MitchM tank build

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by untamed

....

I like your idea of placing coral where the food appears to be. It is going to test your patience to wait that long to add corals!

The longer I think about it, the less I want to put in this tank. I want to be sure that whatever I put in there, I want to be able to feed enough.
I'm in no rush to stock it.

[MitchM]

I got the basic stand frame done today. I still want to put two joists with hangers in the middle, but LVL's need special hangers and nails. I would like to find someone in Calgary that stocks them. Home Depot wants 10 - 14 days to order them in.

I used 1-3/4 X 9-1/2 LVL for the beams (doubled up front and back) and 6 x 6 treated dimensional lumber for the legs. I'll be moving the tank into place using an engine hoist, so I needed clear floor under the stand to allow for the hoist wheels. With the strength of the beams, I won't need any other support underneath, but I may still frame up a wall under the back and sides then sheet it with plywood to prevent racking of the stand once the tank is loaded with water and rocks.
Alternatively, I could put in some knee braces to give it a timberframe look.

I like using engineered lumber for stands because it's simple, beefy and straight.








I used this laser level to level things:

[lastlight]

Wow that's one simply way to do legs! Although I doubt I have the skills to cut posts like that myself.

Does Rona/Home Depot sell those LVLs right in the store? Good idea!

[MitchM]

With a pencil lay out the area to be removed.
Tools required to cut the posts are:
circular saw
reciprocating saw

Use a chisel and block plane to clean up the cuts. It takes about 10 minutes per post.

Rona or HD doesn't stock the LVL's. Go to the contractor desk and order them. I think they'll round up the size to the nearest 6" and give you about 1/2" extra length to square off each end. There are a lot of different sizes available.

[lastlight]

Well it's been a month. What's up?

[MitchM]

Got it on the stand, started on plumbing and it's filling with water. I had to stop the water fill until I'm back home for that.
Work has been crazy busy.
I've got some pics to post this weekend.

[MitchM]

I got the hangers and special nails for the center joists and got those mounted:



put down some plywood and got the tank on the stand.
Here is a pic of the intake portion of the closed loop completed:



Here I've started the framing for the workbench behind the tank with the closed loop pump roughly in place:



I've started the filling of the tank with R/O DI. One thing that I'm not happy with is that the DI cartridge is already 80% exhausted and the tank is only 25% full so far.



The RO unit is a 300 GPD from BRS. The RO unit itself is giving an output value of between 2 and 5 TDS.

I'm stalled a bit for setting up the sump at this point because I don't have a setup finalized for the sump return plumbing. I could set up two pumps and control the bidirectional flow pattern with my Profilux, but I've been in contact with Reeflo and they tell me that the constant on/off cycles would shorten the life of the capacitors and do no damage to the motor itself.
They have also told me that if my valving setup involves a total shut off of the output for any length of time that it would also not damage the pump. It would just result in a transfer of heat to the water trapped in the impeller chamber.

Another option that I came up with is that instead of the pump turning off for the rest cycle, the water could just be diverted back into the sump tank for the hour. That way the pump would run continuously and the sump would get a bit of a "super rinse" cycle.
Perhaps an existing OM unit could be modified with some timers instead of inventing a new setup.

The cycle would then be:

5 hours through output #1
1 hour sump recirculation
5 hours through output #2
1 hour sump recirculation

repeat.

Maybe that's something I can do myself. I haven't had time to sit down and think it through.