Ok, so I clearly couldn't write the post that Sunday lol, but I found some time today. So here we go again!
Just saw last update post #45, with no tank, was from 27th of November 2022. Wow. Time flies... That big boy is now assembled and running. We plan to put some light next week, so let me fill the gap.
Stand and wood panels in check. Was time for bringing in all the glass. Of course, there was no physical way of getting in the tank assembled in one piece, so had to assemble it inside the room. Glass base was some serious stuff: 19mm thick.
First put together the ATO tank (140L ~ 37g) and the external overflow, and put the vinyl: black in the back glass and white in the base.
Oh, and wife gave me this gift for the room door:
Then it was the time for the sump. You can bet it was a real challenge manage all the glass inside the stand and assemble it.
And finally, the big boy: 250 x 90 x 60 cm (~ 8 x 3 x 2 '). We first put the front and back glass eurobrace, assembled the tank, and once all was cured, we put the transverse reinforcements (don't know what specific word you use for this).
We removed all the silicone excess, put the squishing foam below the tank and did the plumbing. This was the final result:
The plumbing is actually pretty simple. Two main drains of 40mm + one emergency drain of 40mm, and then 2 return lines which split in two. So we have 4 return outlets, each outlet with 2 nozzles. Then the tank has 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 return nozzles. All the PVC you see behind the structure in the previous pic is not used. These are the PVC lines that will connect two satellite frag tanks into this system, but for the time being, I do not need them. To avoid the mess of setting all this up in the future, I decided to do it now.
Controller panel is very simple too. We do not run many equipment: 2 MP40's, 2 MP60's, 2 Vectra M2, ATO system, profilux mini wifi for temperature control and ph monitoring, skimmer and peristaltic pumps. Only thing we plan to add is a UV sterilizer.
Filling up the sump:
Filling up the tank lol:
Despite my bad experience with marco rocks in the past, I decided to give it another shot. In my opinion, this the best rock for aquascapping, and this time we will supplement it with 40 kg (~90 lbs) of 1 year old indo live rock in the sump, so I really hope this time marco rocks will perform well. For building up the aquascape we used the cyanocrylate technique (we did the bond using marco rocks sand). We used 90 kg (~200 lbs) of marco rocks in total (oh, and we also have 4 liters of maxspect bio spheres in the sump). This is the final result, already with the first 5 guests (tank bred flavescens):
I recently added two more tangs that were waiting for his new home in the sump of our other system:
All together, they form an exceptional gang! It is great to see them swimming towards the end of the tank when I enter into the room, asking me to feed them. So far, zero aggression. The rostratum and the achilles have been really good friends since day one when I received them. We will see when the flavescens grow up...
What's next? Put some light, the UV sterilizer and start adding corals. Let me close this "bluish" post with some other colors too.
Thanks for reading!
Some people here use concrete for the whole building, like a bunker. The most common choice however is to use concrete blocks for the walls that are not under ground.
