kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

mike31154 · #1 07-09-2009, 04:18 PM

Yow, Mark you have an MP40W in your hot little hands but are able to wait until Sunday to install it? Talk about patience! They're so relatively simple to slap on, although take care with the alignment & spacer setting for glass thickness. I recently added a second MP40W to my 75 and it's great. I previously ran the single one at long pulse, full power and with a quiet room, it was quite audible ramping up to full speed. Now with the two, I'm able to run them around 75% power, making things noticeably quieter. Flow is much better at the previously 'other' end of the tank as well. When you get yours going, I'm sure you will see a lot of stuff getting kicked up that you didn't know was in there!

kien · #2 07-09-2009, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike31154

Yow, Mark you have an MP40W in your hot little hands but are able to wait until Sunday to install it? Talk about patience! They're so relatively simple to slap on, although take care with the alignment & spacer setting for glass thickness. I recently added a second MP40W to my 75 and it's great. I previously ran the single one at long pulse, full power and with a quiet room, it was quite audible ramping up to full speed. Now with the two, I'm able to run them around 75% power, making things noticeably quieter. Flow is much better at the previously 'other' end of the tank as well. When you get yours going, I'm sure you will see a lot of stuff getting kicked up that you didn't know was in there!

Sweet! I'm really looking forward to picking up an MP40 now. Too bad I just dropped $500+ on a protein skimmer. Next paycheque maybe :-) Speaking of protein simmers.. I need to go pick that up. I got a call yesterday that it was in and ready for me. Its the Hydor 700. I will be picking up my QuietOne 6000 and a 55 gallon tank today as well in preparation for the sump build this friday/weekend.

kien · #3 07-20-2009, 07:49 AM

It was quite a debate.. black stand or white stand. In the end I ended up going with a white stand. Our living room has white leather couches and the stand being as large as it is would probably look like a huge black hole in the middle of the room if I went black.

While the paint on the stand dried I decided that it was time to tackle the sump. Fortunately all my sump equipment was on hand (very important when you are building a sump!). I picked up the skimmer first. I haven't even fired this thing up yet and I'm already in love with it. Hopefully it does not let me down.

Hydor Performer 700

Originally I was going to go with a QuietOnes 6000 but ended up walking out with a Mag18. I'm such a sucker for an upsell. This thing is heavy!

Now we just need some baffles. I decided to go with acrylic panels. They are easy to obtain and to work with. All you have to do is measure up your panels. Score your lines with a straight edge of some sort and a scoring knife. I like to run 5 scores on either side of the panel. Then, snap! If you're like me and not quite strong enough (or too chicken) to snap the panel (where you scored it) by hand, just wedge it in between two pieces of 2x4s and step on it.

It all went pretty smooth. Here they are, the baffles!

kien · #4 07-20-2009, 08:12 AM

Okay, so everything for the sump is read to go. At first I was going to go with a 55g. After getting it home and shoving into the stand I decided that I wasn't really happy with it. Even though I have tonnes of room under the stand I still found the 55g a tad tall for my liking. A quick google pointed me to the 45g. It is only 2 inches shorter than the 55g but those two inches made a difference. That's 2 more inches of easy skimmer cup cleaning!

Time for a dry fit.

From left to right we have the 'fuge, bubble trap, return section, bubble trap, the skimmer/overflow drain section. And here's all the equipment in their respective compartments.

Okay, looks good. Time to commit with some silicone.

*** DISCLAIMER: This will be the ugliest siliconing job you will ever see. Please don't judge me by the aesthetics of the result ***

Okay, so it is ugly but it gets the job done!

Overflow grill for the 'fuge.

But... will it hold water???

Fuge holds water!

So far so good.

kien · #5 07-20-2009, 08:34 AM

Back to the stand. Now that the paint has dried it is time to move it into the house. Originally I had a sheet of 1/2 inch plywood which I was going to use for the top but decided I wanted something a little nicer. I was at Ikea looking for ideas for skinning the stand when I came across some counter tops. A nice one and a half inch slab of MDF, awesome. I went with one of the Numerar counter tops that happened to be just the right size at 73" by 25". No cutting required. While I was there I also found some cabinet door panels that I will use for the stand as well. More on that later.

This is always a good sign!

Now that the stand is (somewhat) ready let's get that tank in here. Let me just say, damn that thing is heavy! It took 4 of us to get it in and out of my car and onto the stand and it wasn't all that much fun, but my crew and I pulled it off.

A 1/2" sheet of pink styrofoam sits between the tank and the top of the stand for cushioning. The edge of the styrofoam was spray painted silver to match the trim and the top of the stand.

It sure is a lot bigger in person than it is on paper.

To recap, it is 72" long by 24" wide by 20" deep/high. Here's the external overflow box.

Two of the four 1" overflow holes. My plan is to have 1 drain straight into the 'fuge, merge two of them into a 1.5" pipe to drain into the skimmer section with a gate valve, and then the 4th hole will be the emergency drain.

And here are the two 1" returns drilled into the eurobrace at the opposite end from the overflow.

I put in a special request to move these holes far enough away from the glass panel so that I could easily maneuver a magfloat around the glass without interference.

Clay&Chey · #6 07-20-2009, 08:41 AM

looks good i love my divider tank. Are you going to continue the stand up the back wall conceiling your overflow and return. hidden pipes is the way to go

kien · #7 07-20-2009, 08:47 AM

I might, if I can be bothered :-) The exposed plumbing never bothered me when I had my 90 gallon there, and the 90 gallon was 2 feet away from the wall!

But ya.. I will add that to my "to-do" list and see if I get around to that finishing detail towards the end (pun intended!).

banditpowdercoat · #8 07-20-2009, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kien

Now that the stand is (somewhat) ready let's get that tank in here. Let me just say, damn that thing is heavy! It took 4 of us to get it in and out of my car and onto the stand and it wasn't all that much fun, but my crew and I pulled it off.

HUH??!! Did He say CAR? What you drive, a Hearse?? LOL. I need to see pics of that!!

mseepman · #9 07-20-2009, 04:15 PM

This build is looking so good!! The tank looks great where it's going. Are you happy with the build quality? I'm always wondering because I haven't decided who will build my next tank yet.

In looking at your sump, I see you did something similar to what I did on my current sump (but on a bigger scale) and the first problem that I encountered (about 3 months in) was that acrylic doesn't stick to silicon/glass and some of my baffles started falling over. I haven't fixed it yet, but you might want to research what others have done to combat this.

kien · #10 07-20-2009, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

HUH??!! Did He say CAR? What you drive, a Hearse?? LOL. I need to see pics of that!!

Well, okay, it was a large car! Nissan Murano, with both the rear seats down and both the front seats pushed as far forward as they could possibly go!

It was fun driving the tank home with my steering wheel in my gut.