So about two years ago, one of our local libraries decided to sell about 35 feet of a custom desk that they had built and set up as a librarian customer service and media desk on the third floor. It was in the shape of two "L"s inverted side by side with the work space in between so as to form an open rectangle of sorts. I think you get the idea.
I saw the notice on Facebook and immediately reached out. I had some ideas to build myself a cool desk and thought I could put it to good use. After some haggling, we reached a deal which included me doing the disassembly and the haul out. Did I tell you it was on the third floor? .....
I gathered up a flat bed trailer and about 5 buddies. We arrived one Saturday morning and disassembled it into about 822 pieces (I exaggerate .. hey it's my story) which we numbered and lettered. This thing was built on site and by a fine craftsman. I would venture to say that it had to take weeks to build. Yeah, we disassembled it in about 3 hours. Mostly pry bars and hammers but there were a few screws. We only had to cut one panel. Thank goodness.
We lugged it down piece by piece into the sunshine - from the heights of the darkened catacombs in this library. When it hit sunlight, I thought to myself, maybe this wasn't a good idea. It looked pretty bad. It had been up there for many years. After some time and some considerable sweat equity ... (did I mention it was 10+ foot long sections and on the third floor?) ... we got it all loaded. We took it to my law office where it sat .... in an empty office ... for two years. Yeah I know. smh ... I'll put that thing to good use. Yeah right. (Save your busy lawyer jokes)
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Fast forward a couple years to November 2016. I had a two week trial scheduled for January and with the holidays coming as well as trial prep, my calendar was pretty clear for December. Two days after Thanksgiving, we settled the case ... so I sat .. and started thinking. 'The time is right." I can do this and have it done by The New Year. So ...
I destroyed my beautiful 20 x 20 office. I set about to removing all my artwork, my tv, my desk and furniture, and my lounge area to another storage room upstairs. I got some help and we cleared the office in about a day with all the other things going on. I moved a working office to the room I had stored the library desk parts and moved the library desk parts into the back part of the hallway/lobby. It was a big shuffle so that I could still have some work space in the interim. It's a good thing I did ... because it's now mid Feb 2017 and I'm still not done ... haha. But I'm close .. the tank is coming. The tank is coming!
I hinted earlier that there was a story behind the stand. In fact, I have had a reef tank at home for a few years. It's lovely and my wife and I enjoy it. But I've always wanted bigger. So mid-design on my desk and work area, I realized that there was a LOT of desk left over. So I decided to put a reef tank in my office. Thus ... this reef tank was, in fact, an afterthought. Poorly planned and I'll designed but I learned along the way. This is the cause for the delay. I am very pleased with it and the process of learning has been nice actually.
So here is where the pictures start. I realized quickly that I'm not a contractor, despite my handy nature. I needed help. So I called to the bullpen for my good friend and contractor to come do much of the heavy lifting. There is a lot going on in this picture but suffice it to say that we wanted to even the wall while leaving space behind it for cabling and plumbing as necessary. I wanted the tank slightly recessed so we came up with this design. This big bulky design. On the right, note the green shelving which before this was an old built in hutch with doors.
We put the panels on to see how it would look. Give me some rough ideas.
I told him that the tank would be about 200 gallons and it would have a lot of weight, so he beefed it up even more - rightly so. Strong enough to hold tools. Oh yeah. Notice the studs in the walls have been cut. I decided to add shelving and an area to put the control units.
So, we leveled it, decked it with 3/4 solid ply, cut out the front panel, and sheeted the walls. Nice right?
But wait .... I quickly discovered that there really wasn't enough room to access the sump. I've never had a tank this big so I didn't realize how big everything is correspondingly. Now I know why people have whole rooms for their sump ... yeah you can call it a fish room. Whatever. It's for the sump and you know it. I digress (as usual). The things I bought were huge. So out it came. All. Of. It. Out. Started over.
The majority of the problem was the headspace on the front access panel. I came up with the idea that it needed to come out and we had to minimize the header. So I called up another client who put a rush job on a steel powder coated frame to sit on top of the walls. Reeves Mfg. - nice work guys. Notice the right side of the picture. I decided that since I was going to have issues with space under the stand, I'd create another "sump" area where I could put the ATO, doser tanks, dosers, and the like. I tore out those shelves and discovered a nice brick wall on what was apparently a former exterior wall. The space behind the wall and over on the right side connect so it can be plumbed and connected. Ok, the plan is coming together. The cutout on the left side is going to be shelving and the right side cutout is going to house the Apex and other controls.
We then painted the insides white. plumbed in a drain and tiled both of the sump areas. Notice the space behind the wall which connects the two sump areas. I installed the electrical - 4 gang in each sump area and a 4 gang near the Apex area cutout. There are two separate 20A breakers for it all. I was going to put in a floor drain but decided to remain optimistic.
Well... thanks for reading along. I'll post more later. More of the finished product. We are close. The tank is coming..... the tank is coming!
