Photo journal of my MCA 120

The canopy will actually be supported by the tank. I'm thinking it will be 3 sided with the back open for the closetmaid stuff to go over the tank. I could attach the canopy to the closetmaid but when I move the lights up and down I don't want to have to worry about adjusting the canopy.
 
Nice tank, I like the external overflow, I would have done one on my tank if the location allowed for it.

As far as the canopy goes, I have the full weight of the canopy, return plumbing, and all of my lighting and ballasts sitting on the top of my tank. With a robust 1" tank, there's no reason it can't support the weight of these and more. I'm not sure what the shelving rails buy you, unless you are planning to use that to adjust the lighting height.

Looks like a good project you're planning,

Jeff
 
I just stopped by the welders, they said they would do the stand as pictured above for $350. So I thought that was cool. They are going to use a primer and then paint it. This stuff should hold up well with the salt water. So I should have the stand sometime late next week :).

Got my deltec AP600 in today. Actually I have a lot of equipment already but haven't had the time to open it. I will soon and post pictures.

Hey Jeff,
Thanks for the input and your tank looks great BTW. I was planning on using the shelving rails to adjust height. But maybe I should do something more like what you did. Any ideas? I'm not sure what the best platform would be to hold the lights, and how to attach it to the rails. I have to figure it out soon because they start building it next week.

Paul
 
Hey bassman,
Yeah I'll make an update by the weekend. I got a lot of stuff done but I was also moving at the same time. I'm very happy I got my stand yesterday and the tank is on it. I'll make an update real soon. Thanks for asking.
Paul
 
It is definitely time for an update at this point.

That tank is freaking gorgeous!!!! :inlove:
 
LOL,
I was wondering if anyone would remember this thread. I'm sorry for the delay, I guess I shouldn't have called it a photo journal :LOL:. I'm still working on it, I just realized that I had to learn more before I proceeded. Sand or BB, to ozone or not, how to do the plumbing, how important is phosphate, how not to have it and once you do how to remove it, what does carbon do, diatom filters, halides or t5s or both, base rock or live rock or cooking rock, do check valves even work (still haven't figured that one out), metal stand or wood and should I powder coat, making a glass sump - well :hmm2: how to drill holes in glass, list goes on and on. I'm have (hopefully) that last of my plumbing coming on Wednesday evening. Once that stuff is in I will start posting. Sorry for the delay, I just didn't have anything to post.
Paul
 
Tick tock... now that you have my attention, you have to make progress.

Let's just figure out the rest of that stuff once livestock is involved. :strooper: :D
 
Hey guys,
Sorry I lied before and didn't post for months:hmm2:. Well I finally got some good progress done. Most of my plumbing is done but I have one more trip to home depot to get a few last items. Once I get all that settled I will post pics under the tank to show my setup. For now I will some some shots of inside the tank (without water) and also the rock rack I made. So heres the rack.

And here are some shoots of the tank with some rocks inside.

As you can see I decided to go with a white starboard bottom. I got black at first but it got to dirty and I thought the better reflection from the white would make the tank look better. The rocks are base rock from reeferrock.com. Theres about 70-80lbs but the rack makes it look like a lot more. This is my first run at aquascaping but it will change. I have to take the rack out to redo some stuff so I thought I should snap a pic before I continue. I'm only using my t5's in this picture, 3 blueplus and 1 aquablue. And you can see my 2 6100 streams in there, all black..yep they're sexy. I'm adding a pump to the reef rack to get flow going thru it and all along the bottom. I'm going to finish it today so I will post an update later.
 
i like the rockwork on the left side, just make sure it's far enough away from the glass so that water can pass by it and you can scrub it for algae.

on the right side instead of going so vertical i would just make a nice island form and then you will have plenty of places to put corals.

the tank looks great, the guy who built it did an awesome job im really impressed with how nice it looks.
 
Yeah, I'm still working on the rock. I have to cover up the rack better and I think I want to make it slope a little better. I was contemplating doing a island or a pillar, I think I want to go with the pillar but I see from the pictures that its too wide.

I do like the tank but there were some issues that Chris and I had to work out. There were some bubble issues (cosmetic) in key places and I asked him to make the opening for the overflow wider but he wouldn't. I have big hands and its hard for me to get in there. I wish he would have just made it bigger like I asked, but other than that, its pretty nice.

More pics to come.
 
Paul, awesome racks. Any chance you're plumbing them in and putting flow through them?
 
Nexdog - yep, as you will see in this massive update I'm doing now.

Melev - should I explain the black part or the sexyyy part ;).
 
Update

Update

So school started back and everything had to take a backseat for a little while. But I am happy to say that I am ready to add RODI water and salt. Because I'm doing a big update all at once, I will try to seperate the posts up the best I can.
 
RockRack

RockRack

So I'm going to start with my RockRack (because Nexdog asked about it :)). I redid the RockRack to pump water thru it. For the rack not to float without rocks on it I had to put holes in it for water to flow thru. But I was worried about the water and critters sitting on the inside of the pipes. So I plumbed up the rack so I could attach a pump to the top tier that would pump water thru and out of the bottom pvc piping. I used some transparent pvc because I had some leftover. Unfortunately, I change my aquascaping idea so I can't take advantage of it. And if you decide to pump on your rockrack remember it will be pressurized and you will need to glue it, which is a huge pain if you don't make your structure simple (and I didn't). So here are some pics.


CLICK ON THUMBNAILS TO VIEW LARGER PICTURES
 
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