Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

I don't get why the builder is laminating a 3" thick piece, I would have just used 3 - 1" sheets of plywood. Screw the first sheet to the top of the stand, 2nd sheet to the first and so on.

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.


next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.


next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

Heh, next time. That's actually really funny. 2.5 years and oh-my-god-how-much?! over budget, I hope to never move again. Building a house is not for the feint of heart.

I'll see what happened there today (I have been at school all day).

On another note entirely, I was in Red Coral in Edmonton on the weekend and saw their display tank with all Radions. Soooo glad I did as it made up my mind almost instantly. I love, love LOVE all the features of that little fixture, but man, it looked like I was looking at a tank with the dimmer switch set at 50%. Every time I would look away and then look back, I felt like my eyes were re-adjusting to a poorly lit room. I kept having to ask if the fixture was at 100% power. I know there's that whole bit about our eyes not being as sensitive to the dominant wavelengths in LEDs and all, and that the Radions can probably do a great job growing corals, but I care as much about how my tank looks to me as I do about how the corals respond, and the light the radion puts out just doesn't cut it for me.

Halides it is.

[lastlight]

Don't let them use glue! Otherwise they grab 3 flat pieces like Greg said level the first and mount the next to it win screws. No glue!

Haaaaalides

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

asylumdown didnt want anything drilled into the stand which i think he should allow at this point to help cut his losses. You could just drive a couple screws through the high spots in the plywood to bring them down level with the low spot. Screwing into the stand shouldnt create any issues. I had to do the same on my stand (all wood) to lower some high spots in a slightly bowed piece of 1" plywood.

thats what silicone is for

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

next time have the builders aclimate the plywood to the house for a couple weeks and make sure it sits perfectly flat. "fresh" wood from the lumber yard will do all sorts of wierd stuff until most of the moisture has come out of it.

you could acclimate the plywood to the house for a year if you want, as soon as it gets exposed to a humid environment, like above a sump, all bets are off

[fishytime]

I understand why you wernt impressed with the radions over the display at RCE.... but in all fairness, the tank design and the way the light rack is built made it hard to get the lights hanging where they will do the most good......did you ever get over to see anyones tank that was lit by them?

[asylumdown]

I'm at my house now (cuz staying at school till 10:30 is just the tops), and it looks like they've corrected the problem, I just can't tell how. The back panel is on the tank, so I can't see where the foam meets the plywood anymore, but I crawled underneath and looked at the holes for the overflow and there's no longer any gap (I could stick my pinkey finger in that space yesterday). The tank now appears to be sitting completely flush to the plywood on both the right and left sides.

I can't see and extra expanding foam under there, so they must have figured out a way to force the wood to cooperate. The site foreman had said he was going to try brute force first, it appears to have worked.

I'm gonna find out what they did tomorrow.

Now the only remaining issue that I can see is that the back framing panel is smaller than the front, so the top of the tank, where the euro bracing is joined to the glass, is totally visible. Oy. That's gonna be getting fixed!

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by fishytime

I understand why you wernt impressed with the radions over the display at RCE.... but in all fairness, the tank design and the way the light rack is built made it hard to get the lights hanging where they will do the most good......did you ever get over to see anyones tank that was lit by them?

No, I would still like to, but I ended up having way less time over the holidays than I thought before I left town. I also stopped in at... Aquarium Illusions (I think that's what it's called) and they have a single radion over a clam tank. I thought the same thing there. I need to see if Levi is available again soon though cuz his pics are baller, but I have a boat load of scholarship/grant applications due in the next week and Kelly is moving back to Calgary, so it might be a bit before I have time.

[asylumdown]

House build is still slow, but steady. We're apparently going to be moving in at the end of February now, but since this is the 5th push back of the completion date and I couldn't extend my lease at the short term place I was staying (the owner moved home and needed it), I'm technically homeless for the first time in my life. Thank goodness for an understanding father with extra rooms.

Assuming we can move in this month (though, to be honest, I'm not really confident that's going to happen), the tank likely won't have water in it until we're in, which is a bummer as I wanted to get the cycle out of the way when I wasn't there to look at an empty box of water every day.

Anyway, the painters are working diligently away in there right now, so here's a roughly finished looking enclosure, sans doors:





On order now through RCC:

Deltec SC2560
Vertex RO/DI
Return pump of a brand and model that I seem to have forgotten completely
2 Ecotech MP60s to compliment my pre-existing MP40's

Need to order still
pump to bring water up from the basement
Auto top off system (details yet to be determined)
pump to empty WC chamber of the sump
Heater
Controller (if I go with Halides)
2 extra profilux dosing pumps for my doser

Still not buying lights. Going to wait until the last, final, gasping moment for that one. I was thinking about it and reflectors are going to get seriously in the way of what I had originally planned for the return piping. Sigh. It's only money right?

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Don't let them use glue! Otherwise they grab 3 flat pieces like Greg said level the first and mount the next to it win screws. No glue!

Haaaaalides are really stupid and I totally want to upgrade to LED's and be as cool as all the other people in the LED club.

Brett I totally agree with you man, I think Adam would love to join the LED club, it's a totally rad place to be!

On a side note Adam you have PM.

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

Brett I totally agree with you man, I think Adam would love to join the LED club, it's a totally rad place to be!

On a side note Adam you have PM.

The new Orphek DIF units sorta remind me of halides (I like the looks of those!). I'm not ruling out some high-tech single point light sources *some* day. But that's a buttload of paychecks away

Things are looking pretty damn slick there btw!