Thats some cute livestock you've got there Dez :wink:

What a great idea with the mirror frame, it looks perfect! :biggrin:

Thanks :), I really enjoy my livestock....that's what's slowing this build down is I'd rather spend time with my kids than be working on the tank.....

My wife and I still can't believe how exact that mirror frame fit....we are still in awe. My wife is actually going to get me to cut up the mirrow to use as a decoration project in my daughter's room. Best part of it was that the mirror was 40% off. I couldn't have bought the materials to build it myself for what I paid. I love it when things work out!

Got some more equipment yesterday. I got a PM Bullet 3 skimmer. I know that no one uses Becketts anymore but my budget doesn't allow for a skimmer like a Bubble King so this will suffice for now. I also picked up a used wavebox and a 48 x 24 x 20 tall acrylic sump. Here's a picture of the skimmer compared to my car

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1244548996

Enjoy. Thanks for looking. I'll post a picture of the sump when it's in place, it's sitting on its side now and the picture doesn't look like much.

Hey, I'm usin a Beckett style skimmer. Although not as BIG as yours HAHAHA.

The same holds true for most stuff at Ikea....I couldnt build a simple bookshelf for $20....labour alone would be more than that. The tank is looking killer!

I know....it barely fit in my car :), I'm not sure if I'll run in in sump or not. The guy who sold it to me recommended to run it externally cause he says it works better, or to raise it up in the sump. But it's too tall for me to run it raised up above the water in the sump. We'll see I guess when it comes time to plumb it.

Ya, I may have to do that too.My stand is 33" inside, but the sump is 26" tall. Doesnt leave me much headroom. Wasn;t thining of skimmer. Other thing is, The skimmer drain has to be above the waterline, OR, if I put it outside the sump, above the top edge of the sump, so it drains into sump properly. That rules out putting a external skimmer under stand. I saw a 6 foot tall skimmer once. Now there's a conversation piece HAHAHA

looks great that Dez love the trim on the tank, and the skimmer nothing wrong with tha PM Bullet 3 that will clean you tank no problem......

Thanks Mike,

I'm feeling a little unmotivated to work on the tank lately with the nice weather. Just want to hang with the kids and my trophy wife gets me to do yard work....

I might move the frag tank in place and take down my live rock tank today....we'll see....

Des

Well,

I found some time today to take down the live rock tank. Let me just say this - 4 years of salt creep is disgusting. My son and I took out all the rock and put it in a holding tank with a Mag 7 circulating the water for now. Here it is in it's temporary location....man, everything seems to be temporary...argh.. It was close by and I'll still be able to get my sump and other tanks by to plumb the tank and still be able to paint the rest of the room with the rock tank here.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245015321

Here is the live rock tank almost empty.....just getting the seashell base outta there. I'm going to wash it really well in fresh water over and over. Then I have to find someone to help me lift this tank outside and I'll try to scrape/clean the tank before it'll go in it's final location. This tank will be my growout tank.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245015438

And, my son helping me dump all the seashell base into a bucket to wash.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245015639

Thanks for following.

The frag tank is now clean. My trophy wife helped me carry this disgusting tank upstairs into the yard for me to wash out. It is now fairly clean :)

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245122531

Here is the frag tank now in place....I'm getting excited. The dimensions of this tank is 48 x 18 x 14tall. Now the plumbing is getting to be a possibility:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245122691

And here is the sump. It is a 100 gallon sump, or 99 gallons. The dimensions are 48 x 24 x 20 tall. I picked it up for 100 bucks - acrylic.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245122828

Thanks for following. My friend is taking down his tank this week so I'll be able to get his Dart off of him and plumb my closed loop. I've ordered a Reeflo Blackfin 6000 for $254 shipped - I'm pretty excited to get it. I should be getting a tracking number tomorrow for it.

Thanks for following.

Here's a picture of my wavebox installed. There was a slight hiccup on this. When I got the used wavebox, I brought it home and found out that my hole was too small. A friend with a wavebox had given me the wrong measurements. I'm just glad that he didn't give me too big of a hole size. I had to crawl into the tank and RE - drill the hole slightly larger. Now it fits perfectly. Sorry for the fuzzy image - cell phone camera.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245123483

Well, a bit more progress on the tank today. I got my pump from my friend (Sequence Dart) since he took down his big tank today and downsized. This is the result.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245652143

I managed to do all of the outputs with all soft 90 degree bends. All the true union valves are done with flex pvc. I was considering doing the whole thing with flex but I didn't have any in 1 1/2" and I got pieces of plumbing here and there from various friends. The reason the intake has three 90's in it is because I got that whole section from my friend with the pump, so that saved me from buying a ball valve and union. Ideally I would have done it all with soft 90's for decreased resistance, but it was what I had.

Here's another shot of the Oceans Motions:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245652372

And full tank shot. Sorry for the bad pictures (late night, low light, cell phone camera)

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245652435

Thanks for following.

looking good buds, what are you going to keep in the tank for corals Dez.

Hey Mike,

I'm leaning toward all SPS, but my wife begs to defer. I might let her have some LPS though. Definitely no softies or zoas as this will be my only tank with no upgrading later as this is fairly permanent being in the wall. I don't want to have to try to get rid of softies later when the SPS grow. I can't wait for my return pump then I can do a full wet test. When I get home today I'll do the wet test for the closed loop *fingers crossed*

ya that is what i have for my tank dez. I have all SPS and i also have 3 of my fav open brains that i hav tucked in to places where the current isnt bad. i still have a few softies in the tank i cant rid of, green polyops, green ricordias and red ,green ,purple mushrooms here and there...

Lookin good Dez. You will LOVE the OM when you get her flowing. Are you going BB or sand? I have sand, but had to add some larger #1 aragonite and crushed coral to keep the sand down. The flow created sand storms LOL

looking good! can,t wait to see it!
i,ll have a frag or 2 0r 3 for you when your ready.

Thanks Ed, How's Harv's Tank working out for you so far. I'm still waiting for my return pump before I do any more plumbing to the basement.

Dan, I'm going to have about a 1" sand bed. I personally don't like the BB look. Most of this build I haven't thought too far ahead. I sort of take it one step at a time.

Okay, I finally had a chance to leak test the OM plumbing. I was quite disappointed because I had used a bunch of old plumbing from a friend and it was that whole section that leaked like a sieve. So I decided to just go buy new plumbing and redo the inlet without any 90's. I'm quite happy with it now. I also redid some of the plumbing in spa flex so that I could have a flexible line to drain it when servicing the OM. Here is a picture of the final leak free plumbing:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245991854

And a photo of my son and I shopping for plumbing parts. It's amazing how many times you have to go shopping for fittings because you forgot that one part.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245991940

And a couple of pictures of the OM in action. I am quite pleased with the Sequence Dart. That is some FLOW! I'm glad I plumbed everything in 1 1/2" plumbing.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245991978

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245992061

Hopefully more updates to come soon. Work has been too busy for my liking.

adda boy Dez looking sweet man.

I got my Reeflo Blackfin 6000 pump today. Man this thing is a monster. I can't believe that the intake and outlet are 2"! I'm gonna have to re-mortgage my house just to do the plumbing for this tank. I got it for $260 shipped to my door directly from Reeflo. I'm quite pleased about that. Now to find time for plumbing. I still have to patch a couple of unusable holes in the sump and drill a hole for the 2" bulkhead for the intake of the pump. This is the only major piece of equipment that I've bought new so far...

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245992269

Here is one with my hand for size refererence.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1245992341

have to agree, monster pump

:eek:

Wow, 2" intake and output. That's like, firehose capacity.

I know, kind of crazy. On the website it stated 1.5" adapters, but it is 2". 2" plumbing parts are super expensive.

:eek: uhhhh wow. Big pump.

Interesting to note that if you google "reeflo blackfin 6000", this thread comes up around 4th place...

Whoops, my bad, 3rd place.

Wow, that is an interesting tidbit. Hopefully it works well. There's a full 2 year warranty on it. Can't wait to find time to plumb it up and test everything. Need bulkheads though that I'm waiting for.

Well, yesterday I went off to get plumbing parts to plumb the main tank to the basement. Here's what $250 in plumbing gets you (the used plumbing on the left of the picture I got for free cause the owner was going to throw it out anyway, I used it for the valves.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249424

And here's how we got the pipe home

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249537

Here is the plumbing under the tank plumbed up. That 3" dryer vent looking thing is for an inline fan that I'll have in the future for the lights. I'm going to extend it all the way to the canopy and have the fan downstairs drawing air into the canopy.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249561

And the return line plumbed up. My WavySea wavemaker came from J&L missing the union and the height adjuster so they have to ship it out to me Monday, that's why I left he plumbing long so when it comes I'll just cut and attach it.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249661

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249692

Heres the wavebox and emergency drain pipe

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249787

Here is the plumging in the basement. Keep in mind that plumbing on the right is all 2". Crazy. Yup, that's a 2" gate valve (the only reason I bought a gate is cause they were out of ball valves and I wanted to do the plumbing on the same day and every where else was closed on a weekend.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249944

The drain line that's sagging is temporary (that's my emergency overlow). I'm going to hook up the frag tank's drain line into that pipe, as well as the water change tank's drain.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1246249980

All in all I'm happy. I had a minor leak (hate threaded fittings). So had to unscrew and put more teflon tape and all was good. The wavebox works!!!! I get about an 1 1/4" wave. The unit is louder than I thought so I'll have to try insulation around the box and cabinetry when I get it. I am quite happy with the flow from the Blackfin 6000, however I would NOT recommend it going in your stand. Boy am I glad it's in the basement, the thing is a beast and it's quite loud. I am very happy with the sump, even with my pump cranked full there are no bubbles getting back into the main tank.

Now to get sand, clean it, drain the tank, get the RO unit hooked up, paint the rest of the sump room, get cabinetry, get my lights hung and hooked up, plumb in the frag tank/drain, plumb in the water change tank, get the RO reservoir hooked up, get the dehumidistat wired, get pond liner to line under my tank with 3 1/2" dams, get my live rock zip-tied, or rodded together.....hmmmmm the list doesn't seem to end.

Thanks for following.

Wow Dez it's looking awesome! 2" plumbing:shocked!:

hey there Dez i wold watch out with the wavy sea man, i sold mine when the power cuts out the unit will continue to spin until the unit is reset ok.. just letting you know. that is why i sold mine.. it caused a huge flood with mine same place that you have yours is the place is where mine spit out alot crap load of water......


mike

Thnaks Mike, I'll be doing a lot of testing with just fresh water in the tank and testing all situations to make sure that I'll have as little water as possible on the floor :). I remember you telling me this a few months ago. It was on sale at J&L so I thought it's worth a shot for tweaking etc..... Hopefully I can work aroudn the bug.

Here's a short clip of the wave that I can get. The sump isn't running in this video, that's why you can see the water line. when it's all runing, the water line is hidden.

I don't know how to post videos but here's the link. I don't know how to rotate it either on quicktime.

http://s600.photobucket.com/albums/t...2009-06-28.flv

Just copy and paste the link to your browser.

right on man :mrgreen:

Lookin good Dez.

You think you hate threaded fittings. The prev owner used Silicone on all my fittings, and thusly, over tightened them. Just had another fitting break. a 3/4" 90 just shattered. Wife was home, but not in living room. Pumped my entire sump out onto the carpet.. I am not pleased, and I wont be hore for over 2 weeks yet:twised:


Yours looks Much dryer LOL :D

Ouch....yikes. I couldn't imagine. I'm pretty lucky (or maybe well planned?), my sump is right beside my sump pump reservoir - so theoretically the lowest point in the house. When I had to take my pump apart to load more teflon tape on, I just closed the valves, unhooked the pump and let her drain onto the floor and it just went into my house sump pump reservoir. I know what you mean about silicone.....ugh....I got some used 2" plumbing from a friend for my closed loop that was all glued together already, and when I hooked it up it leaked like a sieve.....argh.... I'm glad it did though because in the end I was happier cause I didn't use any 90s. Hopefully your carpet it dry.

Man, the things our wives put up with hey?

ya the things we put them through. Tank is fixed, and now teaching the wife, over MSN, the difference of ATO and SW, and why we dont fill 20G of lost tank water with ATO water. Man, I hope she pays a little more attn now when I tell her how to do thngs...

Looking good so far. Love how you framed the tank to achieve that picture frame hanging on the wall look! I also did something similar as well except mine is see through on both sides, with piping to a basement sump room.

Thanks for the comments. I don't know if you have read through the whole thread, but mine is see through on both sides as well, there'll be custom cabinet work done on the other side of the "picture frame" and also piping to the basement sump room.