The Worlds Fastest Tank Build... (New Photos 1.26.2010)

[rstar]

Jan 26: New photos added to page 7, been a while since ive taken any, busy being a daddy!

Dec 2: No more bryopsis! New Photos added to bottom of thread!

Oct 10: Changed lights last week, new photos added last page

Ok so some of you may have read my thread a couple nightt ago about the bottom brace letting go, and leaning the tank problem. So without further ado, i give you the world fastsest tank build... maybe.

Here are a few pics of the old 90 with the trim cracking.









My Saturday started with a desparate phone call to my LFS. At this point ive only had 3 hours of sleep.



I have to say the LFS owner in Saskatoon went ABOVE and BEYOND for me. He came in from building his house just to give me a hand. The only tank he had in stock that was reef ready was a 120gal 48X24X24 with a right side center overflow. So off i went 100KM into the city to pick up this tank and everything i needed. I got into the city by 4:30pm. Picked up the tank, then had to go and get everything i needed to build a stand. Luckily my two brother in laws were with me as i have never built a stand.

We got back into Rosetown by about 10:30pm and got to work on the stand by 11:00 pm in my cold unheated garage.





We based the stand off the one for my LFS' display tank. 2X6 Boxes with 2X4 risers.

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Of course working in the col and REALLY late into the night we had to set up a coffe bar on the work bench in my garage.

This picture was taken around 2:00am



The it was back to work on the stand.





We decided to put a sheet of OSB on the top of the tank with some foam board on top of that.





Finally at 4:00am the stand was complete and it was time to load test!



We then moved the stand into the house and too a quick breather and got back to work draining the old tank.



I was really grasping at straws for anywhere we could keep the old water from the tank. so this process of removing everything took about 3 hours. All in all ive lost one fish to a rock falling in his hold tank. It was my recently purchased blue cheek trigger.

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This is just a quick shot of inspecting the new tank.



So by about 8:00am We had the old tank drained and moved out with the new tank sitting in its new home.
We had to shim the tank stand as my floor as a slight slope to it, this was a frustrating hour of getting everything supported. I ended up using an extra panel of 8mm laminate i had kicking around.




I decided to turf all my old sand and go with one 40lbs bag of aragonite rinsed thoroughly. It was just enough to skim the bottom of the tank and i quite like it.

by 9:00 we were setting up all the plumbing for the overflow. This was frustrating as apparantly home depot no longer sells pvc under 4" We had to make so with what i had lie around and the few connectors my LFS gave me the day before when picked up the tank.

By 1:00pm we pretty much had the tank refilled and everything moved back into the tank.







The Rock-Work is just pretty puch thrown together as we were getting REALLY burned out at this point. Though i really do like the cave on the side.

At 2:30 my brother in law and i passed out on the couch for a few hours and woke at 8:00pm tonight to a nice clear tank. all that was left to do was plug the skimmer in and go to sleep...







So there you have it everyone a 24hr tank build!!

[Lance]

Wow! That's awesome. And it looks good too!

[Chaloupa]

WOW...it does look good...lucky you there is a very very happy ending..... AND a bigger tank! Nice work guys!

[lobsterboy]

looks good, nice

[sunce_22]

Congrats on the happy ending! We were following along and worried the whole way!

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Originally Posted by Chaloupa

WOW...it does look good...lucky you there is a very very happy ending..... AND a bigger tank! Nice work guys!

I was very happy that is ended well. I can tank one fish loss over a whole reef. W are pretty pleased with the way it all turned out! Thanks for the compliments!!