Noe solatubes yet, but the theater room is finished and the tank has arived. It is solidly built with 1.25" acrylic. Again I will post pics soon. We are in clinicals in Paramedic school and am busy. I am really needing a top notch welder who can weld me a nice stand and I can start plumbing. osorry again for the delay.
Reefski's
I have been following your build for a while and I would love to have such an open top like that. You have done an awesome job. The main reason why I can't do a skylight the footprint is because of the rafters being on a load bearing wall above the tank. I would have to cut through at least one and though possible my wife would kill me for going that much over budget. : ) Mayb I missed it in the thread but what kind of material did you use to line the "shaft" that you have. I hve thought that maybe lining the inside of the hood with the same material would help to maximize the sunlight.
my rafters also rest on the load bearing wall. the framing is not that much $. you will save way more in the first couple of years on electricity, bulbs, ballasts, etc.
when you look at how much you will be spending on set up just on the lights, not even considering the electricity you might be surprised that it is in your budget.
We mocked up the stand by spot welding and made all the neccessary adjustments to the main frame this last week. The frag tank stand and cl pump stand are being mocked up and weldede to the inside of the stand this week. I am shooting to have the tank up and running with fresh water by the beginning of October so I am hoping for a trip to the powdercoaters in two weeks. Again I apolgize for the lack of pics so far but I plan to remedy that by wednesday.
Everybody, I sincerely apologize for taking so long. IN truth, we have ben hesitating because we would really like to sell our home and build the custom one we had plans for but with the market as it is we are kinda indecisive. Should we build the tank and stay put a few years or not. However...
Here are some photo's of where we are at with the tank and my ideas for the build.
Opening the Tank. Envisions did a fantastic job on this tank and the packaging was first class.
Tank is made with 1 1/4" Cell cast Acrylic with Eurobracing. We went extra thick so to leave the top opened with as small of a brace as possible to minnimize shadows.
I have been planning the kind of tank I wanted down to where the holse are dilled and how I want the returns and CL run so little is seen but all are max effective. The back has rear overflows with removable teeth for ease of cleaning and will have Durso style standpipes. also two holes are drilled in the back for the CL draw.
There are three holes in the botttom of the tank in a triangle pattern that will be for the sump return lines and will be inside the rockwork pushing water from within th rock structure out hopefully gettting rid of stagnant water and algae blooms every time you move a rock!
All return lines including the CL's will have locline to direct flow. They work great as long as they are comepletely submerged. Otherwise they build up salt creep reall bad.
Here's how I am putting the locline together for under the rock work. This should cause some small random patterns that push water slowly out from under the rock work.
Just for fun.... current tank
The stand was put on hold since the guy doing it started the police academy. It is 95% complete and only needs a few changes, and powdercoated. Know anyone looking for some quick fabrication work? LMK
Sorry again for the delay everybody. I'll keep up as I get the stand completed.
Ed C
PS feel free to throw out some ideas if you have some.
I wouldn't use one under the rockwork since I'm looking for slower more broad flow to gently push water out. However i the corners pointing up for the CL, it is a definite maybe. Do you have any working now and most importantly, Is it really worth $18 a piece?
I just added one on my return line and can vouch that they actually work quite well. I would argue that they improve the flow by 400% like it says on the box, it's more like a 2X increase in flow I would guess. I has to be a few inches under the water to make sure it dosn't pull air through it. For $18 it's a good deal.
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