Dyspnea's 120g tank build

[sitandwatch]

Looking really, the ghetto fake wood had to go.

hay those old holes in the overflows look like they are the old style of doing things PVC pipe with fittings and you had to use O rings on both sides of the glass to get them to seal proper but they worked fine. some people when they bought one of these old style tanks setups would silicone the crap out of them and hope for the best as they don't know the old ways. Bulk heads ain't as old as over flows are. I have an older style overflow box on top of a standpipe I would prefer a overflow box and conceal the return line also. This works fine and I can make a change latter. We use to do what ever we could to make overflows work or even a standpipe for that matter. This box on a stand pipe is alright take up less real estate and my bar Gobi's have setup home right at its base the have cleared out all the sand around the stand pipe. they must like the noise of the water flowing down the pipe to the sump.

Bill

[Dyspnea]

Originally Posted by sitandwatch

Looking really, the ghetto fake wood had to go.

Yeah it is a massive improvement over what it used to be

[Dyspnea]

Originally Posted by bvlester

hay those old holes in the overflows look like they are the old style of doing things PVC pipe with fittings and you had to use O rings on both sides of the glass to get them to seal proper but they worked fine. some people when they bought one of these old style tanks setups would silicone the crap out of them and hope for the best as they don't know the old ways. Bulk heads ain't as old as over flows are. I have an older style overflow box on top of a standpipe I would prefer a overflow box and conceal the return line also. This works fine and I can make a change latter. We use to do what ever we could to make overflows work or even a standpipe for that matter. This box on a stand pipe is alright take up less real estate and my bar Gobi's have setup home right at its base the have cleared out all the sand around the stand pipe. they must like the noise of the water flowing down the pipe to the sump.
Bill

Interesting, apparently this tank isn't that old... Less than two years according to the previous owner. IMO bulkhead werethe way to go, should I want to change things around.

[TheKid]

Wats That box in the sump for???

[Dyspnea]

To raise my skimmer to the proper water level. in sump skimmers have a optimal operation depth.

[Dyspnea]

Its time for plumping! The goals of plumbing was to have lots of unions and true union ball valves, to make changes and modifcation and the possiblity of needing to move the tank much easier.

When buying my parts I had to use serveral sources, at one of my sources I bought a 2 inch true union, when i went to pay the guy behind the counter said "ouch 2 inch true union" and at another store where I found 2 3/4inch true unions and a 1.5 inch true union, one of the guys said "it those expensive thingys"

The true unions are expensive, but were worth in in the end.

So heres the plumbing all done, after the pictures I'll speak of my difficulties with the plumbing.





As for the plumbing difficulties i was nearly pulling out my hair. I felt with this project I would do thing the "right way" by using the PVC Primer, I later felt this was a huge mistake.

As my plumbing was "done" I did a freshwater check of the closed loop. I found no less than 3 leaks, Annoyed I disconnected the unions, and repaired the leaks.

Second test showed my leaks were repaired, but now I had two new leaks, so again I toke things apart and repaired the leak again.

Third test I was leak proof. Now I mentioned that the PVC primer was a mistake, I just felt on the joints I did not use the primer on were stronger and didn't have any leaks. Since teh primer softens the PVC this made the joints less leak proof.

[Dyspnea]

In this photo I placed a 4 foot long, 2x4 screwed into the wall



When I was improving the stand, i placed this 4 foot long 2x4 on the back of the stand, Its purpose is too allow me to bolt the aquarium to the wall.

also in this photo you can see some of my plumbing i needed to run for a brief span outside of the stand.

and the third point of interest is the aquarium back side is painted. My girlfriend want to do the painting. She painted it such a way that it the top starts a lighter blue and then transitions to a dark blue the further down the aquarium.



The bolts I will use to bolt the aquarium, I will bolt the aquarium after the aquarium fully loaded with rocks and water.

[Dyspnea]

Live stock transfer coming up next

[Dyspnea]

Now for the best part of the build, live stock transfer . I began by draining as much water from my 75 gallon as possible. I transfered various corals and snails and my fish into buckets while I transfered rock and filled the tank and much as I could.

here is the tank with everything tranferred, The tank needs alot of water to added yet, and its pretty cloudy, I also did a very crude rock scaping.



The tank is completely filled, I've moved the clams around to better temporary spot.



Sump filled and skimmer running, You can also see the calcium reactor and co2 cylinder, the reactor isn't hooked up and the co2 cylinder is empty


Here are a few closer up shots. These picture arn't the greatest, I can't figure of the setting on my girlfriend camera.