scolley's Big Little Nano – yet another build thread

[scolley]

I updated the waterflow diagram today, including flow beyond that powered by the return. But I updated the original diagram, so my original post with that diagram should now reflect those changes.

Also I'm P*SSED about my stand. I was soliciting advice about air flow in another thread, and got some great advice. Though it was not stuff I wanted to hear.

Apparently my Mr. Aqua stand is serious jeopardy of warping if I put a sump in it - which I am. I've already put in a whole slew of reinforcing brackets. But it seems that could actually make things worse without bracing on the panels to keep them from deforming from the moisture. I've got three coats of polyurethane, but it seems that's not enough.

So my now I've got to put reinforcing, thick strips of oak in to reinforce the stand sides. I'm kind of OK with that. Sure, a few cuts with a saw and about a hundred screws. Not fun. But what's really got me bummed is that I've got to put three coats of poly on them first. I HATE applying polyurethane. Thought I was finished with that. But now I get to look forward to coating all four sides of 22 feet of oak three times. It'll take days. Bummer.

OK. I'll stop whinning now. Sorry.

 

[av8rtrb]

Beautiful Build!

Beautiful Build!

Looks like you did a nice finish job on that Mr Aqua stand. I'm curious what you think about the build quality? I'm thinking about doing a 60g Mr Aqua build but was planning on building my own stand; but looking at yours maybe I need to reconsider.

 

[av8rtrb]

Oops!

Oops!

I just followed the link in your first post of this thread that describes in detail about the stand. Guess I should have done that before posting the question! Thanks for the great info.:uhoh2:

 

[scolley]

Looks like you did a nice finish job on that Mr Aqua stand. I'm curious what you think about the build quality? I'm thinking about doing a 60g Mr Aqua build but was planning on building my own stand; but looking at yours maybe I need to reconsider.

Thanks for talking a look at my Mr Aqua stand review thread (linked to in my OP). IMO it's something anyone considering such a stand should read. But honestly, even with all the flaws that I provided close-up shots of, it looks AMAZINGLY good. A local reefer that does quality woodwork as a hobby was quite impressed when he saw it. Upon close inspection you see flaws. But standing 3 feet away it looks good. Like quality furniture. You have to get closer to see the imperfections. Which is good enough for me.

However, my original justification for buying it was because it was so inexpensive - approximately $250 shipped. But there was another $50 or so in staining and polyurethane. Then there was $35 in hardware (L-brackets and quality screws) to shore it up from its alignment problems. And now with the advice to reinforce the sides I've got another $50 (3/4" x 1" red oak cut to size, plus 100 more quality screw) in it. And then there's the fact that it has no holes for wiring, and have to have them cut and finished - that's another $40 (three inch hole saw blade plus circular grommets for the hole - shipped). And last but not least, the fact that the cheap wood needs to be well ventilated to avoid warping. That's another shipped $75 for shipped fans (expensive, truly quiet ones), mounting brackets, fan covers, and an air duct to bring the air into a spot that will ensure true diagonal airflow across the sump. Would have been a bit more if I didn't already have a suitable power supply for the fans.

All told that's what, another $250? So I don't really have a cheap $250 stand. When finished I'll have a $500 plus stand that took a WHOLE lot of work. I wonder what I could have built, or had built for me, for say $750? That's the question I find myself asking now.

Granted, there is a certain satisfaction in doing something yourself, and doing it well. But I'm real comfortable saying I've had more than enough with such satisfaction with this stand. A little less might have been nice.

 

[tpallas]

Sorry to hear that scolley. I guess these things do happen....but I'm sure the end result will be worth it!

 

[scolley]

Sorry if it seemed like I was complaining. I WAS complaining about having to polyurethane the oak reinforcing strips. I hate painting poly.

But I just thought running down the unexpected costs would be helpful to others. That's just my tendency in my threads... To provide an excess of information so that others can learn - from both my successes and mistakes.

And yes, I'm certain it will be worth it. Always is! Thanks.

 

[Wheel of Time]

Is the tank wet yet? Man its taking forever to get this thing built.

Lets see some more pictures.

 

[scolley]

Is the tank wet yet? Man its taking forever to get this thing built.

Lets see some more pictures.

I want to have something to take pictures OF! But I've spent the last four days polyurethaning oak reinforcing strips. It's a PITA. But only one coat left.

However, everything is dependent on me finishing my rockscaping plans. So I'll finish that up this weekend, so I can know where my returns go. Which will - in turn - allow me to finalize my plumbing placement. And THAT will allow me to begin the stand mods.

And I can take pictures of THAT.

 

[BennyFrank]

Looks great! I will be following along. Thanks for providing so much detail.

 

[RTMA]

Ahh.. nothing beats the lovely scent of polyurethane for the holidays! :ape:

 

[tpallas]

Hey scolley, a UPS is a battery backup, right? Or am I thinking of something else?

Hope the stand work is coming along well. It never hurts to post pics of the most mundane tasks so we can all appreciate your blood, sweat & tears!

Also on rocks, are you using live rock or dry?

Cheers, & happy Thanksgiving

 

[ange062]

Hey scolley, a UPS is a battery backup, right? Or am I thinking of something else?

Hope the stand work is coming along well. It never hurts to post pics of the most mundane tasks so we can all appreciate your blood, sweat & tears!

Also on rocks, are you using live rock or dry?

Cheers, & happy Thanksgiving

UPS = Uninterruptable Power Supply (from computer fame), so yeah, battery backup.

 

[natesreef]

I cant wait to see how this tank turns out!

 

[scolley]

UPS = Uninterruptable Power Supply (from computer fame), so yeah, battery backup.

Exactly. Thanks Ange!

And to put a little more info on that, should it help...

Knowing that this is a 0.1 Kilowatt hour UPS helps me understand its applied capacity. Simply put, it will provide (approximately) 1/10th of a Kilowatt for one hour, that's 100 watts for an hour. Once you know the watts each of your electrical components draws, then you can know how long it will power the tank. For example, if you had a tank that had a total draw of 100 watts (not many of those) then you can run it for an hour. A more realistic number for a small tank might be 200 watts total, so you're only going to get 1/2 hour for that tank. Then you throw in a small heater, or tiny chiller, and/or lights and you are easily into the 600 total watt range, and for that you'll only get 10 minutes. It's just simple algebra.

On that note...

If you don't know how many watts a piece of equipment draws, but you do know the amps, the conversion is simple.

Watts = Amps x Volts
​

So if I have a 3A pump, running on my household 120v current then the pump draws 360 watts, or 360w = 3A x 120v .

Hope that helps.

 

[scolley]

Also on rocks, are you using live rock or dry?

Both actually. That's kind of a sore point...

My original plan was to just "lift and shift" the wonderful live rock from my 29g that this is replacing. But once I started playing with diagrams of how I wanted the new rockscape to look like, I realized that I was going to have a REAL hard time getting the existing rocks arranged the way I wanted them.

And to make matters worse, I realized that as I played around with the live rock - getting it arranged suitably - lots and lots of critters were going to die. Most of my existing rock is exceedingly porous, and it is FILLED with life. I'm sure keeping it out of water for hours while I rockscape will take a heavy toll.

So I've shifted plans...

I happen to have a good bit of extra, quality, dry rock. So I'm setting up the basic rockscape with that dry rock now. But I'm leaving big, planned, gaps that I can fill with live rock from my 29g. So much so that I hesitate to call it "seeding". More like half live, half dry. So it will still be "instant tank", or no time to wait for cycling. But it won't look that great until the coraline kicks in. But at least, I'll have lot's of great live rock left over for my local reef club.

 

[scolley]

I cant wait to see how this tank turns out!

Wow. The pressure! I hope you won't be disappointed. Just don't expect much in terms of it being a beautiful tank - at least not for a while. OK?

It never hurts to post pics of the most mundane tasks so we can all appreciate your blood, sweat & tears!

OK... here's the mundane stuff, hot off the presses...

I'm finished reinforcing the stand. What a pain in the buttski. I had originally put in L-braces (lots of L-braces), hoping that would be enough. But in this thread, Donw suggested that I put in something called "cauls" to reinforce the sides. His warning being that otherwise the humidity would warp the wood sides, which are really nothing more than 2" wide strips of wood, glued together. So as per his suggestion, I bought oak strips (oak being a very stiff wood), and mounted them to the top, bottom, shelf, front, back, and sides. They had to be polurethaned, and then pre-drilled. Donw suggested that the holes in them be over-sized, ostensibly to allow a bit of shifting.

Here are the cauls.

And here's the stand with L-brackets and cauls installed.

Pre-drilling the holes in the cauls was a PITA too, because they had to be in just the right place. I wanted each screw to line up with the center of the wood strip it was going into. I did not want those narrow strips splitting. And there were a LOT! Earlier I posted that it was going to take 100 screws. Clearly I was being pessimistic, as it only took 94.

I almost did not have room for the cauls either. When I spec'd out my custom sump, I deliberately left a little wiggle room for just such a contingency. So on the right and left sides there was enough room to put the cauls right where I needed them.

But on the front (door) and back, you can see that the bottom one is pretty high up on both panels. I had do install those cauls higher than my sump, as they will not fit otherwise. So since my front panel - the door - has no other bracing, it's going to be my canary in the coal mine. If anything IS going to warp, it will should show there first.

Time will tell.

 

[scolley]

Oh... I should mention, the addition of those cauls forced some minor adjustments to my electronics shelf and stand layouts. Those changes are reflected in the original posts with those diagrams.

 

[Luckedout]

Are you sure you shouldn't be working for NASA, planning trips to Mars and that sort of thing? Amazing planning and attention to detail. I can't wait to see this build come together.

 

[tpallas]

Wow, great work Steve! The stand looks really good, great workmanship.

With your UPS, how long do you think you'll have for your tank to run on?

And when does the water go in?

 

[scolley]

Are you sure you shouldn't be working for NASA, planning trips to Mars and that sort of thing?

Thanks. I do do planning for a living. But not for NASA.

For all my life I've been afflicted with CRS (Can't Remember Sh*t). So written plans help me a LOT. Plus, I'm just a big one for doing it right the first time. If possible.

Wow, great work Steve! The stand looks really good, great workmanship.

Thank you sir. I'm afraid that stand has taken quite a bit more "workmanship" than I thought would be needed when I decided to get a "cheap" stand. Believe it or not, between locating the wood, applying poly, measuring holes, drilling and attaching, I estimate that those d*mn cauls took 12+ hours work. Too much for an unplanned event.

With your UPS, how long do you think you'll have for your tank to run on?

My whole setup will run on around 175 watts (lights included) IF - and only if - I don't need chiller or heaters. If those kick in, we're closer to 575. So how long? Anywhere between as much as roughly 40 minutes, and as little as 10. Doesn't sound like much. But in the part of New England where I live, brief outages are common. Too common. And since my whole home network and Internet connectivity is on a separate UPS, my Apex can text and email me to let me know I've lost power, so I can start pulling out the big marine batteries to keep thing running much longer - if needed.

And when does the water go in?

Leak testing of the aquarium? Tomorrow.

Plumbing testing? Preliminary pluming likely next weekend.

Plumbing with everything set up, ready to move livestock in? Weekend after next - if I'm lucky.