Our 450g reef, 360g predator tanks

[tbittner]

Thanks everyone. And yeah, I guess I just had a glimmer of hope about being able to buy the pieces from Lowes and putting the predator stand together myself. :lol:

My dad is really good at working with wood. He went out into the woods on the farm and cut down two huge cherry trees and had them cut into boards. After letting them dry out for 5 years he built some very beautiful furniture with it. He said he would come down and help me build another stand.

I just got back from Lowes with most of the piping I'l need to plumb the tank up. I'll probably get started on that this evening. We are going to scrub the tank down good, one more time before that though. Now that it's up like it is I can really see places that we missed.

 

[tbittner]

We gave the tank a good thorough final cleaning this evening. My wife humored me and laid down in the tank to give you a perspective of the size of it. She is 5' 10".

We also installed all the bulkheads so tomorrow I'll probably make my first attempt at plumbing it up. At least the closed loop. Then I'll fill it with water from the hose and run the CL just to check for leaks with the plumbing and the tank. Then I'll drain that out and wipe down the inside again and start filling it with saltwater.

 

[FFrankie]

Man, I wish my wife would get into my hobby that much. You go Mrs. B!
I would like to see how the brace came out Terry.

 

[tbittner]

Ahhhh man, you're going to make me crawl up there to get a pic, aren't you. :lol:

Sure thing Frankie! I'll post some close up pics of it tomorrow. I know it's still curing and we cleaned up the silicon that had pressed out from clamping it, as part of our thorough cleaning. Do you think it would be ok to fill it most of the way up for a leak test in the next few days? Or should I let it sit for another week?

It's been 10 days since I clamped on the new center brace.

 

[FFrankie]

I would wait. I waited a month before i filled my tank after replacing the front pane.

 

[tbittner]

We had the tank most of the way full and it developed a pinhole leak right in the front/center/bottom. We drained the tank, cleaned out the 150 lbs of LR and 640 lbs of sand, cleaned out the tank, dried it, ripped out the silicone, cleaned it with acetone, layed in a new bead, and filled it up last night. It still leaked.

Tonight we're going to cut out a piece of the new silicone big enough to lay a piece of 3/4" thick glass that is 24x4 1/2 and silicone that into place to seal off that area of the seam. It should also keep the side pane firmly attached to the bottom.

Any suggestions/concerns about this form of a patch?

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

I'm far far far from and expert. I would wonder though, about the glass to glass seam integrity with a leak like that. It would probably be good to post in the DIY forum and ask there. There are a lot of people that build there own tanks on that forum. Just as an opinion, I think you may have to redo the front glass joint or risk losing it. Again, my Oh so humble opinion.

 

[peter1]

Congrats for Cool project!

 

[tbittner]

Johnny, shhhhh, lets not go there just yet. :eek2:

That isn't something that I'd be able to do myself. The front pane of glass probably weighs 300 lbs. I think if it got to that point, I'd be buying a new tank.

I had this tank completely full twice now and the leak is very slow. The glass didn't show any bowing or anything like that so I'm feeling pretty good about the integrity of the tank. It's just that darn pinhole leak. I'm hoping that it's resolved based on what we did this evening. It looks like crap but it doesn't really matter because it's going to be completely hidden with the front trim and the sand.

 

[tbittner]

Thanks Peter! I still have very high hopes for it.

It HAS turned out to be a LOT of work though.

 

[kelvin88]

Keep us posted !

 

[tbittner]

*ahem*

*cough* *cough*

*tap* *tap* *tap*

Is this thing on?

OK!

May I present a VERY full, FAIRLY cold, LEAK free 450g tank!!!

It's already up to 69 and warming up. The CL pump is running and I'm going to let that run until Wednesday. Then I'm going to lower the water level about 10" and add the salt to bring the salinity up. Then on Friday, we aquascape it and fill it back up to the running level. On Saturday, I'll shut down the CL pump and add the sand back in and let that settle until Sunday. Then turn the CL pump back on and let the full cycle begin!

The rock has been curing for over a week now so who knows, maybe in three weeks I can move everyone down. Water readings will determine that of course.

We're going to get nice plastic 3" trim from Lowes and run that around the bottom of the tank to hide the patch job we did to fix the leak. At least THIS major hurdle has been passed.

 

[Jflip2002]

Aww yes, that is a huge tank! That is going to be awesome.

 

[FFrankie]

Very cool Terry!

 

[tbittner]

Thanks Joe and Frankie. Man, talk about a friggen BATTLE though. :lol:

One major hurdle has been overcome though. Now it should be fun from this point on.

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

Yay! progress is always a great thing. I know you'll be glad to see it up and running. That is going to be one beautiful display, green with envy of you we are.

 

[tbittner]

Isn't it amazing how much work we do just so we have something nice to sit and look at so we can relax? :lol:

 

[tbittner]

Temp is 79.2 and holding. I drained out about 10" of water, added two of the 160g reef crystal buckets of salt. Water is actually clearing up already and there is very little residual salt on the bottom. I'll adjust the salinity tomorrow. Wednesday should be aquascaping day.

 

[tbittner]

Ahhhhh, I LOVE the smell of curing rock!!! :lol:

OMG that was NASTY!!! Don't disturb the water once the rock starts to cure. It's a REALLY BAD IDEA!!! We took the rock out of the container it was in, put it in a container with fresh saltwater and scrubbed it down good. Then we placed all 450 lbs on towels so we could see what we had to work with. My wife directed, our son handed the rock to me.

Here is the right side. It's stacked up, very securely, to about 28".

Here is the left side if you can see it.

And the full tank shot:

The sand will go back in tomorrow night. We were just wiped from doing all of this. The sand will be about 6" deep all the way across though.

The rocks with corals on them that are currently in the 120g reef will sit on top of the rocks on the left side. The 72" solaris will be over that side. I probably won't be placing any corals over the right side until I get another 48" solaris.

The salinity was just a little low at 1.0242. I didn't test anything else. I'll wait until the sand is in and settled down. Then I'm going to curl up into a ball and SLEEP for a few days. :lol:

 

[cinqmars]

Just my 2 cents But have you thought about making a few pillars and a few islands out of the rock work, the tank is to beautiful to just make a few rock walls?