Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[lastlight]

I'm pretty sure your proposed overflow boxes would be blocking a visible pane. Maybe I'm not reading his drawings right but this thing is viewable on two sides is it not?

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by lastlight

I'm pretty sure your proposed overflow boxes would be blocking a visible pane. Maybe I'm not reading his drawings right but this thing is viewable on two sides is it not?

Gah, sorry I thought it was like this with one single viewing pane.


If that's not the case ignore all my crazy ranting please haha .

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I want to start off by giving the specs, and posting the pictures I have so far.

The tank will be 6ft long X 34inches wide X 26 inches high for a total display volume of approximately 275 gallons. It's being built right in to the house as a divider between two rooms, the dining room and the office, so it will be open on two sides. I don't have a fish room in this house (some battles you have to 'compromise' on in marriage I suppose), so 99% of the equipment will be under the stand, with the only remote equipment being an R/O storage container in the basement below the tank.

Derp.

[Zoaelite]

Any idea how you want to position the radions as of now?

[asylumdown]

I had thought long and hard about those overflows. It sucks monster balls to need to have them internal, but it was part of the trade off process that got me the longest tank possible. The tank is flanked on either side by 2X6 studs, which support walls one either side, like in this pic:

.

I had them use 2X6 boards instead of 2X4 boards to give me extra depth in the stud cavities, but then as the house construction process went on, we ended up needing to put more and more stuff in to those walls. It's kind of hard to tell cuz they've already started painting, but here's the stud spaces:

North side:

One of the two stud spaces is blocked off so a bank of switches for the opposite wall could be installed (I fought this, but there was no where else to put them). Those switches will eventually be completely sealed in from the tank space. I had them position the switches so there will still be enough space above them for an MP40/60 motor

South side:

From left to right there's a partial stud space that had to be sealed as it's part of the cold air return system from upstairs, drain and water lines (that get way busier under the tank) for the aquarium and R/O unit, and a drain line for a bathroom that's on the floor above the tank.

At best, having external overflows would have made the stud spaces too crowded to work in them, at worst, I would have had to reduce the length of the tank significantly to get them in.

I would say the biggest 'theme' of this tank so far has been compromise. I'm asking it to be viewable on both sides, while being as large as physically possible in the space, and to do things that would normally require a whole fish room (automated water changes and such), but with only the space of the cabinet to work with. It will be interesting to see if it all works out as planned...

As for the lights, I think I'm going to put them in 2 rows of 3, but probably not evenly spaced. I'm thinking I'm going to do three 'islands' for the aquascaping, so I'll focus the pairs of lights on to those islands. We still haven't worked out what the lights are going to hang from, I'm thinking some sort of frame that hangs from the ceiling that I can raise and lower as one unit, but I would also like to be able to adjust the position of individual light fixtures on that frame.

[asylumdown]

Le Sigh....

The stairs got delivered on Wednesday. Turns out they measured from the outside of one of the support walls, not from the inside, so the landing and both runs of stairs coming off it are the wrong size. This throws off completion date by at least a month.

And last night, the cabinet installers must have punctured one of the in-floor heating lines as there was glycol leaking from the ceiling in the basement. Not sure what that's going to do to completion date, but I assume that a whole bunch of floor tile and several walls will need to be pulled out, so I can't imagine that it will be helpful.

On the bright side, the tank should be finished and installed at least a month before we move in now, so I'll be able to cycle it before we move in...

[mseepman]

Well, the news about the tank is good! I know how you feel...house delays suck. Do you figure you will "setup" the tank and just visit daily to check on how the cycle is going or will you do things off-site and move them into the tank once you move in?

[asylumdown]

The tank enclosure should be fully sealed and painted by about Dec. 15, so assuming the tank is ready around that time, I'll have everything installed then plumb it. If the builder has no problems with it, I'll fill it up with salt water and the dry rock around christmas and toss in bag of cocktail shrimp. I probably won't even need to check on it that often (though I do go to the site pretty regularly), and if all goes according to plan it will be ready to receive un-cured live rock by the time I move in

The plan is to order the live rock directly from the source in the Pacific. If I'm lucky, having it skip any intermediate holding tanks should *hopefully* cut down on the chance of aiptasia. I'm also going to be adding it to a pre-cycled dry-rock tank, so there should already be a decent biological machinery in place to process the curing cycle and hopefully reduce further die off.

[asylumdown]

good news! The builder found the leak on the first try and it didn't require pulling up any floor tile. The walls in the room below will still need to be replaced, but thankfully they had only been primed and the carpet hadn't been installed yet.

[asylumdown]

Painters are working on the enclosure and the doors for the cabinet are finished.

Mock up pre-paint. The hardware hasn't been installed yet so I just placed the doors in the frames for the pic. The framing panel that will be screwed in after the tank is in is inside on the left:


Inside the tank space is now fully plasticized. The stuff feels almost like rubber. They coated everything, drywall, studs, anything that could be exposed to moisture or humidity.



Back of the doors. This just happened on friday so the coating is still curing. The door on the top left has louvres cut in to it so when the ceiling fan is running, it will draw air from the furthest/lowest point in the cabinet, hopefully keeping moisture in the sump and tank space to a minimum.


If I'm lucky, the tank will be in before Christmas and we can get everything plumbed. Then to cycle! Finally starting to think about scaping options...