Daplatapus's 77 Gal

[daplatapus]

Well, I thought I would get a couple pics up of my system. I had this tank since 1992 but was running Cichlid's in it for a few years back in Alberta. When we started thinking of moving from Alberta my sister took it for a few years and it was treated fairly roughly so now it has tons of scratches. But it still holds water and I was dying to have SW fish. I had no experience what-so-ever and didn't really know what I was in for. We've since moved to the island and got the green light from the wife to set it up
I pretty much started last March, reading everything I could. Along the way I've made mistakes but hopefully have learned from them (like not using copper and Amquel together )
Anyway... by late Aug last year I felt I was ready to start ordering some gear and putting this thing together. Here's a couple pics of some equipment I purchased over the summer last year.

Skimmer


refractometer


RO/DI system


heaters and Koralia's

[daplatapus]

And here's the tank I am using. A 77 gal Hagen tank. Dimensions absolutely suck for aquascaping, a fact I didn't really realize until after. 48" long, 24" tall and only 16" front to back.



I got the tank drilled on the bottom corner and siliconed 2 pcs of glass and the plan was to laminate 2 pcs of abs sheet overtop with the overflow teeth cut into it. The pic above is just before painting the back with Krylon Fusion.

and after painting...


water testing


glass partitions for the over flow



and the abs sheets to be laminated over

[daplatapus]

Here's the stand the whole thing is going on, again Hagen original from 1992. It's solid plywood, some of the tape is lifting off the edges and my brother in law (who's a cabinet maker) replaced the top tie 3/4" plywood and it's a bit ugly but still really solid.



I'm plumbing everything down to my 6' basement where I placed my sump. Again remember I've never done this, have never seen this done and only have a ton of reading under my belt. I'm fairly handy (I'm a renovation contractor) but I was really nervous about all this. Thankfully the wife was back in Alberta visiting friends so drilling holes in the walls and fishing spa flex through the floors and walls was a bit less nerve racking
Here's the 1 1/2" safety line being run through the cabinet. I'm running a full siphon herbie into a 80 gal sump.


and here's the main drain. I started out with a 3/4" line but it proved too small for my pump. I am using a Laguna 2900 pond pump and figured I was pushing around 1000 gph after the 12' of head but the 3/4" siphon was probably a couple hundred gph short of that. I was already drill for 3/4" bulkhead and it was a bit late to change now so I just transitioned as quickly as I could to 1 1/4" on both sides of the bulk head and it works like a charm. The only disadvantage I can tell is it is does creat a bit of turbulence in the line and sometimes you can hear the water rushing through the bulk head, but the house has to be dead quiet to hear it.

[daplatapus]

I'm really kicking myself for not drilling my supplies. Anyway, here's a pic of the plumbing for them before the tank was slid into place.


and another of it pretty much in place

[daplatapus]

Moving down into my basement now. I read voraciously on RC for months. On there I found prints from Rocketengineer on stand building and built a stand of a bunch of old cedar 2X6 decking and some 4X4's I had laying around. Here's the cut pcs:


midway through assembling



and the finished product

[daplatapus]

Just to the right of the stand is my hot water tank and water distribution for the house so I thought it was as good a place as any for my RO/DI system. so here it is.


I also got a couple Brute 30 gal cans for RO/DI storage and SW mixing. I still haven't got the mixing station built but am working on it.



have to go to work but will post more later