Moving a 120 gal tank any advise

1eyedjyde · #1 09-01-2011, 04:45 AM

Its been a while sice my last post but not much has really happened. Work has been crazy so things have been on hold at the moment.... however this week started off with some "forced progress" as my "temp" 29gal desided to give out at 12:30am monday morning. The bottom of the tank cracked end to end luckily I was still up and managed to have only a "few" gallons of water hit the floor. In the 120 I will be placing egg crate on the bottom for sure now, lesson learned. Luckily I have been cycling the remainder of the liverock in rubbermaids so a quick check of temp and salinity and all the live stock from the 29 has been placed in the tubs wich will likely help with the cycling of the liverock. After 3 days no losses and am getting some extension of the coral, so far so good for the getto reef.

As for the 120, this week I have wired a new circut so now I have 15 amps dedicated to the 120 and the seal kit for the snapper came in so I installed that, so it looks like there will be water in the tank in the next few weeks. Have to start figureing out how I want the rock laid out now, still now sure exactly how I want it to look.

whatcaneyedo · #2 09-01-2011, 01:57 PM

Are you putting some ridged Styrofoam between the tank and stand as well?

1eyedjyde · #3 09-02-2011, 04:09 AM

I wasnt going to since the tank actually sits on the brack plastic trim around the edge, if the glass sat directly on the stand then for sure I would, th other reason I,m not too worried about this one is the thickness of the glass, the 29 gal had 3/16 or so thick glass and I had it stuffed with rock upwards of 50 to 60 pounds granded the 120 will have closer to 100 lbs it will be spead out more. however I am now thinking about the foam suggestion.... hmm

Madreefer · #4 09-02-2011, 04:20 AM

Did Levis have styrofoam underneath it? If the sides of the tank go farther down than the bottom peice than I wouldnt use foam. If it's totally flat all the way across the bottom than you'll be fine.The reason being is that the bottom is designed to have a little flex in it. If you put that foam in there the sides sink in further and take away that flex and the bottom will crack.

whatcaneyedo · #5 09-02-2011, 01:37 PM

Total Pet had a large tank (180gal maybe?) in their store for a few months that had a black plastic bottom trim and sat on an uneven metal stand. The first time they filled it the bottom cracked immediately. In some cases putting a layer of rigged Styrofoam underneath is necessary. The rest of the time its just a good precaution.

1eyedjyde · #6 09-06-2011, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Did Levis have styrofoam underneath it? If the sides of the tank go farther down than the bottom peice than I wouldnt use foam. If it's totally flat all the way across the bottom than you'll be fine.The reason being is that the bottom is designed to have a little flex in it. If you put that foam in there the sides sink in further and take away that flex and the bottom will crack.

Levi did not have styrofoam under the tank and the top of the stand is a single sheet of 3/4" plywood. I have also already had it full for several weeks outside with fresh water.

1eyedjyde · #7 09-11-2011, 06:03 AM

Water is in the tank!!! No leaks so far....now to figure out what to do with the wavey sea module, it works perfect when its apart but as soon as it goes back together it starts skipping...I think it is a lack of lube on the sealing surface between the two halfs unfortunately I do not know of a water safe lube.. oh yeah and I guess my snapper pump has the AO Smith motor so it sounds like I have a hot tub not a fish tank. Ah well I'll let it run for a couple of days, drain it and refill with salt water.

1eyedjyde · #8 09-14-2011, 04:56 AM

So my reeflo snapper has developed another leak at the input shaft after only a couple days use so after talking with reflo today I will be shipping it to them to have the beaings in the motor replaced (if anything it should be silent as new), resealed and tested. The customer service at Reflo is great.

On a side note is there such thing as too much flow? I am tossing the idea around of having reeflo replace the impeller with dart impeller (since it will be there already) so instead of 2,200 gal/hr on the closed loop I could get 3,900 gal/hr, that would give me 47 turn overs per hour versus the current 33. Any thoughts this?