Jamie's 13.3G Custom

[yellowworld]

Hey everyone, so as promised I'm back with pictures for you guys. I spend the last 24 hours cutting and reworking my rock wall and when i finally stood back and looked at my new creation this is what I saw. Ill take you though everything from start to finish.

So i used:
A Hammer
A Chisel
A Hack-saw with a masonry blade
A Can of "Touch n' Foam" Landscape from Lowe's
and a lot of time haha

This is where i started with the old wall that you've all seen before





Then came the destruction of the wall, i cut off the upper rock that was out of the water and the moved it over to determine where i wanted it to sit



Once i figured that out i had to cut some off the back of the rock so that it sat flush with my wall - thats where the hack saw came into play



After a few hours of cutting dow the rock i was finally ready to start putting it back into place, but I knew that i wasn't happy with the size of the pond so out came the chisel and hammer and away i went until i had chunked out a very substantial portion of the work i had previously done



Then out came the foam and it was time to start rebuilding...

This is the new pond





This what i ended up doing to the rock that was in the middle of the tank - I hammer out quite a bit of it and moved it around until i found a place for it



I added a leg to the ledge just for looks



And finally this is the new scape from the front

[yellowworld]

Alright so now that I have something to update you on Ill update you haha I came home from work last night and found a lovely big brown box at my front door! It had all kinds of goodies in it

[yellowworld]

So I got the RO/DI system done and installed and its now making some sweet pure water!







On the way in...



On the way out…

[yellowworld]

Now that that is out of the way I turned my attention to protecting all the electronics inside my sump cabinet. I started out by rearranging the panel a little bit then planning out the back plate.

[yellowworld]

Today i spent most of the day taking everything I have built apart!


But dont worry it was all for a very good reason haha, so before some of you go and have a heart attack this is why I did it. Im getting pretty dam close to the last few things that need to be done and one of those final things is to clean up everything and tie it all together really nice and pretty like. So i started with a little paint

First on the return manifold



Then on all three of the overflow drains



They arent done yet tomorrow i have to mask them off and paint the exposed(still white parts) flat black then I have to paint all of the conduit hangers red to match. Then they get put back into a freshly painted sump cabinet where the white and red with stainless steel screws are going to look pretty spiffy i think

heres the newly painted cabinet - no more missing paint or scratches from hundreds of bumps putting in and taking out that sump haha



Then once I was done that I started into the wiring again, I had some wires that were bugging me and it just didn't quite look perfect so i went ahead and started to hack apart the wiring and then once i had a big mess of copper and plastic insulation i pulled out the soldering iron and got to work making it all function again

This is the UBS that connects the APEX to the Energy Bar 8 - shhhh dont tell apex i think its a warranty issue



then i tossed some shrink wrap on it to make it look pretty and then put it back in. You can see i also did that with the internet cable between the APEX and the Netgear Wireless receiver



Then i thought hey! lets get some light inside this box! so i started wiring up some LED strips that i picked up, the only problem is there is only one output on the controller box and i don't want to run one continuous strip all over the place, so im going to have to do some fancy wiring to get about 3-4 separate strips wired the way i want them to and all controlled with a magnetic on/off switch connected to the door of the cabinet as i said pretty spiffy





I still have to finish building the acrylic box and get some weather stripping to makeusre that its got a pretty dam close to air tight seal as i can get but thats for another day!

[yellowworld]

So today i got a few things done, the paint is all dried and its time for final assembly to begin!









Tomorrow I start the last of the wiring! I gotta get the fans up and running and finish the enclosure around the electronics and that should be all! everything else is just plug and play

[yellowworld]

Progress!!!! but it comes just intime for me to have to go back up north for work...however Im going to be leaving it on a good note!!

I now have water in the tank and i get to go back to work and essentially skip the whole cycling process that kills everyone haha no one likes sitting around and waiting as things slowly get going so i guess you could call that a silver lining but here we got with the pictures

I got the enclosure for the electronics all done and its extremely tight inside the sump cabinet, if you thought it was tight before this is what it looks like now!



there are still a few small details i have to get sorted out and if you look close the reactor needs carbon and the lines connected but I cant do that till i get the parts i orders (two little fishies reactor entender kit to make the output a nice downward tube instead of just a piece of curved hose, and I need to get or make a refugium light and get it hooked up and the fans need a power cord made up but thats all stuff for when i get back, right now its running and functional



this is the power center all wrapped up and nicely sealed behind the acrylic door



and with the tray pulled out i can open the door and get to everything i need to adjust or work on and then close back up



WATER!!! as i you can see its all working and getting cycled but when i get back there are some final details i have to work out, unfortunately the plumbing handles all the increased water flow perfectly, i say unfortunately because there isn't enough back pressure in the line to feed the water fall, so im going to have to add a ball valve to the return line to increase the water pressure to get the water up to the waterfall but thats easy enough to do. Lastly i need to take the background out and get all the exposed rock covered in epoxy and sand to make it look like rock again but other then that and the light im pretty much laughing!!

So I head up to work monday morning and until im back november 11th everyone enjoy and leave some comments!! there are new parts and equipment on their way here are you read and as soon as im home this tank is going to have new updates!!