Current, no, but semi-recent yes.

This was shot a few days, maybe a week, after being put online. This thing is a beast! Can't seem to find the embed option from YouTube, but here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPJKMDA9Bz4

The quality has degraded significantly, sorry!

if you want to see foam open the air wide open and watch

WOW! Awesome thread, took almost an hour just skimming over it. Love the stand color! Going to look so good when its all done :lol:

It just goes insane when I do that! It is an awesome skimmer, cleans crap out of my tank like there is no tomorrow. I love it!

Thanks. I hope it turns out well, and soon.

I'm hoping to place our order for our water change containers today or tomorrow, I've been waiting on a price quote and I'm hoping it isn't going to be too bad. Then next weekend its multi-dump trip weekend, and after that more building; the water change system, finishing the room and getting it painted with a product like Kiltz for the walls and something for the floor, and installing the air exchange system. After that its a toss up I think; sump or tank first. I believe we will probably be building both of these ourselves.

Anyone know where to get those big black rubbermaid containers? I need something to cycle LOTS of rock in, and I don't want to do it in the display tank. I'll be ready to start cycling relatively soon; probably in the next six weeks.

Water container has been ordered; just waiting on inventory to come in, it should be here anywhere between now and the second week in September.

Got a package in the mail on Friday! Thanks Ian. Now I can calibrate my ORP probe and further adjust my ozonier.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/07a583cf.jpg

Hi Catherine

Which water container did you order and where did you order it from?

- Brad

I ordered a 200g Leg tank from Calgary Plastics.

Guess who is awesome?! I am! Know why? Cause on Wednesday I got laid off, and I've already found a new job. Said new job involves lots of overtime, and overtime equates to cash. Cash buys & builds pretty giant tanks that can be passed off as end of the year gifts even if it comes before December 25th!

I exchanged my Aimiles this morning for more Rona gift certificates. It significantly helps bring down costs for us. Its great to be able to do this.

Great News! :biggrin:
Ok, now lets see this tank build take off!

We're definitely back in business now. So only three things holding us back from placing the tank and sump order now. I want to order by the end of October, if not mid November at the very latest. The time line is a bit fuzzy because I doubt my original price quotes are still valid.

1) Need to rent a disposal bin for the last of the reno debris and to make some more room to bring the tank into the house.
2) Need to finalize the design, requote for price, and hammer down delivery dates
3) Need to wait for one more, possibly two depending on the requote, paycheques.

So voila, essentially we are ready to order the tank! I am so very nervous about doing this. I keep worrying about the what ifs, mostly as they relate to my flow design and hole placement.

So common paycheque I need you to buy me a pretty new tank!

This is the design we'd come up with in March of this year. I still like it, but I want some commentary on it. I'll probably post this in a couple other forums for feedback.

I do know that given the size the tank will be eurobraced, but will also probably have a couple front to back support strips. Also I need the stripes to effectively use our planned clear-mesh cover for the tank.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0689.jpg

Where are you ordering the tank from Catherine? I can tell you that I got an awesome deal and an amazing tank from Jay so I highly recommend him!

I'm requoting with all the places I originally quoted which were Red Coral, Bow Valley, and Golds. So PM me Jay's details and I'll add him to my list of quotes to request.

Catherine, sent you a PM :)

Glad to see 'big red' and pals on the sexyRadar again. Keep those updates coming!

Edit: hmmm...and just in case you have red hair (and I have forgotten and you women always makes changes anyways) 'big red' refers to your tank stand :mrgreen:

What are the angled walls on the overflow for? Just to keep detritus from settling in it? Or am I looking at the drawing wrong?

With all those holes I'm guess you must be using a 3/4" bottom minimum. What did your previous builders suggest? All those bulkheads personally scare me but if I knew they'd never be an issue I'd do a CL as well. Most have dismissed them but I will be using one on the next build. Only difference is I'm taking all my piping over the top of the tank. Never an issue so long is inlet and outlet always remain submerged in an outage.

Hahah, I do have red hair right now, but I knew you were talking about the stand!

The angled walls on the overflow are exactly for that, less detritus, and thus less cleaning! You're reading it correctly.

I think we'd talked about 3/4" or even 1" for the bottom. I believe it was 7/8 or 1" for the back and side panels. I had one builder tell me they would consider, but couldn't promise, low-iron for the front and side viewing panels.

I had one tank with the piping over the top. The only complaint I have about it is the salt creep. It took me extra long to clean it every week, and I found it collected more salt then anywhere else. Other then that I loved it!

I've starting asking around for quotes, and so far I've been really happy with what I've been hearing back. 6 months makes a big difference in cost, and available options! So thank you everyone who PMed me recommendations, ideas, and suggestions. They'e all been very helpful. We'll be ready to make a decision as soon as all of our quotes are in.

I'm dying to get this thing moving!

We've been keeping ourselves semi occupied by chasing down some power problems we've been having in rooms around the tank room.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0125-1.jpg

Yay! Hidden splices, just what we all want to find in our walls.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0042-4.jpg

Explanation granted for why half the plugs in the basement don't work.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0045-2.jpg

A couple sort of related, but not really, photos from our trip this past weekend. We went out to B.C. and saw the salmon run.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0345.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0487.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0488.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0489-2.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0471-2.jpg

Great pic's. It's a really nice event to see.

My skimmer is so nasty it just about made me sick when I cleaned it this morning. Ugh! Great skimmer, but it produces the most foul smelling crap I've ever smelt.

I spoke with Paul at Oceans Motions and got a few really great recommendations for tweaking the design as we had it. So now I just have to wait on one more quote and we'll make our choice on builders.

What was the skimmer you have again? Did you guys build it? Looks like a 3 injector beckett? Or is it something else. I have this vague recollection of a skimmer broken in transit but can't remember if that was you or someone else. I looked back a few pages but grew weary of not instantly finding the info I sought so I'm just asking here. Besides, asking in a thread is the same as googling stuff. :)

The skimmer is a DIY design. It is currently a dual beckett, but Kevin's going to add in a dual recirc/needlewheel design to bump up its efficiency. This was the same skimmer that got destroyed by Greyhound. Kevin rebuilt the box on it, but after about 6 months of testing is debating once again changing the box design because he isn't 100% happy with his first choice.

Alright we're now just one quote away from choosing our tank builder! I'm feeling pretty confident that I can meet my goal of having the tank in before December.

Per some of the feed back from Paul at Oceans Motions, I need to figure out where in the city I can buy spaflex and what is a reasonable price for it. I also need to do some plumbing shopping as I can now firmly say what size holes we'll be drilling and how many of them there will be.

So does anyone pig their plumbing? How are people cleaning their plumbing right now? One thing I want to try and do is make sure that everything is accessible, and replaceable in sections just in case there is a plug, or through normal wear and tear.

I think a lot of hot tub/sauna places carry spa flex. I get mine from Western Pump in the south east. Might be a tad far for you though. The good thing about Western Pump is that they sell everything else from pvc fittings, valves to cement. One stop shopping for my plumbing (except for gate valves).

+1 to Western Pump. I know when I was in town thats where I'd go if I couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere else.

I think I'll just make a trip out of it and go to Western Pump. I wonder if they're open today?

**edit**
Maybe not. I apparently left my wallet at a friend's last night. Oops.

Tee hee hee! Pretty no?

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/f240423d.jpg

Boy, I'm glad someone listens to me on facebook when I answer to when someone asks me where to get flex PVC :p Western Pump! Western Pump! Western Pump! Spaflex = flex PVC.

My feelings are all hurt now! :lol: (j/k btw. :))

I don't think there's any real need to pig plumbing for a tank. You won't really get wear and tear on plumbing nor should you expect blockages if you design it well enough (eg. minimize 90's and use strainers on intakes) but the insides of pipe get a good slime coat inside. If you wanted to clean this out on regular intervals just use enough unions in the pipe so that you can get access for a pipe cleaner and scrub away.

Could also check with Gregg Distributors for SpaFlex. I used to buy from them all the time in Edmonton at a pretty good price. Pretty sure they have one in Calgary too.

Yes, but ... I assume that the depth is not really going to only be 1' 11-1/4" right ?

Also no worries about forgetting your wallet, Western Pump wouldn't have been open anyhow. They're in the Foothills industrial area and run typical hours for businesses over there - M-F/8-4 and Saturday is only 9-1.

I've kind of always been under the impression (and I don't know where I got it from) that Western pump just did fittings and rigid PVC! I'll hit up Gregg and Western Pump once the tank is in the house. I just don't want to pay the mark-up that I know some retailers put on their plumbing supplies, I'm cheap like that. Is SpaFlex a trade name?

I'll find a Saturday to go fill up my car with plumbing parts and fittings, and then when I inevitably forget some key part or piece I'll make a second, and then a third trip back on out.

Depth is still going to be 2ft, and width of 3ft. I never really looked at the numbers, just stared, drooled, and fantasized about how awesome this tank is going to look when its all done and starting to grow in.

I'm not sure if it's a trade name but if you ask for spaflex or flex PVC at the counter they will know what you mean. You specify a length, they go back and come back out with it in hand. The fittings and such are just in the aisles but the spaflex and a few other specialty fittings (ie., John Guest and so on) tend to be in the "you have to ask for it" category.

Oh ok, I see that the numbers in the drawing are correct after all, it's just confusing how they labelled them then sort of overlaid the labels so I misread which one was which.

BTW in this case I say "depth" when I mean the front-to-back dimension, and I use "height" as the bottom-to-top dimension. Depth is a bit confusing since people think of "depth" as the sort of "negative altitude in water" when in the ocean, but with tanks it seems to mean the front-to-back in that you specify dimensions usually in the order of lwh ("length, width, height") so with your tank it's 10'x3'x2' but then you're looking at it from the long side so it gets all confusing like. :neutral: Anyhow sorry for the tangent.

How about this; left to right; 10.5 ft, front to back 3ft, top to bottom 2ft aka giant box o' salty water.

No, not a giant box o' salty water This is 470 gallons of salty awesomeness!

I hear that awesomeness can be measured in an equation of pheasent balls per meters cubed.

I always thought it was squared...hmmm...either way....go faster! ha ha I cant wait to see this build get started

Hehe We need Brett's input here. He's the resident expert on pheasant ball mathematics.

My dang phaesant balls sprouted wings and flew off. Wife has a birdcage somewhere I think.

Boy oh boy you're getting closer to having glass this must be exciting now! I don't see issues but can you make the overflow wider? Be nice to pull a wider and thinner skim if ya can?

I was thinking the same thing. Catherine how much volume are you going with for the return?

Wider like left to right wider? I certinaly don't see why not.

The overflow was a fantastic idea from Kevin at Red Coral. The shape is to help keep the detritus moving the in proper directions. We went with 2" drains for the amount of flow.

So if I were to make it wider are you thinking double the current width? I think its already about a foot wide, but I think 2ft would be easily possible.

As for return volume, I actually am trying to think of it more along the lines of flow strength; low when we get started, medium as things grow in, and full-out when the tank is fully stocked and full of life. I know we're going to be using two Dart pumps for the return. I never really thought of it was a number as much as I am trying to focus on keeping the water oxygenated, and minimizing my own work in cleaning the detritus.