280g Inwall

[Delphinus]

@Greg - Thanks!! I'm started to get excited, it's starting to look like a tank!!

@ J.Llow - I have a Sequence Dart lined up for sump return duty. It might be a bit overkill but so I'll probably dial it back with a gate valve or a ball valve until I can get a frag tank/refugium online (in which case I'll T off of it). Or, if it looks like the tank can handle the pump at full bore, I'll do that. If you valve a pump back it actually consumes less electricity, so that's kind of a neat trick. More head pressure seems like it should be more work, but it means the impeller turns less fast and consumption is based on motor speed instead of motor load.

A Herbie overflow is one where you have two drains in your overflow. One is an emergency backup, one is the "main drain." The main drain you throttle back with a valve so that the water drains at the same speed as the sump return. The end of the pipe is submerged in the sump, so there's no splashing. No air gets into the drain, and thus this eliminates microbubbles. Plus, it's nice and quiet.

The downside is that it's risky to have a valve on an overflow, if a snail or something gets in there, it could block the overflow. Hence, the emergency backup pipe. If for some reason water slows down in the main drain, the emergency backup pipe takes over.

Here's a link with more info - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=344892

[Delphinus]

The dream is alive and so maybe should this thread have injected a little life.

This won't look like much of an update but it does represent a major milestone for me. Tomorrow, Monday, is inspection day for the permits and so the wall framing is complete, the plumbing is complete, and the electrical rough-in is complete.

It doesn't sound like a lot, and won't look like a lot, but .. it has been an indescribably immense amount of work to get to this point. I divided my work out for myself into tasks that would take roughly 2-3 hours each, and there has been somewhere in the order of 80 to 100 of those since December - so you can well imagine I have sunk somewhere between 180 to 200 hours to get things to this point. Plus, that's not taking into account that with many tasks I estimate "2 to 3 hours" that ended up being "4 to 8 hours".

I took a week off from work the first week of February and that made a HUGE dent into things. Ever since then it's been "2-3 hours here, 2-3 hours there" and a lot of late nights.

So, it is with a HUGE sigh of relief that I say "things are ready for inspection." Once passed inspection, or any deficiencies found during inspection are remediated, drywall can go up in the tank room and then I can concentrate on an actual tank build, and not so much a basement build. In fact, the rest of the basement will take a back seat to the tank project at that point. I am looking forward to that phase.

What's left at this point, the plugs in use and light switches have to be pulled out before inspection time and I will do that before going to bed tonight so that it's all ready for tomorrow.

I have been existing on 4 hours of sleep for the past few months and this is taking a toll on me physically. So after inspections tomorrow, I am not doing a single thing on the construction project all week. Not one thing all week! The following week the family & I are off to a beach vacation, and when we're back from that the drywalling will commence! I can't wait.

This is the view into the basement looking in from the bottom of the stairs. On the right is a hallway that skirts in behind the 2-piece bathroom/"powder room" that leads into the furnace room/utility room.


A few steps forward and a turn to the left in the L-shaped hallway and that enters into the main rumpus area. The 280 is just ahead and to the left of the view point. You can see the existing 115g cube in the back there and the 40g carpet anemone tank is behind that.


The next two photos show the mini-kitchen area - there will be a mini fridge here, microwave and a sink. I had to do a drop down for the ceiling there to work around the furnace and HRV vents. I extended this across the whole basement mainly for looks and also so I'd have somewhere to run the bathroom fan ("fart fan") ducting.




And last the tank room itself. There's a preview of what the electrical will look like (I have to take it all apart now for inspection, oh well. )


And this is where the work sink goes. I took the sink out so the inspectors can get in there and see it all. My personal favourite feature is the pot light that will illuminate the sink when I'm working there.



As for the concrete issue, I ended up chipping out all the distressed concrete. Once it all dried out it wasn't as bad as I thought. There is about a 3' diameter section of floor where it's all chipped out, but there are no structural concerns. So I'm leaving it be.

Thanks for looking..

[Skimmerking]

looks god Tony little by little its going to be done,

[christyf5]

Wooty! Movin right along. Good luck on the inspection tomorrow, I'm sure you'll pass with flying colors!

[lastlight]

Hell yeah! Onto the fun stuff soon. Keep us posted man.

Where's the holding cell for the son?

[Delphinus]

So, this update has been a long time in coming. I'd like to blame the weather and doing summery things outside but looking outside right now I guess that can't be the only reason. Boo cold weather.

This update itself is also a bit late because I uploaded pictures to facebook first, then meant to upload them to a Shaw photoshare I use so I could update this thread but the Shaw photoshare won't let me upload pictures. I put in a support ticket 2 days ago and haven't heard back since. I think they've forgotten or don't really care. Anyhow, Picasa to the rescue for now.

So where to begin the actual update? For the most part, progress has been steady, but slower than I would have liked. I am learning that I chronically underestimate how much effort a task will be. The drywall is up, the ceiling is up, all the mudding and painting has been done and the room trim is mostly done.

I understand now why paint stores seldom recommend high gloss paint. It shows EVERYTHING. I had those walls so smoooth I could not see ANY blemish after it was primed. And then after the finish coat I could see every seam, every screw hole, every scratch that was filled in. Crazy. It's took a while and several attempts to get it to not look too terrible on close inspection.

I also continue to hate metal stud framing for walls. Hate with a passion. I thought that perhaps once the drywall was up, it would stiffen the walls up. I was wrong. On the finished wall I can press in and get at least 1/2" flex in the middle. Man am I not happy about that. For the rest of the basement I will have to either reframe it with wood or at least use 2x3's and double up the framing before drywalling.

The other reason you want to preblock with wood is that if you want to attach things like floorboard with nails, there isn't a nail in the world that can grab that metal framing. So you have glue the floorboard on instead. Putting everything I could think of against the floorboards as the glue set still wasn't enough, they bowed out some in places so I had to use paintable caulking to fill the gaps.

It's a learning experience. I just wish I could stop learning and start applying more. Oh well. On to the pictures!

Here we are at the doorway looking in. As you can see the drywall is up, tiles around the sink area, and the ceiling dropdown is finally finished up. It's actually painted plywood up there instead of drywall to work with the tight tolerances.



A closeup of the sink work area. There is a 2x8 under the drywall to hold the RO/DI up. It's one solid mounting. Too bad that AS was I mounting it, it slipped and landed on the TDS meter. The canisters help up luckily but the TDS meter is toast. I haven't replaced it yet but did at least buy the replacement (you can see it in the bag still on the little shelf thing). There might have been a few swear words uttered as this played out.


I had to cut the drain pipe out and redo the whole dang thing to allow the sink to sit flush against the drywall. Again, more swear words.



A look towards the tank from the back of the room. Where I'm standing will eventually house the 110g cube which at this point I'm thinking of keeping for a little while as I'm considering not moving my eel and butterflies into the 280g. The butterflies are too destructive; and the eel is not appreciating the company of his tank mates these days. I can only feed him at night when the rest are sleeping or in the morning before I go to work and the lights haven't turned on yet.

Anyhow you can see the light rails are back up and the plumbing is started.


Around the tank is painted plywood, the rest of the room is drywall. Where the two meet I covered the seam with a corner moulding seen here.


As you can see I still am storing some stuff in the tanks. Ignore the bags in the sump for the time being. They hold stuff which will come into play at a later date. In the meantime here is the plumbing return started. 2" flex PVC to the intake of the Dart, 1.5" flex after that. The hugeness of the 2" tru-union ball valve made it hard for me to visualize how I wanted the plumbing to be but I think I'm happy with this arrangement. I would have preferred not to put a 90 in the intake line but otherwise it would have jutted into the room by a large margin. My old 75g had its pump like this and it ran for like 7 years so I'm hoping it will be OK.



This is the manifold that feeds various outlets. Up goes to the 280g, to the right will go to the frag tank (which will be the 40g semi-cube - 24x24x12 - that right now houses my carpets and clowns. They'll move into the big tank and that will free up that tank for this). The frag tank feed will be a 1" line which right now isn't installed - it will just glue into the valve when I'm closer to working on that part.

The other two outlets are for a 1/4" line (just for the heck of it - but it might be useful for drip acclimations) and another outlet that's just capped for now - it's there in case I ever want to run another line to somewhere down the road.


A look at the delivery manifold loop. 4 3/4" locline outlets, two at the front and two at the rear and two 3/4" outlets (capped off for now) in case I ever want more down the road.


The Herbie overflow. A wet test will tell me if I need to shorten the pipes.


Tight tolerance for the 2" gate valve on the overflow but you can get to it easily enough and adjust it.


The emergency overflow pipe seen here.


Another look at the overflows draining into the sump.


A shout out of thanks to reefcanada for the sock holders. I'm not convinced I'll be happy with the 4" socks but man the glass sock holders are just so damned sexy.



A look under the skirt, er, stand. Here is the span at the back of the tank. There is a 2x8 and a 2x6 glued-n-screwed together supported at the ends with 3 vertical 2x4's each. I am hoping this will hold up and not bow in. I couldn't detect any bowing when I had the tank filled last, so hopefully it's OK.

[Delphinus]

So, next on the radar is the plumbing for the skimmer. I have Canadian Man's old DIY beckett skimmer that has been waiting to be put back to use for a few years now.

Plumbing is such an interesting exercise. I both love and loathe it at times. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle but you don't know what the end picture will look like.

This was my first thought on how I'd run the line. I'm using 1.5" line that will step down to 3/4" for the GenX/Mak4 pump intake.



... But I just didn't like it. It wasn't speaking to me. So I ended up picking up a few different pieces and am right now thinking about something like this instead:



I've had the red handled valve in my junk drawer for years and was excited to use it again. But the problem is the threaded ends means threaded-to-slip adapters are needed and it just adds to the overall length needed. I want flex PVC involved to suck up pump vibration and also compensate for any alignment issues but flex PVC is defeated if you don't have a long enough run.

So, a switch to a half-union valve from Western Pump (man I love that store, more on this later) and hopefully a pump feed arrangement I can live with.


Here's a look at the skimmer itself.


Jonathan didn't have a gate valve and I've been wanting to add one to this skimmer forever. So finally here I am and I've done it! Haha! WOOHOO!

.. but .. in the "I don't know WHAT I was thinking" category, I ordered a threaded gate valve instead of a slip. I was probably thinking "this way I can reuse it later!" ... but the problem is all those threaded to slip adapters just keep adding length and more length to the pipe (holy that sounds terrible) but I want a lower profile on that sort of thing.

Again, Western Pump to the rescue with stuff like this:


.. and this:


The close nipple will sit inside the bulkhead and that is a challenge in itself. I used a copious amount of "heavy bodied" PVC cement and am hoping that it will seal up. If it does, the valve can then just thread on and off the bulkhead as needed.

A second option would have been to add a threaded to slip adapter but again it just makes the pipework huge and a bother to work around.

The male threaded elbow just goes into the other side of the valve and drains down into the sump.


On the topic of draining down .. another one from the "I don't know what I was thinking." Remember that most of this stuff happens late at night - don't judge me! Instead of measuring the sump height, I got it into my head that to find out how high the skimmer needs to sit off the ground (ie., how tall the skimmer stand needs to be made at), that I should hold the skimmer up and measure the height it took to get the effluent pipe to clear the sump wall.

Can you see where this is going? Well, I'll give you a hint: doing it that way was not smart.



Ouch. There was a time I might have reacted with swear words but at this point I'm more just "ugh, now I need some weldon. This will also undoubted push back the wet test."

So a trip to Industrial Paints and Plastics today was in order because I was out of Weld-On 16 (I use a LOT of that stuff fixing stuff and toys that the boys break. Man if the butterflies are destructive to a reef, they don't hold a candle to a 5 year old and a 2 year old, and the damage they will do to a household.) Or a dad who works on his hobbies at midnight and after.

But, it's given me the thought that sometimes things like this are an opportunity. One thing about this skimmer that I worry about is, well, let me just show you. This:



My goodness that is a lot of screws. It will take forever to take this apart to clean and put back together and I'll need a screwdriver to boot. I am tempted to see about replacing the flanges to something that uses maybe 3/8" acrylic and no more than say 8 thumbscrews. And keyholed screw holes so it can just twist off.

Only problem with that is I don't want to make them. At one point Barr Aquatics was selling ready made flanges but unfortunately his reseller, Austin Aquatics, has gone out of business. I put in an email to Brent a couple days ago but no reply. I'm not sure if he's still doing acrylic fabrication for the hobby.

So I might be looking around at some point to see if someone can make me some. I might even talk to Industrial Paints and Plastics about that.

It would be a good opportunity to install a second flange at the bottom of the reaction chamber so that the skimmer can be taken apart for cleaning.

On the topic of cleaning .. I always wondered where people get muriatic acid to clean out things like skimmers. Today I was at Western Pump and thought .. hey I wonder if people use that stuff to clean out pools. Lo and behold - they do! $16 later I have a gallon of 35% muriatic acid. Dirty skimmers beware!

The top of the skimmer cup as well could probably stand to be reflanged with something that includes keyholed openings for the bolts:


.. as well as the injector housing:


It's just that, in my experience, when something becomes a drag to do, it gets pushed off. And it's a slippery slope between "I'll clean that out tomorrow" and "why does my tank look like crap?" ...

.. but it's a balance point too. I don't want to re-engineer the entire skimmer. At some point it might just be further ahead to say "to heck with it" and buy a new skimmer. The problem with that of course is funds or more specifically a lack thereof. So the initial plan will be to just fix the break for now, and worry about "making it better" later on.

[hydrofire]

Looks good. Thankfully the cement will be able to hold all that weight!

[saltwater-virgin]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Currently, I'm at a bit of a standstill because the joists have more flex to them than I anticipated.

Take a look at the results of a google search on "sister joist". This additional joist support may help remove the flex.

[KrazyKuch]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Currently, I'm at a bit of a standstill because the joists have more flex to them than I anticipated. I only have 1/2" of clearance between the framing and the top of the tank, and it appears that if someone walking in the living room directly above, hits the "sweet spot", there is about 1/2" of flex in the whole joists. This means the framing actually can contact the tank. Not good.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to solve this. The drywall should take out some of the flex but I'm not sure I want to rely on the drywall to prevent my tank becoming a "load bearing wall."

I might try some cross-bracing, or, I might end up putting a corner post on the right. This second option should work well but it would involve some creativity on the finish to keep it looking good. My main hope is to avoid it looking like an afterthought (even if it IS an afterthought).

hey tony your best bet for that flex is to put another joist right beside it...in other words to double it up, that should stop it from flexing and will still look the way you want it to in the end!!