The pictures above of the red PVC plumbed sump are not my tank! He was helping me with some plumbing suggestions, appreciate the support though! I will have blue PVC!
Yes, Red Sea should have made the inside white also. Some of their previous models were all white so unless it was about cutting costs they really messed up on that one. I was going to paint mine white but in the end I just left it. I still may go back and redo it some day.
I did my plumbing in blue and have to say it turned out pretty nice.
I appreciate the information, great advice if I choose to go that route!
Looks beautiful! And I think that's a great idea to reinforce the joists below. You'll have over 1,000 lbs sitting mid-span on those two joists. Much better to be safe than sorry.Today’s update.
Got the two cabinet doors on for the sump compartment. My OCD kicked in so that took about an hour to get them as close to perfect as possible. I’m happy with the results, tiny difference in the gap from top to bottom of the two doors, but hardly noticeable.
Got the sump into its compartment. This may seem like common sense but I’m going to share it anyways. You have to install the doors before putting the sump in! You won’t be able to screw in the brackets once the sump is put in. Also included a pic of the acrylic filter socks. Huge shoutout to Anything Acrylic for these filter cups. Hit them up on Facebook if you want some for yourself!
Last project for today was installing the floor jacks in the basement. Those that have been following along know that I’ve been debating on whether or not I thought this was necessary or not. In the end, for about $150 in materials, I decided it was a cheap safe guard and went ahead with it. Did my best to measure it out so that each stand is 40” apart which leaves 10” of tank weight left and right. Based on how far is sticked out from the wall upstairs, I only needed to support 2 joists. Cut 2x4’s 20” long and married them together, two per stand. Stand is centered between the two posts. Happy with the results and loved these stands. Easy setup and also liked the fact that these came with a tightening rod vs other models where you have to use a wrench to tighten.
Not much to update over the last day. Played around with the light mounts that came with this deluxe version, and I have to say I’m impressed. Specifically for a couple reasons.
First and foremost, they are a rigid, fixed height mount. No messing around with goosenecks trying to get the correct height, and your limited to one height. Some people may disagree with my opinion of this, but let’s be honest. This is Red Sea we’re talking about. They’ve done the research to find out what height is optimal for the lights to hang above water height.
Second, the build quality is second to none, and it was a super easy install.
Third, Red Sea finally got the hint and stopped drilling the tanks. I remember seeing posts of people getting their tanks, just to be disappointed when they came drilled or plugged, no matter if they got the deluxe version or not. I’m not sure if this was only limited to certain sized tanks or not, but it appears they redesigned the mounts to function without holes drilled into the tank.
Last, I love how the mounts can be pivoted upwards for water changes/DT maintenance.
Things I don’t like:
I purchased the white cabinet. I wish they made a silver/white mount and gave you the white hydras to match the cabinet.
They did an ok attempt to hide the wiring through the mount, but instead of it going all the way through and out the back, it just comes out the top and spills over the back of the mount.
Its looking good so far! Im lucky that I put my tank in the basement on the concrete floor, though I did have to spend some time leveling the tile floor that it sits on. Glad I didnt need to setup floor jacks in the finished basement!
I actually debated doing this. They are aluminum mounts. My roadblock was the Hydra's. Didnt think I could get them painted to look anywhat near as clean as they should look. My thing is, with technology booming in this hobby, there's sure to be new lights out that I'll probably want to get/test within the next year or so, and at that time I will get everything in white/silver.Not sure if its that big of an irritation, but you could always tape off the mounting brackets (that go over the glass) and spray the light brackets with some Krylon White spray paint. Since I dont have the same mounts, Im not sure if they are plastic or aluminum, but you could easily spray them the color you like and then it would match. When I setup my sump, I hated that the inside of the cabinet was black instead of white, but since the sump was already in and the tank already had water in it, I let that go, but I did end up painting the return plumbing so that it matched my white/red theme. Just a thought
I only had my self and one other person help me move the tank inside and on top of the stand. The suction grips were awesome and they do allow a 2 handed grip, but there is not much room. If I were to do it again, I would have ordered 2 more and have 2 on each side vertical instead of the one horizontal. I think that would have made the move/lift less awkward and easier to accomplish.
