Our first SW tank - 180 gal build

[Ryan]

Looks good! Cant wait to see this tank at full potential!

I have sealed wooden enclosures for my snakes with Varathane Diamond Coat. Its always held up well against split water dishes so I cant see why it wouldnt work with this. Its available at home depot and comes in many different shades.

How much room in there between the side walls and the glass? Same with the rear walls and the glass?

Just wondering if there is enough room for magnets for the powerheads is all.

[HaZRaTTy]

Originally Posted by reefgirl189

Thanks, I made him from scratch!

Just as I as going ask where I could buy one and how long it would take to train in Tank Maintence. I guess I'll have to talk to the Mrs.


Nice Tank,

I do see a few potential problems.

Access under your dropped in sump? I would like to say no tanks leak but Water spills ARE going to happen. I see you have hardwood floor I know for a fact that they don't like water. Without a way of cleaning the spill warping is going to happen.

Room around your tank for I think as Ryan stated Magnets for Cleaning or Powerheads. I guess there are always suction powerheads??¿¿

Good luck with your Tank!! Lots of Life and Enjoyment to come hopefully everything runs smoothly!!!

[Corbin]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

not paranoid when you get a tank with the trim the bottom is tempered. however with her tank there isnt any trim and the bottom isnt tempered.

Fair enough, i didnt think about that, i guess all my tanks have been the trim and tempered

[Reefie]

Nice build! It's going to look great, I love the whole "integrated into the house" look. If I had the space, I would do the same thing. Carrying over the walls' baseboards around the step that you made and maybe using drywall to cover the stand would look incredible with the "picture-frame" idea.

[Coralgurl]

Update?? What changes are you making??

[reefgirl189]

Okay time for a very big update...

We sold the tank, stand and sump for one simple reason: the noise. The dual dursos were obnoxiously loud and as this tank is on the main floor of the house and next to the TV, it wasn't something we could look over.

We did buy this unit to learn how to care of a reef without investing in all new equipment. I didn't want to be one of those people who bought everything brand new only to have to turn around and sell it all for a fraction of the cost because I wasn't really into the hobby. Turns out this hobby is going to be around for awhile and both of us really like it so now we aren't afraid of making investments into newer or better equipment.

So we bought a new tank and sump from a well known tank builder in Calgary and my BF decided to make the stand himself (with help from his welder friend). Everything turned out beautifully. We decided to go dual Herbie-style overflows for the new tank due to the noise reduction which was this style's claim to fame. For those of you who care to look it up, Herbie is a reefcentral member who designed the plumbing for his tank to be silent. I'm sure there are a few posts here on canreef about this style of drain and I will try to include some pics of it when I remember to take them however here is a link to the original herbie thread in the meantime:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=344892

Transfering everything over was difficult because it took much more time than I thought it would but here's how we did it:

We set up the new sump in our living room and filled it up with water from the DT, then moved all the LR into a brute rubbermaid with a heater and a powerhead. It barely fit. The livestock and the few corals we had moved into the sump and spent the next three days in there with a couple of powerheads and a heater. We set up the light over the sump for the corals and didn't have a single loss. Actually, that's not true - we found a fireworm (most likely species) living under the brain coral's base and BF killed him by stabbing him in his hole. Then we flushed out his severed remains with a turkey baster. Ever since fireworm died brain coral has been much happier.

We also saved about 60% of the water from the DT in rubbermaid containers but we ended up throwing out about 20% of it because it went stagnant as I didn't have enough powerheads for the number of containers we had the water in. So we ended up doing a massive waterchange in the process of transferring over tanks.

We set up the new stand on the platform, placed the one sheet of 3/4 in plywood on it, with a 1/2" piece of foam on top of that (foam was glued to underside of new tank courtesy of the tank builder). BF started to work on the plumbing and I began transferring everything into its new home.

That's when we decided to complicate things further and move the sump to the basement. Four major reasons why we did this:
1) Get the 80 gallon sump and its weight off of the main floor
2) Move the cords and mess out of the stand and clean it up.
3) Move the majority of the equipment to a new room which would be easier to access everything in.
4) We like to do everything the hard way

Anyways.. enough talk. Pics to follow shortly!

[reefgirl189]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Looks good! Cant wait to see this tank at full potential!

I have sealed wooden enclosures for my snakes with Varathane Diamond Coat. Its always held up well against split water dishes so I cant see why it wouldnt work with this. Its available at home depot and comes in many different shades.

How much room in there between the side walls and the glass? Same with the rear walls and the glass?

Just wondering if there is enough room for magnets for the powerheads is all.

Hey what kind of snakes do you have? I used to breed ball pythons and cornsnakes. I love snakes.

And as for the clearance behind the tank for magnets and such.. Yes, there is enough room on either side for a magnet for a Koralia or Tunze. I can't get a vortech powerhead unless I want to put it on the front pane of glass (no thanks). I also have just enough clearance to put cords behind and on the sides of the aquarium. It's very tight.

[reefgirl189]

Here's the new aquascape:

[IMG][/IMG]

And the new sump room. Not running yet as we are waiting for plumbing glue to cure after fixing one leak (Better safe than sorry):



Our one lonely clownfish:

[IMG][/IMG]

And a FTS:

[IMG][/IMG]

[lockrookie]

looking great good job

[globaldesigns]

Looks Great, but I do have a concern, maybe someone else can validate.

Originally Posted by reefgirl189

It looks like you have ABS elbows (black parts at top of photo) with PVC piping. Is this so? I do not think you can glue those 2 together successfully, as the glues for each are different. Can anyone else validate my claim, if this is the case?