180g peninsula tank build - First ever aquarium

[mike31154]

Some of the folks at RONA & Home Depot etc. know what they're talking about, retired tradespeople working for some extra cash. But as you can see, you need to be careful with any advice from large box stores. Any electrical contractor or specialty vendor would have provided you with more reliable info. If you want a good book on electrical code requirements for the homeowner, get the "Electrical Code Simplified, Residential" published by PS Knight. Soft cover book, red in colour for BC version, around $20 these days I think and available at.... RONA, Home Depot.... etc.

If you're going to go with larger gauge wire, might as well get 12 if you can. I can sort of see your point about having the GFCIs in the stand, but moving a 180? How often do you anticipate doing that? Receptacles are relatively easy to change, whether in the wall or in the stand. One other advantage of doing the wall, is you potentially save yourself one plug/recepacle interface. Each time you extend any circuit with an extension/plug and receptacle, you add resistance and potential power loss. Small perhaps, but it adds up, especially with undersize gauge wire and a controller and timer or two thrown in! The more continuous wire you have the better. If you do the wall receptacles, you could get by with heavy duty power bars alone, saving at least one plug/receptacle interface. With the GFCI or regular receptacles in the stand you'll have an extension cord from the wall powering the receptacles in the stand. Then you add another plug/receptacle interface for any power bars you use and finally you have yet another plug/receptacle interface from the power bar to the piece(s) of equipment you wish to power. You're going to end up with a lot of junctions there. By converting the wall receptacles and using power bars directly you could save yourself one of those.

Final thought, I don't recommend any plugs in the stand whatsoever. Try to keep anything with a plug and receptacle outside the stand. Less chance of humidity of the salty kind getting in there and causing you grief.

[Milad]

well whats ****ing me off is i asked the guy, what i need to wire GFCI in a bathroom type environment to code. He then grabbed the readily available card that was by the wires and said, 16 3. So i bought 16 3. if that card is wrong, someone is going to get a ass whoopin when I get to the store. Stuff like this ****es me off. I just asked few people where i work, what gauage should be used for wiring and they all quickly said 14. Seems as though its a standard thing to know!!!

Btw as far as the humidity, the plugs are kinda sectioned off away from the water. And you are right, not going to move the stand but the GFCI is for the stand so it just made sense.

[mike31154]

No biggie, the main thing is you now know what's required and it should be a relatively easy fix. You can always use the 16/3 as an extension cord for other gear around the house.

[Milad]

the manager was nice and took back the 16guage wire and gave me 14guage!! and some money back since i bought less wire!

[Milad]

Welp! im excited! tank is filling up with water
Here is the finished plumbing i fixed up. not more chance of leak!!




I ended up having to chip some of the teeth off the overflow because not enough flow was happening! so kids, dont cut 1/8in holes for overflow


And here is what its starting to look like


Sump filled

[Milad]

so RO DI went into my kitchen sink and live rock is in
I got bunch new equipment thats not been installed including
H & S skimmer, 1/4hp chiller, new sump, and marine tech calcium reactor

The tank is going to finish cycling before i start putting in the above equipment.

Here are some pictures of the RO DI
It was funny though, I had the waste and clean water hooked up backwards and spent 4 days putting in 4 inches of water in the tank!! lol

Before shots of my sink


I went to clamp on the drain for the RO DI AND IT WOULDNT FIT!! the pipe was too big


So after 5min of creative thinking, I came up with this:

Hot knife through butter

Perfect fit


i went to drill a hole for the top faucet and turns out i didnt have any metal drill bits.... so i started with a very tiny wood drill bit for about 15min, then to a 1/4 wood drill bit, then some needle nose pliers to widen it a bit. This wasnt the first time a hole was too small for me. anyways after a half hour it went in nicely


I do have to say, this stage of the project was all about being creative since i didnt have the tools.

And now for the live rock
I think there is close to 250lbs of this stuff. (this was my first aquascape so dont be mean!!)




feedback on aquascaping?

[no_bs]

Looking good so far Milad.