Vietcu's 205 inwall peninsula

[vietcu]

I started this project a few months back on another forum. Thought I would post the project on here, so I can get more feedback and hopefully catch any mistakes and fix it.

The project will be a 205g tank with starfire in the front panel facing my kitchen through the wall from my office room. I will have 3 sides viewable with a peninsula overflow with an external beananimal setup. The tanks dimension is 72x30x22 from Greatlakes Aquarium in Michigan.

Lighting will be 2 panels of 36 LED on either side of the tank, and one 250w MH in the center.
Flow will consist of 2 Tunze 6105.

Sump will be in the basement, consisting of one 110g tub for a frag tank, one 100g rubbermaid tub for LR, and a custom made sump inside of the 100g tub for my skimmer (SRO 5000). Return will be via Panworld 200.

My previous 75 in the basement. had this tank originally in my living room inwall as well, wife moved me to the basement. Now I am back upstairs again with a bigger tank .

It all started with my wife wanting a new kitchen after we came back from vacation. It took me the whole summer almost plus all of the fall to finish it with the help of a good buddy Paul PMG. I managed to negotiate with her that if I was going to do the kitchen, I am going to get a new tank. Although she wasn't really thrilled with me purchasing a new tank, she gave in once we started tearing up the kitchen.

The idea on google sketch

skimmer sump

The kitchen after the teardown

The wall where the tank will eventually sit.

Finished kitchen after many months of craziness

Was going to have my buddy Paul PMG make a stand for my tank, I wasn't even going to have it inwall. But once I put out the measurements of the stand and tank on the floor in the kitchen I knew the only way to have it upstairs was to go inwall, as it was too big for our kitchen.

 

[vietcu]

Once we figured out where the tank is going and how I wanted to support it, we went and got some wood.

Started to cut and measure for the basement support. This is the typical time in Ohio that we needed to have jackets on. We were very fortunate to have a mild winter as it was unusually nice that day.

one beam up for support of the Joist. Triple 2x6 cut to length.

2x4 triple up also to support the 2x6

right side of tank support

complete support up, everything was tripled up.

 

[Alysiak00]

YAY Vu is back. Glad to hear a build is on its way

 

[vietcu]

This is the office side of my house, I had taped the tank's dimensions on the wall to make sure everything was centered compared to the kitchen side.

what the wall looked like once we cut open the drywall. Holy what a mess it created. Should have seen the look on my wife's face once we started to cut.

Wiring catastrophe once we opened up that wall. This stalled our process up a bit as we were figuring out what to do with it.

Decided to knotch it out the way and worry about it later.

We decided to leave the drywall on the kitchen side intact as we were not going to be finished with building the stand that day.
Here is Paul putting up some support beams for the tank stand.

 

[vietcu]

Tank and move day we had a few guys come over from the LEAR club to help with the build. We moved so fast on that day that I completely forgot about documenting anything and forgot to take pictures. Once I remembered we were almost done for the day, here is what I was able to document with pictures.

Here is Paul putting together the legs for the tank stand.

Had Keith sit on it to make sure the stand was sturdy .

Not really sure what he was doing here, but you can tell by the impression of Mike's face(the guy with the green hat on)

Tank on the stand and leveled as much as possible temporarily

wall with no tank, and wall with tank.

Lunch break with the Lear fellas from Ohio. 2 hours later we finished all the food on that table.

 

[vietcu]

My tank has 3 holes drilled on the far right of the tank, each hole is 2.5" big as close to the top of he tank as possible. Since the tank builder would not cut a knotch out so that I can just have water flow out, I went this route so that I can have an external overflow box. Inside the tank I made a coast to coast overflow with it being only 1" wide. It was very hard to get inside of it with the silicone gun. I beefed up the outside box with three run of silicone, should be no leaks at all as it will only have about 1 gallon of water in it when the pump is on.

Once it was dry and set, I started on the plumbing. Everything is dry fitted as we might still need to move the tank a little to accommodate the trims on the kitchen side.

this is what it looks like on the kitchen side. I am not happy with the look so will have my buddy Keith cut a black silicone piece to cover up that side, so you don't see any plumbing.

Also dried fit the bean but will more than likely make some changes.

 

[vietcu]

I started on the Led setup about a week or so later. The plan is to have to panels of LEDs, 24 RB and 12 cool white. They are Xp-g I believe, I will be running them on parallel strings of 12 each. Using 3 Meanwell 48D to control both panels.
The beer is there for size reference

Let there be light. I have it on just to test it so the blue and white are on separately as of right now.

I still have to run the numbers and make sure all strings are running at optimal levels before it is all said and done. Very blinding looking at the lights trying to measure the numbers.
The light rack that the lights will sit in. I will have 2 pieces of tempered glass under the panels to help with water splash.

Here they are the panels of Led on the rack.

 

[vietcu]

mock up of where the frag tank will sit and the 100 sump will sit.

Plumbing from the 100g rubbermaid to the Panworld.

Started to fill the 100g rubbermaid with water on Christmas day. I made extra sure that the holes I made for the bulkhead would not leak. That evening I came downstairs to find water on the floor. Felt around the bulkhead to find that it was completely dry. It wasn't until I took the 100g out to find that it had cracked elsewhere. Needless to say I had to get another tub to take the place of the old tub. While taking the cracked tub to my buddy's house I noticed that he was working on my skimmer sump. So I managed to take some pictures to document the work.

with the baffles in place

weld going on the box

 

[vietcu]

The material is made of Polypropelene so it cannot be welded on like acrylic. Has to be welded on using the polyprop rods, it was something to watch him put it together.
Here he is putting the side flaps on the tank

Additional support braces on the side flaps.

this piece is put on so that I can mount some of my probes.

Here is the finished product sitting on top of the 100g rubbermaid.

There was suppose to be a 1/2" gap from the top of that tank to the bottom of the 2x4. Needless to say the new rubbermaid tank was slightly higher than the old one, so I had to make some minor changes. Noticed how it is almost touching in the picture.

And a drawing of what the facade of the tank on the kitchen will look like.

 

[BHD]

Hi,

Thanks for posting those pictures. I was looking for a way to add some support to the basement, now I know how. What is the dimension of the external overflow? How thick is the glass for the external overflow?

thanks,
Bao

 

[chefzif]

Vu! Looking great! When are you going to fire up? Chef

 

[vietcu]

Hi,

Thanks for posting those pictures. I was looking for a way to add some support to the basement, now I know how. What is the dimension of the external overflow? How thick is the glass for the external overflow?

thanks,
Bao

The external overflow is 4.5 wide x5 high x24 long. I played it safe having it 5 high, but after setting it up. I believe 4 would have been OK with my setup. The glass is 1/4" thick, I made it wide enough so that I could put in a 2.5" bulkhead for the emergency drain, the other two drain are 1" each.

Chef I will have you over when I fire it up.

 

[ThaNgBOm321]

lol, I jut want to let you know i think your user name is funny! Almost a good as mine. j/p me also like your clock on the wall.

YzGyz

 

[ThaNgBOm321]

lol, I jut want to let you know i think your user name is funny! Almost a good as mine. j/p me also like your clock on the wall.

YzGyz

 

[vietcu]

Here is some updated shot of the tank progress. This past weekend, Paul had enough time available to crank out the front facade to my tank. Here are some photos of the facade in place temporarily.

Pictures he sent me via his phone

Monday night Paul swung over to drop off the facade, 100 times better than what I could have done. We test fitted it on the tank, so decided to take a few shots. Sorry for the crappy picture but did it in a hurry.

Fits just perfect, covers everything exactly how we had envision it to do. Now all I have to do is stain it and mount. Hope I don't screw it up.

 

[vietcu]

Sorry it took a while to do an update. I got the front facade stained and painted. Started to add water to the tank.
Staining process, word of advise unless you are using water base poly. Don't do it anywhere near your sps or corals. The fumes is a lot worse than paint fumes, I lost all of my sps staining in the house.

Water completely filled, doors on and ready for some livestock. This is with just the white LEDs on.

Here is a shot of my LED's on, this is all blue. Right side of tank has optics on, left does not. Should be able to see the difference in the pictures with optics on.

Both white and blues on.

The power source for my lights.

 

[vietcu]

Here is a picture of my lights on on the office side. Was going to put my computer table right up to the tank, plans have changed .

Started the rock scape for my setup as well. Looks like 2 piles of rocks but is going to work well for my intended idea for this tank I hope.

office side

After sand has been added, using coarse reef sand

 

[dahenley]

who has the new-yankee workshop? thats a sweet looking wood shop!

also, where did you get the round water containers? they are semi clear with white bracing around them. those look sweet, and i have seen them before, but never knew where they came from...

 

[vietcu]

The wood shop is from a fellow reefer Paul PMG, and the acrylic holding tank is made by Keith "deereG". Another fellow reefer.

 

[leekevin]

i like your setup very nicely done one question im setting up a 90g in wall and my wife and i really like the trim you put around your tank. how big are the access holes i would like to copy your design if you dont mind