Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - Christy's 180 build

LOL, ok this has been my last 24 hours or so, tank-wise.

Yesterday, race home after work to paint newly acquired light rack in the waning sunlight hours. Put cardboard on lawn to keep grass from attaching itself, set light rack on cardboard, get a coat of paint on, watch time to get second coat of paint before I have to race off to a cooking class. Come home, rescue light rack from cold and bring inside. Turn off skimmers as paint still smells to high heaven. Paint doesn't dry well at 5 degrees.

This am, look at light rack, not too shabby, couple spots look thin, maybe I'll get another coat of paint tonight. Turn room light on to provide ambient light for fish in new tank. Make sure new fish haven't jumped out (paranoia).

Afternoon...raining. No extra coat of paint (its spray paint and I need like a 30ft radius of nothing nearby as apparently I'm quite liberal with the paint). Phooey!

Come home after work, new wrasse deader than a doornail. WTF? Unimpressed. I loved that fish the second I clapped eyes on it. FML :cry:

Pout for awhile. Lets get this light in order. Ok, drill holes to insert eye bolts for hanging....drill useless, I'm gonna be standing here half the night to get one hole drilled. Set battery to recharge. Don't people use corded drills anymore? Matt finds me a corded drill and drills the holes for me and goes back to the hockey game.

Look up at beams. Hmm, they're not where I want them to be. Guess I'm gonna have to drill more holes. Lets place the rack where I want it and see where it measures up.

Hmm, rack doesn't seem to fit. WTF? Get out tape measure, rack is 72.5 inches long. $%#! I forgot the tank is set into the wall at the front and framed at exactly 72 inches. Guess I should have stressed that point. Go upstairs and eat dinner while pouting :razz:

Matt suggests cutting the edges of the "feet" tabs off as they're hanging over quite a bit. Solution! This proves to be more difficult than expected. Hacksaw seems to be missing. While he goes on the hunt, I figure I might as well splice the mogul socket onto the special plug that goes into the ballast. Seems easy enough. Trim off the plastic, get the wires set up. Where are the murets? Over there. Ok I'll just take the cords over there. %$#! Forgot the porcelain mogul socket is attached to the cord. Porcelain and concrete are two things that shouldn't meet at high velocity. Its now in two big pieces and fifty billion little ones. Awesome. Get out crazy glue, glue big pieces back on and finger to other part of mogul. Get finger off mogul, finger sticks to thumb. Me and crazy glue, yeah we're a good time.

Ok, most of the mogul socket is on there, good enough, what are the odds I'll cut myself on that sharp edge? Guess we'll find out later :razz:

Found the hacksaw, trim off the tab edges. Labour intensive and Matt takes care of that. Yay! It fits where I want it. Matt decides to place cross braces so I can hang it using the spots where I've already put the eyebolts in on the rack. Yay again!

While he's doing this I laugh to myself. He catches me laughing and I tell him that the eurobracing on this tank is quite wide. Wider than I figured. Not wider than I measured because I didn't measure it or take into accoun that there is only a 15" opening that doesn't have glass (ie each eurobrace is 4.5" wide). My reflectors are 14.5" wide. My VHOs are going to be brilliantly shining into the glass of the eurobracing. he just shakes his head.

SMRT.

Ok, time to call it a night. Sheesh.