Tylers ~300Gal System Build. *The epic failure*

[zum14]

Update. So I got some glass for my euro bracing and coast to coast. I now know why people in prince don't build tanks. It was $150 for the glass. Overflow on bottom and euro on top.





So I started to clean the top of the tank with the plastic trim off and i found something interesting. Can anyone else see the problem???





Yaa.... not so impressed. Good thing its not the show tank. He said it was a hagen. I don't know. He didn't look like he had the ability to do this to the tank and he said it held water. Good thing its in a basement and I WILL be water testing first now with a little more discomfort. But what am I going to do now. Not much. I need to get this tank set up as were renoing the room my current tank is in and its holding up work. No kitchen and dirty reno'd house makes wife something something....... So pressed on with work. Got the diamond coated burrs and cleaned up the overflows. No sharp edges and corners now. (please dont mind the sharpie marks. not sure what happend there. too many before starting that job.)



And then glued up the overflow box.






I realized the glass braces are probably overkill but I dont do too many things underkill so in they went. They were only like $10 in the end. Plan is for eurobracing to be glued in tomorrow and seal up the overflow box. Then its just a matter of waiting on the bulkheads. No one seems to use full inside slip bulkheads, or even a slip on the tank side. Oh well. Im getting used to things going sideways on this project.

[zum14]

So.... a little bit of bad news. Had to throw the closed loop system back to the drawing board for now. Just too many things to still figure out with it and due to time constraints I had to get the tank setup so I can move my current one. Sucks but oh well. I told my wife I would have to set up another tank between this one and my big ones and shes ok with that so who can complain. I got the overflow sealed up and got the tank sitting in my basement in my fishroom. Sorry please dont mind the walls and the little dirty feeder tank for my freshwater gar. Everything is in the middle of the room so I can work on the walls around them.



I know lots of guys dont like hardlines to the pumps but this its not noisy and I will tweek everything later. Same with the valves on the drains for the herbie. Ill get them and I have a way of shutting water off to one pipe at a time and plumb the valve in later. One of my concerns was that there is a center brace on the plastic trim (I know what your thinking. What happend to the euro bracing. Well lets just say there were some select words used and we will be buying a tank with that already done. Probably not as complicated as I was making it but it just wasnt working) Anywho. I figured I would use two of the pendants. I hung them quite high as I really dont want to nuke my tank and im also worried about the shock from going from T5's to 400W metal halides. So I will run them high and one on at first then work to both then work at finding a good height from the tank. Please again dont mind the wires. I plan on taking care of that too. Here is one pendant on with no water.


Here is both pendants on with no water.



So then today I filled er up and tested for leaks. None so far. Going to let it run for a night then if all good. Drain, quick wipe down, and fill with salt. Heres the tank with water in it both pendants on. Still a bit of condensation from cold water.


Overflow height. Will tweek this when I get the valves in so it will be running probably about 2" higher when im done.



Then heres with the night lights. Might be a bit bright. Not sure yet.



Oh and please excuse the nice heart on the front. I didnt catch that my wife had done that till I had loaded the pics on the computer. Funny thing is when I showed her this all excited she just shrugged and walked away. Totally doesnt care. In her words its a tub full of water with an ugly light over it and a bunch of ugly pipes. Oh well she still lets me do it so.

[zum14]

Just a few pics of the corals that woke up early. Some are still pretty ****ed either with the new tank shock or lighting change. The awesome open brain I got from whatcaneyedo got picked on pretty hard by the shrimps and crabs. I tried to shelf it but they found a way up there. It looks a lot better now but time will tell.

[zum14]

So not a whole heck of a lot has changed. Got my ASM G3 running and its skimming beautifully now. I lost my Firefish recently *pout* but its my fault. Netting for the screen top didnt get here quick enough. Well this was taken when the tank originally set up but not much has changed. Got a couple of corals but nothing really else.



So ive been pondering for quite a while now on what fish to get. Current inhabitants are 6 line wrasse, Longnose Hawk and Bengaii Cardinal. Id love a copperband and I think the tank is big enough now but I have two open brain corals and an acan that would most likely meet there dooms eventually. Id love to get a tang but am unsure of enough swimming room/ current flow. I dont have any shrimps (not sure I will ever again due to a couple of peppermints picking on corals) so im not sure about triggers either. I like the huma and clown but attitudes may be issues there. One of my absolute faves is the Emperor but well there is just soo much wrong with me even mentioning that, this is as far as im going with it. Lawnmower would probably be functional but im just not a fan of them. Dwarf lion or fu man chu's look pretty awesome. Anyone have any input??

[kien]

Coming along nicely! Your plumbing is quite sophisticated!

[zum14]

Originally Posted by kien

Coming along nicely! Your plumbing is quite sophisticated!

Woooowww. Kien commented on my tank! Neat. Thanks anyways but I think I just seem to have a nack for making things that are simple look overly complicated. Its a skill I picked up early in my life according to my father.

[whatcaneyedo]

Looks like an interesting build. I'd like to come by and check it out sometime.

[zum14]

Update: Well my freshwater got shut down last weekend, wasnt happy but I think it was necessary. So I had a 125 drilled and ready to go. Well with the recent discovery of more hitch hiker crabs in the 90 and well just not happy with how I went about setting this tank up (did research but ive always found it to never be enough) Ive decided to start into a new process. Ive set up some fishstore like racks in the 125 plumbed it in to my system and am in the process of moving all the corals over. Fragging some and what I can and moving others directly over. Not quite done as of yet but getting there. I think the basic idea im shooting for now is to get some eco reefer rock (no pests!) Build it into a nice solid structure like Ive watched a lot of talented reefers on here do. Mine now is not much of a structure so much as a pile of teetering rocks that really have little shape. Id like more up and like to be able to get all around the rocks for cleaning purposes and general look. The rock that is in the tank now will most likely migrate to the sump or scrutinized heavily before going into a display. Once one tank is done I can move the corals around and the other will follow so naturally the reef will be first. Question is do I want a 90Gal Reef and a 125Gal FOWLR or other way around... Theres lots I would like to do with the tanks now but Im thinking this is top of the list for now.

[zum14]

Well that was quick. Got our electricity bill for the last month......not good. Started crunching numbers..... not good. Wife wasnt happy. Im not happy. darn...need to figure something out quick.

[Madreefer]

Lookin good. I tried talkin my wife in to letting me spend 3K on a LED fixture by sayin it would pay for itself after a year of use. She would'nt go for it. Maybe yours will.