That stand looks awesome !!

I think it could hold up your house. I also see you have a steel I beam in main floor support, my folks have the same setup (super solid), guess they don't use steel much anymore in residential.

Cant wait to see the tank!

Clint

And I guess we only have me to blame for that. Sad to see a man that desperate that fast!

Any updates lately? Been a while!

Not really. We're just so busy right now between work, sports, and school. We've been sourcing out products for properly leveling our floor right around the tank.

A few other things are a high priority within the house right now; sealing everything up for winter, and finishing up our kitchen floor. Our house is older, from the 50s, and it requires upgrades that trump TIBET.

Sounds good to me, keep us updated cause this is one of my favorite build threads :)

For leveling my 6 foot 165 we used these industrial sized floor shims that are used to level large shelving units. You've probably already thought of that, but they worked very well. We had an unbelievably unlevel floor (our house is around 30 years old) and it was out about a full inch from one side of the tank to the other on the spot we had to place it.

Catherine I think this is a great idea.

this is going to be one sweet tank

We now have all our MH reflectors! Picked up three more Luminarc's from BlkWolfe today. They look amazing. Now all thats left to get now for the lighting is the T5 supplements, and more LED moonlights from Digital Aquatics for the Reef Keeper Elite.

I also ordered the two remaining RKE PC4s (Powerbars) we need for both our current 180g tank, and for Tibet. Hopefully they'll be here sooner rather then later.

How did you make out with the damaged skimmer/Greyhound claim?

Greyhound ended up paying out for the damages. A couple of weeks ago Kevin started to assemble his indoor workroom as its been -20 and colder for the last while. He has started to rebuild the damaged parts. So the skimmer will be ready for the big tank when its installed, and I think he plans to test it on our 180g tank soon.

Good to hear!

I need to see some pictures

Photos and a bit of an update.

Supplies
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0548.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0557.jpg

The area for the stand is laid out.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0554.jpg

It requires prepping and priming for the cement
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0559.jpg

Matia generally made a huge pain of herself throughout the whole process of dismantling the stand, moving it, and scrapping up as much tar paper as could be done by hand. She was annoyed we made her sit on the stairs.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0560-1.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0556-1.jpg

We also completed our shopping list for everything we'll need between now and the start of stocking. I'm now just waiting for some of these items to come up for sale, or for them to be available on the buy/sell forums.

We can also now look forwards to placing the tank order after the holidays as the stand and floor will be ready at that point.

Beautiful dog :) When do plan on having the stand in place ? It looks great.

Probably in a couple of weeks. We're trying to take advantage of the Chinook and the associated warm weather. Right now the stand is in 5? pieces all over the basement. Hopefully tonight the rest of the tar-paper will be gone and the primer will be down, which means the cement can go down and cure over the holidays.

I've been itching to get going on this but, I had dental surgery that had to come out of my own pocket which put a hold on a lot of things. Now that its done and paid for, we can start moving along again.

Hey hope its not to late, but that black stuff on the ground is called black out it is a vct tile adhesive, you are not likely going to get it all out, and you don't really need to. I do hardwood flooring and i called the guys at my flooring company who do vct and lino and they said that all you should need to do in order to level the floor is just use a self leveling compound such as planipatch or ultra plan easy and just mix in a primer and it will adhere over top of the blackout. plus the advantage of using a self leveling compound is that you will only have to trowel the edges smooth the patch will level itself.

Richard

Good to know, your timing actually couldn't have been any more perfect. Kevin was just setting up to start another cleaning session. Now though he's just going to wash it down to get any remaining TCP off and then he'll prime it.

Thanks very much, I think you saved us quite a bit of time and effort! Its much appreciated.

Ya they guys at the shop said that the black out would have penetrated the concrete making it next to impossible to remove.
glad to have been able to help.

Richard

WOW this is one big project. As a welder/fabricator I must say that stand is sweet a**. Kudos to the builder.

There was primer....
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0563-1.jpg

Then there was cement...
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0565.jpg

Think I oughtta maybe grab me some of that floor topper. Thanks for the documentation :)

New hot water tank replacing the 27, yup thats right 27 year old tank we have currently. That hot water tank is older then I am...
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0604.jpg

Debating using this door, yes its original to the house, on the fishroom door. However I love its vintage charm and am concerned that it will be ruined by the extra humidity.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0610-1.jpg

The new hot water tank gives us our final measurements for framing in one part of the fishroom now!

*suddenly feels old*:neutral:......

your probably right....an old solid wood panel door like that would likely either swell and/or warp from humidity differences between the interior and exterior off the fish room....

wow im jumping on this starting to look great already

Out of curiousity... whats a new hot water tank worth these days?
Im pretty sure I will have to replace mine soon too... :neutral:

The tank we purchased is a 50g and it set us back just shy of $650. Part of the reason we did this now is that Kevin was told by a plumber friend at work that soon you will only be able to buy high efficiency ones, just like furnaces.

Originally we wanted a 40g tank, as our existing one is only 30g. However all the 30s and 40s were sold out. We picked up the last 50g in stock.

Catherine, Nice setup you have going! I am going to tag along on your build as we are thinking about one in our basement similar to yours. I am not sure of your configuration: are you placing a wall along the aquarium front ? using the aquarium front as part of a wall?

Brad

You're right Brad!

We're using the front, and right sides as viewing panes. Everything else will be framed into a wall.

Just so you feel better, you'll be happier with the 50g. At my old house I replaced a 15 year old but leaking hot water tank, and went with a 40g since that seemed to be the most common size. Turns out the old one was a 50g, and while I thought that "newer will be better anyhow, since the old one will be all encrusted and stuff inside, it's not really 50g any more" .. and it turns out that whatever working volume it DID have, it was still more than 40g and it turns out that 40g was just slightly under whatever volume the bathtubs were (ie., the water turned ice cold before done filling). It sucked. So my own word of advice for when replacing hot water tanks is go bigger than what you think you need. At the time they had just started introducing the "on demand" style heaters (ie. without a tank) but man the price difference was huge, like 3 or 4 times as expensive. Which was too bad, they do sound sort of neat.

How'd that cement cure? Everything nice and level?

Kinda funny that the old HWT has no warning labels really, and the new one is covered in all sorts of warning labels. :lol: And rightly so, if you happen to be a Mythbuster!!

It cured really well. We moved the stand back over the spot and I'm using some old cardboard today to build at tank mock-up to allow us to do some further planning on return's etc. I have the boxes, although I still need to figure out where I placed the 6 pack of duct tape I bought last week.

The hot water tank is awesome! I can have an hour long shower and still have warm water when I get out. I cracked up at the Mythbuster reference. Good times watching that show.

I found another use for the door. I adore the features in our house and can't bear not to take advantage of them.

Anyways the last weekend of January we took some of the boxes we had around the house to create a mockup of the tank to plan out returns, rock structure, and get a visual idea of the final product. Kevin keeps telling me that we purchased a new hot water tank and a new television just for this project.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0628.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0629.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0630.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0632.jpg

looks great Catherine

I see a foot under the stand, first pic. Peek a boo
Planning looks good

the glass is going to be cut so it looks like waves at the top ? thats gonna be awsome.

More seriously though, looking forward to more.

Why don't you cut out layers of cardboard and create the actual towers of LR? Cmon, I know you want to....Maybe you can sculpt them out of syrofoam...

So true...I guess I'll have to go out and buy myself another piece of electronic magic, just for the styrofoam though.

I'm waiting on my tax refund now to either a) order the glass, or b) order my rock.

Shouldn't your tank (glass) come before your rock or are you buying dry rock for base?

You can always leave the rock curing or cooking in trash cans or rubbermaid tubs while you wait for your build to come together :-) Then when your tank is ready your rocks should be ready and you can just plunk them into the tank nice and clean, cured and away you go! :biggrin: