I like big tanks and I cannot lie...

[norfolkgarden]

Very impressive build!

 

[Muttley000]

Looks great, I like the scape and back panels!

 

[fish_Nerd228]

Looks great, I like the scape and back panels!

Thanks! Took a bit of trial and error for us, but in the end we wanted to make the background and scape look as natural as possible. What you would see when diving a wall.

 

[Mayerlyn A]

It's been a little bit since I've posted but we've been quite busy setting up the tank!

Moved the tank upstairs from its storage place in the basement and places it on the stand thanks to a gullible and taller friend haha. We test fit and adjusted the background and then siliconed it in place. We foamed in the seams as well to make it seamless.

We got about 300lbs of dry live rock for free from a guy breaking down his tanks so we cycled them in some bleach (10:1 ratio water:bleach) for 48hrs. We got some dechlorinator and cycled them again in freshwater and they are good to go. We then started figuring out a rockscape we liked. We set up swim throughs and tables and left spaces for our rocks in the current tank. We then set them up in the tank and cemented them in place with e-marco 400 cement, which is awesome stuff. It's hard to see depth in the pictures because everything is the same color, but the table on top is leaning against the wall and supported by the two islands on the right forming a sort of bridge. The island to the left will be a support for one of our big rocks in the current tank to make another bridge with a cool little cave in it.

Also shown in the picture, but not really showcased is that I put the cabinet doors on so it looks like a real cabinet now woo!

What an awesome idea and it looks fantastic. I really like how the background turned out. Totally want something like this when I upgrade my tank.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Worked on the stand a bit and got it leveled out and put 3/4 plywood on top. Next is painting the bones and facing it to make it look pretty.

Also got all the old silicone stripped off the tank and cleaned it up and taped it off. Next is re-siliconing the tank when it's a wee bit warmer than 35F outside. Its November weather here in Michigan apparently.

Along with stripping the silicone, I removed the overflow box that was siliconed in. We are going to make a new overflow box out of homemade live rock and plastic grating.

Thank you for sharing. What a project. Great planning.

 

[Victoria M]

Oooh! An engineer and a build thread! These are usually fun. I have not gotten farther than “I am an engineer”. and I had to make a comment! I am in Sylvania, OH, neighbor. Are you familiar?

 

[Victoria M]

Very cool build. Love what you did with the rock. I supposed that bathroom is going to turn into a fish room? Might I suggest you run saltwater water thru the system for a bit while running a phosphate reactor to pull phosphate from the rocks. I did an acid bath, then RO DI soak, then a salt water soak. The phosphorus went to 180 ppm. I used GFO to bring it down. I used dry rock and Marco 400, too. Loved that stuff. But the dry rocks can really release phosphate later and fuel the new tank uglies.

 

[wmhaupfear]

Oooh! An engineer and a build thread! These are usually fun. I have not gotten farther than “I am an engineer”. and I had to make a comment! I am in Sylvania, OH, neighbor. Are you familiar?

Woo hi neighborino! I'm an engineer at one of the big 3 auto companies here in the mitten and it's fun to do things like this. I even drew up my living room floor on engineering paper to figure out the loading lol. I'm not terribly familiar with Ohio since I'm originally from SC..

Very cool build. Love what you did with the rock. I supposed that bathroom is going to turn into a fish room? Might I suggest you run saltwater water thru the system for a bit while running a phosphate reactor to pull phosphate from the rocks. I did an acid bath, then RO DI soak, then a salt water soak. The phosphorus went to 180 ppm. I used GFO to bring it down. I used dry rock and Marco 400, too. Loved that stuff. But the dry rocks can really release phosphate later and fuel the new tank uglies.

Thank you for the heads up! We will fill up the filter cups with some Phosguard and see if that works well enough, with GFO as a backup if it doesn't. I figured there would be a spike in phosphate once they sit in the tank for a bit but I didn't expect it to be that high.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

!!! Awesome build !!! Following>>>

 

[JumboShrimp]

To say you are an organized person, and a thoughtful planner, would be a huge understatement! We love the photos. Two Thumbs Up!

 

[Victoria M]

Woo hi neighborino! I'm an engineer at one of the big 3 auto companies here in the mitten and it's fun to do things like this. I even drew up my living room floor on engineering paper to figure out the loading lol. I'm not terribly familiar with Ohio since I'm originally from SC.. Thank you for the heads up! We will fill up the filter cups with some Phosguard and see if that works well enough, with GFO as a backup if it doesn't. I figured there would be a spike in phosphate once they sit in the tank for a bit but I didn't expect it to be that high.

Yeah, it gets crazy high.

 

[Raege]

Wow Awesome build love that rock wall and overflow came out real nice. Will be following along

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Following along. I’m about 15 minutes south of AA. And use to work for one of the big 3.

 

[wmhaupfear]

Got a couple updates for the fellow reefers following along. The first major update was an addition of a dedicated 20A circuit for the aquarium. I tallied up the current draw expected for the aquarium and measured what was on the circuit we were going to use and they exceeded the 15A of the circuit. I called in an electrician friend of mine and we started from each end of the circuit and ran the wires and met in the middle of the house. It has a 20A weatherproof GFCI outlet and a 20A breaker with the correct wire and we mounted the outlet above the water line as high as we could and still plug in the electronics.

The next thing we did was trim out the stand to make it a little more exciting to look at. My father in law helped create the corner trim which is tapered in thickness from top to bottom (its thicker at the bottom than the top). I made the corbels by hand since I had trouble finding ones we liked and ones that could be used for weight bearing. The end goal is to put a quartz ledge surrounding the tank (pictured is the quartz we picked out) and it will sit on the corbels. Also pictured is my wife @fish_Nerd228 sanding like a banshee. We will get the ledge installed the first week of January woo!

http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5c259685ba275/IMG_1137.TRIM.MP4

 

[wmhaupfear]

Annnnd MOAR updates!

We also installed the electrical cabinet inside the aquarium stand to clean it up a bit. The side partition houses the Apex, EB832, WXM, and FMM and is not a removable wall. We used desk grommets for wire management and all wires feed into each module from below it for safety. The front cabinet holds the DOS, a future DOS, dosing container, and an iPad. This is actually a drawer that pulls out fully so we can refill the dosing container and access the electronics. The drawer still needs a finishing touch using a door sweep to close the gap you see and some lights behind it. Enjoy!

 

[Muttley000]

Very nice job on the corbels and the apex mounting! I could get so much more done if I could sand as fast as your wife!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Wonderful update! Love the outlet above the water line, and the quartz ledge— wow. Keep it coming...

 

[fish_Nerd228]

Very nice job on the corbels and the apex mounting! I could get so much more done if I could sand as fast as your wife!

Hahah! I only wish I could sand that fast, thank goodness for time lapse

 

[wmhaupfear]

Updoots!

@fish_Nerd228 and I did some finishing touches on the stand last week as we get ready to fill the tank later this week.

Installed drawers for storage and bought some kitchen sink organizers to put inside to hold sponges and other cleaning things. Also put in a pull out tray table because we need a step ladder to do anything in the tank and it's a nice place to set things. In addition, I used a brush door sweep to hide the gap in the electronics cabinet. The gap was necessary to get past the hinges and door magnets, but after it was pushed in you could see beyond the wall. The brush style allows the sweep to get past the hinges and magnets when the drawer is pulled out.

We also installed some accent lighting that will eventually be controlled via magnetic switch when the door opens. It can change colors with a remote if we want too.

Next update will be water in the tank and a quartz ledge installed on the stand so stay tuned!

 

[JumboShrimp]

That set-up continues to be iNSaNe!! ;Wacky Go, man, go!