WOW looking good buds :wink:

We're getting closer all the time. We figured out how to get the stand into the house and my contractor has been installing the shell today. Tomorrow we will hopefully see a lot of the exterior to the stand get installed.

Without pics...it don't mean much so here you go:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/IMG_0877.jpg

Here you can see we're starting to put the exterior on:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/IMG_0884.jpg

Here is the skeleton of the canopy:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/IMG_0878.jpg

And from another angle.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/IMG_0879.jpg

Sadly while test programming my LED lights, my APEX unit died and has to be returned to Neptune for replacement. It's only been on for 5 or 6 days so hopefully it's track record gets better.

Some more pictures from today's progress...this thing is huge.

Here is the view as you come up the stairs into the living area of the house.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-31155202.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-31155323.jpg

The living room side:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-31155231.jpg

The dining room side:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-31155347.jpg

And my plumbing for the external overflow coming through the bottom of the sink area.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-31155402.jpg

This is looking fantastic! It must be exciting to see it coming together.

Yeah, finally some movement on things. It will start coming fast now.

Stand looks to be equal parts large and awesome. This is where all the waiting seems worth it!

Thanks...despite all the time its taken, now I feel panicked about how quickly its coming together.:redface: Tomorrow will be another big day of work getting done.

If anyone has trouble figuring out how it will all come together, join the club. The original ideas were mine...but my contractor has run with it to develop the finished look. Luckily, I've never seen him do a less than stellar job...so I have faith:biggrin:

Looks great Mark, would love to see the new home and tank once its all done.

Where are you building?

:biggrin:

We're out above the beach in Lakeridge Estates in the Landing.

Very nice, this should be a good one.

Well thought this thread needed a brief update.

We've been mostly working on retaining walls in the back yard so if things look like they are moving slow...welcome to my world:laluot_08:

The cabinet maker has been working on my kitchen back at his shop and tinkering a little with finishing the tank stand.

Here are the small (but I'll take what I can get) updates: Note that these are crappy phone pictures.


http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...25113658-1.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...6-23150555.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...6-23150518.jpg

So exciting! I bet you will be glad to just get moved and settled in at this point. :biggrin:

Hope all is well with you guys and I would love to see some new pictures of the kids if you get a chance.

Thanks Leah. I will try to PM you some pics :)

Ohhh, I see. She gets special pics does she? :pout:

Edit: Wait... I missed the part about your kids. Now I seem like a creep. Nevermind...

This is awkward. Nice looking setup so far.

Haha, I'll let it slip this time :lol:

Okay, so I'm in need of some advice here. If you look at the first picture above showing the entire stand, you can see that I have had them cut out space for my external overflow on the end panel. My plan is to run two 6105's and two MP40W's at that end to push flow towards the clear end. The problem that has arisen is that I will need to "cut-out" spots for those powerheads to fit at the end. Two will fit beside the overflow, while two will go lower down on the panel.

My question is which two should go lower? I think the Vortec's have a broader flow so they probably should go up high. Opinions or advice suggesting otherwise?

much better chance of keeping sand in place using the tunze lower down. they're more of a jet. I have two 6105s stacked on each other maybe 4" off my sand. aimed just ever so slightly up. The top one is 24V too.

That's what I was thinking too. Now just to get them to cut the holes in the right spots. If this is the only problem I face I will count myself lucky.

Everything is looking great!

Any Updates?

Is your builder still just using his left hand?

He's gotta be almost done :redface:

Haha....just his left hand is what it seems like sometimes. Not done yet but getting closer...slowly. Siding is half on and we're doing lots related to the yard. Electrical is more than half done. Gas is in. Flooring should go in soon.

I actually really like to see the house build progression! Its really cool to watch.

You're right, your LEDs look great! I think they came out looking excellent.

Thanks Catherine! As compared to some of the builds out there, mine isn't too fancy but it is coming together. Rather than use red LED'S I added 24 neutral whites which seem to add just enough in that spectrum for me. Still haven't seen it above water so maybe I'm blowing smoke but I sure hope not

Well, it's a small update, but right now, I'll take any update.

Got my generator installed:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...8-23155205.jpg

Then the auto transfer switch was put into my fish room.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...8-28150230.jpg

Since the transfer switch was finally in, I got lights in my fish room. All plugs and lights in the fish-room are on the generator, along with all plugs at the actual display tank and my refrigerators, freezers, furnace and some random lights through the house as well.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...8-28150216.jpg

This room is getting the floor epoxied shortly and the walls are all getting several coats of "clear-coat". The wood look may not be fancy but it should be very durable.

Lastly, I guess it never hurts to show a pic on the progress of the outside of the house. They are painting it this week.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...8-28144902.jpg

Okay, time for some more updating...this time, more tank related, though still small.

I spent Sunday on hanging my light within the canopy. Thank God for my brother and friends because with the weight of the light and the setup on the canopy, I needed three sets of hands to get it in there without wrecking the Oak.

I ran into some problems with my light lifter design...but nothing that I won't get fixed up by mid week. Here are some pics. Note that right now, the light is sitting on my "Red Green" style temporary stand (empty paint cans since it's all I could find in the empty house).

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...9-10133059.jpg

I'm using a linear actuator with remote control to pull the light up towards the ceiling and out of my way.

Here's the actuator:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...9-10133110.jpg

Had to route a hole through the stand to allow for both the actuator and my wiring to pass through.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...9-10133127.jpg

Lastly, here is how I balanced the light at each end. It worked really well and the light is level side to side.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...9-10133226.jpg

The flaw in my design comes from the hooks used to hang it from the ceiling. Apparently, between the weight of the light and the power of the actuator, those hooks bend pretty easily. I was going to use pulleys but it made the light lower than I wanted...now I will have to use shorter closed loop hooks and pulley's in order to re-direct some of that force.

The whole contraptions works well...it just won't continue to do so for long as something has got to give in the current setup.

I absolutely covet your generator setup, does it power any other part of the house as well ?

Yeah, it powers my refrigerators, freezer, some lights, and my furnace. They are really very reasonably priced now and the kits include the auto transfer switch. I used to sell these 8 years ago for 5x the price. Check out your local KMS Tools if you want to look into it further.

That lighting is going to be sexy when its done.

What were the original hooks you used made out of?

Those long hooks were the standard zinc coated ones available at BC Fastners. Even if I could find other ones, I think that the stainless steel cable would eventually start to wear through them. Those hooks are almost nine inches long.

My new plan is for about 5 inch closed eye hooks threaded through wood blocks both of which will be screwed into the ceiling. Those are as thick as your small finger. Then a 3 inch pulley will hang below that for the wire. Even if there is some horizontal pressure, the shorter length of hook and the encasement by the block should prevent any bending. :-)

Tonight I reworked my light lifter. Here it is in action now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyQ...e_gdata_player

Very cool! Seems a bit loud, do you plan on sound proofing the cabinet?

You know what...my wife said something like that too! I actually don't intend to do that. Once cabinet doors are on, it will get quieter. Given how often I have to raise and lower my light now, I don't think I will be doing it very often. Especially with a fish room for doing water changes, dosing, etc.

I think the honest answer is probably that my wife will have to hear it with the doors closed and then we'll see if changes need to be made. :)

After some further testing...I realized that I had some vertical pressure on the actuator arm at full extension. This contributed to both noise and I think wear if I had left it that way. Dropped the pulley's 3/4" and this has made a significant difference. Noise is less and I should have years of uninterrupted service out of this now.

got myself caught up on your build.. and wow! That's looking kick ass, man!

Thanks Kien,

I find it a real compliment when someone with your talent takes a look at my build.

It's coming along. I am hoping to water test the tank on the ground this weekend and assuming that nothing goes wrong, carry it into the house near the beginning of next week. :)

Well, today I needed to get ready for the tank to make it's big move from my current garage to the new house for installation early next week. I decided that after sitting on the tank for 1 1/2 years, I should water test it here before I put it inside my new house. Five of my friends came over to help and so with 6 sets of hands we lifted it off the dollies that I had it on and placed the crate on the garage floor.
The crate was built a bit like a stand so I felt that it could handle the weight of a full tank. Off came the top and in went some fresh water.
As expected....nothing burst. No leaks either. I made it about 3/4 full and then decided that I didn't need to further test it and waste water.
Here's some pics:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0-20152343.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0-20152336.jpg

So...the not so exciting part was getting all that water out. I've been packing and only now realized that any pump with some gumption was out of reach...so a Maxijet 1200 was used to empty this thing...wow..that was painful.:redface:

Anyways, from here, hopefully the move over to the house goes well. The install should be interesting as they only left me 1/2" of clearance to put the tank in. Hopefully my next post isn't about a broken tank.

If you had used warm water you could have at least thrown some power heads in and a heater made a whirl pool tub while you waited.


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

yeah...In my new house I thought of putting hot and cold taps in the garage...but this current place doesn't have that option. That water was sooo cold I couldn't put my hands in for long.

If there's a will there's a way lol I was tempted on my 180


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

This is an awesome build! Really looking forward to see this tank full of livestock and thriving!!! I love the light going up an down automatically.

Is it normal to use generators out there or you just installed it for the purpose of keeping a back up to keep the reef going in case of a power outage?