hole for the input on the closed loop is a deffinate way to go..

my other concern is that my sump is higher then the tanks overflow holes. if i use the overflow that is already in the tank will the water be able to travel back up to the top of the sump? or is the main tank just gunna overflow? if the water wont travel back up then what i will do is use the overflow for the imput for the closed loop, and use the large hole at the top of the tank for the main drain.

and why do you feel that it's a bad idea to drill another hole, this is a acrilic tank, and it's only got 4 holes drilled on the bottom, and none on the back of the tank where i would drill one if i was gunna do it.

as far as bb or not, im not shure about this yet.. if i was to do it i only want like a 2" sand bed for looks.. why do you think this is a bad idea?

once again thanks for all the help guys..

jason
 
hows the angle aluminum holding up for you? Need to brace the rack quiet a bit?
I built one quick & dirty one night ... been meaning to rig it up right .. one of these weekends.

That stuff isn't cheap ... lol.
 
i actually had to go and redo the hole bottom section today, the old bottom is now the top.. i didin't go with thick enough aluminum at the beggining so i had to beef it up.. the stuff i was using before was bending on me.. but since i redid it and hung it up, im not seeing any bending in it at all.. i did have to brace it a litte to get rid of the side to side, and back and forth movement..

expensive is not the word, i have about 130 in just the rack.. im afraid to have my wife look at the home depot statement... shhh.:D
 
ok lets see if i can reply to all your ?'s

- ok so if your thinking of using that 3" pipe ( damn i am good i knew it was 3" haha) as a intake for the closed loop, which is not a bad idea, please! use a PVC Horizontal Screen Pipe that is at least a foot or 2 long so that none of your little friends get sucked in! cause with a pump that is moving something like 2500-3000gph+ that will create some sucking.. no joking here... but you can laugh.

- this leads into why i think that the sand on the bottom wont stay on the bottom. you will have so much flow in that thing to try to keep things suspended so that it can get sucked up into the overlfow that i see sand storms- a- coming captin, arg..(pirate talk). with the bare bottom you can just let her rip!!!!... and this also means that you can have a bigger pump... and come on.. you and i are men... bigger is better.. arr arr arr arr....haha

- also those damn ball vavle unions are your best friends. might be pricey but imagine if you had to repair your closed loop... yeah thats right draining tank time. put them before and after every pump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- another thing before you start to play around with the light rack. I can bet money that your standing in the garage door way when taking these pics. making that tank sloped... lets fix this now before you put water in it and have to shim it. unless you have done this. i cant see nor tell, but i have a feeling that this is why you are having some variances in your lighting rack, which btw...... is frecking sweet!

- the reason why i wouldnt put another hole in the bottom of that is becuase of the stress from the water pushing down on the bottom. i would begin to be concerend if you put another one. most materials cant have so many holes in them or else they will just split. ex take a cracker, put some holes in it(if you can) and then press on it... it will crack along those holes, take that same cracker with no holes and it will take a little bit more to crack it. see where i am coming from with this. its just so much water and stresses that your dealing with on such a big tank and you already have so many holes that i would work with what you have.

- now for the over flow one which i had to read a couple of times to fully understand what you where saying. dont worry this is not your fault... i are stupid.

but let me clear the path for you young grass hoppa... you are saying that the hole on the bottom of the tank is lower then the sump... correct. but where the stand pipe, which is the thing that makes the U to suck water is higher up.. right..(if this is wrong then just stop reading and tell me so) this in turn will mean that the true water high with be at the bottom of that U... shoot you know what i will take a pic in a min to show you what i mean with my tank.... hopefully you will be able to see it. anyways with that being said i am sure that its higher then the sump and will be fine. if not then make a taller stand pipe for in the overflow box and it will drain into the sump.

-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
please after you have this thing set up... lets see a test first. with just regular ol tap water. run it for a hour or so... turn off the return pump.... run it through its paces..... and if and only if it passes the failure test then you can go ahead and start putting your salty water in there.

i just looked at the tank the lights are off... tommrow i will try to remeber to get it... i will even clean if out some so you can have a better idea of what the he!! i am talking about.

I I captin.. i am off to bed.. haha.
 
hay devil thanks agian.. as for the suction to the closed loop, im deffinetly planning on putting some type of strainer on it..

i see what your saying about drilling another hole.. my hope is that i will not have to drill another one.. if i do, it will deffinetly be on the back of the tank.. and it will be about mid way up..

there will deffinetly be unions and ball valves everywhere.. they are deffinetly a life saver when problems arise..

the tank is not the problem with the light rack.. the tank is level all the way around.. the problem is with the ceiling.. if you step back and really look at the ceiling you can see that it is deffinetly sagging.. i think the previous owner of the house must have put stuff directly on the drywall up in the attic.. it should be a easy fix.. all im gunna have to do is shorten the legs on the side closest to the wall.. i have a difference of 1 1/2 inches so i will shorten it to accomidate this.. and thanks for the compliments on the light rack.. i think it came out really good.. it was deffinetly alot of trial and error..

i think i understand what your saying about the drain to the sump.. if i understand you right, your saying as long as the top of the standpipe is higher then the sump then the water will drain into the sump with no problems.. sortive like a u tube..

im really thinking that im gunna use the 3 inch pipe for the drain into the sump though.. it will make the plumbing so much easier.. then i will use the overflow hole for the closed loop..

i was talking to my wife yesterday about running a wet run.. i think im gunna run for 2 or 3 days with fresh water before i add any salt.. i was trying to figure out how long it's gunna take me to fill the tank with ro.. if im doing my math right im looking at about 6 1/2 days just to fill the tank and then another 3 days to fill the sump and refugium.. but of course this will all depend on how good my pressure is going into the ro unit.. by the way the ro unit is 60gpd

jason
 
why not run a faux sand bed ... starboard covered with sand ... i'm doing that for lisa's new tank .. since her tank is only 14" tall, we decided to do that.
 
ok just a couple of more things then. if you are thinking about using that over flow as your cloosed loop. you must make sure that it is always underwater. if not then you will have MICRO BUBBLES!

star board is $$$$$.. there is some plastic shop up there in fort misery that sells it though just cant remeber who. look at spending like 100+ dollars for it.

now as for the faux sand bed.... which is what i am thinking about doing to my next tank. this is not sand on starboard bla bla bla.. this is when you take dry sand. cover the bottom of the tank and then cover that in a resin similar to fiberglass.

here is a helpfull link that has the name of the product.

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1170475

this is usally no taller then an 1"

yeah its gonna take you a bit to fill that tank up with a 60gpd unit. you may want to look into buying some RO from a fish store to help you get started caues you will fry some of the RO/DI cartrages trying to fill that up with your well water. it will take you a good week and a half to fill that whole sytem up im sure.
 
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