Jamie's 13.3G Custom

[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!!

[yellowworld]

And that brings us pretty darn close to up to date!!! go and read what you haven't seen and ill keep going with I'm doing right now!!

[yellowworld]

Hey guys so ive been busy again now that im home! this time I'm doing some work on the exposed rock work

I picked up a bunch of tiny tiny pieces of balsa wood and I'm building this out of it

















this is as far as I've got but don't worry there is still a lot more of that to come

[reefwars]

Well freaking done Jamie man love it

[canadianbudz604]

Cool build, you should get some type of plants or something on that rock like the mountain.