Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[Delphinus]

I'm not a tank builder so I could be wrong but I thought the space between the panes of glass was more structural, and it's the corner bead that prevents leaks. The silicone to glass bond is insanely strong. I think the bubbles probably don't affect the integrity of the tank - it just doesn't look very nice.

Man, I don't know what to suggest. I understand your frustration of "please just get this fixed" but rushing things now is a mistake.

It might be worthwhile at this point to take the tank out of the equation and continue with the build after possession. This lets the housebuilders painters etc finish their job and hopefully your possession date doesn't get pushed back. Then you can also investigate the silicone bubbles further and explore relevelling options and so on. This is your tank, after this much planning and anticipation, why accept anything less than perfect?

On the other hand though, part of me says if you pay a housebuilder to build a house, it comes with the expectation that they do the job right. Even if it pushes possesion back, this is their fault, not yours. I totally sympathize, we went through a lot of similar stuff when we built our house. It's brutal how much stuff is just eyeballed instead of properly measured.

[asylumdown]

I am going to look in to the bubbles a little further, but my gut reaction is that it's not going to be a problem. To be honest I didn't notice them in person, I don't know if it was the lighting or my camera, but they look considerably more pronounced in the photos than they do in real life. Also, the silicone will all be hidden by framing, so I'm not really concerned with the aesthetics.

Had a little pow-wow with the project manager and his main site foreman today and we talked about both self leveller and the spray foam, and what would need to happen to re-do the whole tank. One way or another, there needs to be a minimum 3 inch thick sheet of plywood under the tank to anchor the doors and the cabinet framing, which will still need to be made by gluing thinner sheets together. There's no guarantee that the second attempt will come out any flatter than the first. It would be an absolute last resort option.

So that leaves us with self leveller or spray foam as a first choice. After talking about it, we ruled out the self leveller because the gap between the bottom of the tank and the plywood starts out really, really tiny, and is only really exaggerated on the one side. There's a good chance that due to air getting trapped/liquid leveller not filling all the right places, there could be large bubbles that get trapped underneath and the leveller doesn't compress at all. So we're going to try the foam route because it can be applied using a long hose, and if there are some imperfections, it's slightly compressible.

fingers crossed.

[lastlight]

Is the metal stand level?

If it was and a person laid a bunch of plywood on top which we can assume are uniformly the same thickness... would the result not be level?

I don't quite follow how if the metal stand is level the top can't be.

Good luck!

[asylumdown]

yep, the stand was definitely level, It was perfectly square and the floor it's sitting on is dead level too. I checked obsessively before and after they put the stucco on the outside of the house because the added weight can cause houses to settle a little (same reason this builder doesn't tile until after the stucco is on).

I think it's because the plywood is actually warped, which blows.

[The Grizz]

I don't get why the builder is laminating a 3" thick piece, I would have just used 3 - 1" sheets of plywood. Screw the first sheet to the top of the stand, 2nd sheet to the first and so on.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

I don't get why the builder is laminating a 3" thick piece, I would have just used 3 - 1" sheets of plywood. Screw the first sheet to the top of the stand, 2nd sheet to the first and so on.

Exactly! What is the big deal? If the stand is level, I certainly don't need to be a rocket scientist to add 3 sheets of 1" ply on top.

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

I don't get why the builder is laminating a 3" thick piece, I would have just used 3 - 1" sheets of plywood. Screw the first sheet to the top of the stand, 2nd sheet to the first and so on.

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.


next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.


next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

Heh, next time. That's actually really funny. 2.5 years and oh-my-god-how-much?! over budget, I hope to never move again. Building a house is not for the feint of heart.

I'll see what happened there today (I have been at school all day).

On another note entirely, I was in Red Coral in Edmonton on the weekend and saw their display tank with all Radions. Soooo glad I did as it made up my mind almost instantly. I love, love LOVE all the features of that little fixture, but man, it looked like I was looking at a tank with the dimmer switch set at 50%. Every time I would look away and then look back, I felt like my eyes were re-adjusting to a poorly lit room. I kept having to ask if the fixture was at 100% power. I know there's that whole bit about our eyes not being as sensitive to the dominant wavelengths in LEDs and all, and that the Radions can probably do a great job growing corals, but I care as much about how my tank looks to me as I do about how the corals respond, and the light the radion puts out just doesn't cut it for me.

Halides it is.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.

thats what silicone is for

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

you could acclimate the plywood to the house for a year if you want, as soon as it gets exposed to a humid environment, like above a sump, all bets are off

[Delphinus]

I love the attitude of builders and how quality can't be guaranteed and it's not their fault. I remember a toilet in my house that we built that when you sat on it, it was obvious it was badly un-level left to right (left side about 1" higher than the right). I complained to the builder and they were all "yeah, that's the quality you get when everything is made cheaply in China, what are you going to do." I said "Well, *I'm* going to insist that you replace it." "But there's no guarantee that the next one will be any better." "Well then you will replace that one too. This is not acceptable." .. I understand as a builder you have to draw the line at replacing everything for free indefinitely but at the same time there are just some basic tenets of quality that shouldn't have to be insisted upon.

No guarantee that the next attempt at plywood will be any more flat? Yeah, I can see how that could be a problem to build. They have to make a perfectly flat piece of thicker plywood out of flat pieces of thinner plywood over a perfectly flat metal surface. It must be basically impossible to build something like that given the circumstances and all.

Hopefully the guy finds some clamps and some weights to put on said plywood as the glue dries. Maybe you need to suggest that they use clamps and weights. Heck, maybe show them a Lee Valley catalog!

Sorry for my rant. I'm surprisingly very upset for you over this!!! In any case, good luck, I'm sure it will work out sooner or later.