wow, this tank looks like it might actually happen! :lol:

That looks like a great spot for a peninsula tank.

Haha...you're not the only one who wondered. My wife as been very patient after having her new vehicle kicked out of the garage because the tanks have been sitting there so long. Though if you were to talk with my builder he regularly asks if he's building me a house or just a tank as I spend twice as much time reviewing the status of the tank related areas of the house.

The walls of my fish room are now up. I went with a 1/2" good one side fir plywood the will get clearcoated. I think it will look good and will be very functional as I can mount anything anywhere. Plus if I have to get to my in-wall plumbing, I can just unscrew the necessary board and access it. My pictures didn't turn out so i will have to get more tomorrow.

Well, all this time has given you a lot of time to plan it all out in great detail, which is good! It'll be rad once it all comes together. :biggrin:

Wow, these multi-year tank builds blow my mind. I've never spent more than a month or two planning and setting up a new tank (and that was only because I was moving into a new place and setting up two new 6 & 6.5" tanks in the new place before I moved there). Otherwise, most of my tanks are setup and running within a week or two of deciding to go ahead with it.

When I decided to tear down my fish room (dual 3' 65gs and a 90g wide with 75g sump and 20g above tank refugium) to convert it back into our second bedroom and set up a 210g reef with 75g sump instead, it was probably less than 10 days from decision to purchase to setup completion and everything transferred over with the old tanks torn down and sold off.

I can't imagine starting in 2010 and still in the building/planning process in 2012. You have far, far, far more patience than I ever will my friend.

Anthony

Haha, I'd like to call it patience but "forced patience" may be a better term. Having a young family and a very busy work life means that although I've had the time...I just don't know if I've covered every base. But this is getting much much closer.
I just can't wait to see my tank again. It's been crated for the entire time so I barely remember what it looks like. Though I remember how heavy this SOB is.

Pics of the fishroom:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1329164101

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1329164070

Here you can see the 60amp subpanel:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ombreakers.jpg

And here is the plumbing and electrical behind the wall.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...llplumbing.jpg

Blah, blah...it is just the stuff that guys think is cool...waiting on seeing this tank full of pretty corals and fish...not boring plumbing pictures UGH! Come on Mark! You could throw up some kiddy photo's...much better in my opinion. :wink: :biggrin:

Haha...will see what I can do Leah.

:biggrin:

Hi Mark, thanks for the tour. The house is going to be fantastic. When I got home my wife wanted to know about the house. The patios, views, breakfast bar, amazing ensuite, theater room etc... and all I could talk about was the huge fish room lined with plywood, the natural gas generator that will run the tank durning a power failure and how you will even have a sink hidden in a cabinet next to the display tank. All she could do was shake her head. :mrgreen:

Very impressive and well thought out!

Please keep including the "stuff for guys". Many of us have dreamed about building a house for their fish tanks. The pretty corals will grow for years and years but you will only build once. So please keep the updates coming!

I wonder what the record is for number of pages in a thread before there is actually a tank in the house???....:razz:

I thought Brett might have the record for slowest build but I'm coming on strong! (not the current 404 of course but his last tank.)

Don't worry Kevin, I will keep posting the build...its the only way I can cope with the anticipation of actually getting things going for real.

I thought Tony had the slowest build to date
just sayin:smile:

You may be right...all I know is that I'm starting to be a player in that race...and I'm not sure I like it. :redface:

You're building a house at the same time that doesn't count lol. Even tho Tony hates that title he's not going to just give it up... after all it is a title =)

Hey Mark,

Good to finally meet you, the future title holder of "The Slowest Tank Build Thread". Haha J/K!

You're building a house AROUND your tank! That's kinda what I'm aspiring to do whenever we get sick of Downtown living and decide to get a house.

I hope the lights work out for the interim.

Thanks Ken, I'm just waiting for the power adapter for the stunners to come in and then I'll put them to good use for the next few months. :)

I will try to get an update on this thread going soon...All my time has been dedicated to finishing my LLQP designation of late.

Well, it's been a while and I thought a quick update would be in order. A lot of things are happening around the house, but not as much on the tank as I've been working to complete my LLQP designation.

As you can see, they've completed much of the painting:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...3-21125254.jpg

Also, I've got a little further on the lights and have completed the fixture wiring and now I am just testing my parallel strings to make sure they are balanced. There certainly is a learning curve to this...especially when I only have time to work on it 1 night a week or so. :sad: I can say that the BJB connectors are really the bomb and make things much easier.

Because my drivers are on separate boards from my fixture, I used terminal blocks on the end so that I could install quick disconnects for when/if I ever need to take the light down.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...3-27221649.jpg

Fortunately, once in the canopy, no-one will ever see the fixture itself (or the wiring haha)

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...3-20220322.jpg

That's it for pictures omg I can't. Elieve you man and you are living above a lake so get a outside picture or something
Get one of you biting the tank lol. I love the build mark well done

Haha thanks. I will try to get a good picture from the Living room to show the view. I'll really have to figure out what I want to look at more...the lake view or the tank view. :)

Well, it's been a while since my last update. House is coming along but it never moves the way you want it to.

Thought I would share a picture of the fish room coming together. The walls of the room are all Fir Veneer and will be heavily laquered. I thought I would deviate from the standard white room and go with something a little different. Plus the sheets of wood allow me to access the in-wall plumbing and or electrical if ever there is a problem. Ignore the copper pipes you see. Due to the huge beams that were used to support the tank upstairs, it was more cost effective to put a few water shutoff's in this room rather than having to box them out under the beam and take them to my main utility room.

My HRV is a stand alone unit and will be mounted on the ceiling. The room has a stand alone 100Amp service and about half the electrical circuits are on an auto transfer switch with an 8kW Natural Gas generator.

By the way, the ceiling isn't that low, the picture was partially obscured by paper taped throughout the entrance as they are spraying the door trim this week.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-02153653.jpg

Nice to see some progress, but, is that it for pics ???
I mean, c'mon, a month and 1 pic .... :razz:

Haha...I have more but they weren't uploaded to photobucket yet. I thought people might be bored of house progress as this is really the only one that references the tank. We've mostly been working on the outside of the house.

Okay, so after not having too many pics, here are a couple more.

Fish Room continues to get worked on. The stand you see will hold my sump and another tank to be used for either fragging or Quaranteen (or two tanks)
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-03123302.jpg

This is another angle...My laundry basin will go here at the end of the counter.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-03123317.jpg

Lastly, they have finished the rockwork on my fireplace and are preparing to spray my trim throughout the house. (thus why it is bagged)
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-03123343.jpg

:smile:

Last night I finally found some time to do some finishing touches on the LED build.

Started by placing my lenses on the appropriate led's (at least I hope I picked the right ones:razz:)

Then with my brother's help we drilled and placed the new Plexi splash shield over the entire fixture. Those are the moonlights that are on in this picture.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-08210921.jpg

I really tried to come up with some way to build an apparatus where I could slide the plexi in from one side, kinda like how many of the production units do it, but just couldn't figure out a good way. Thus I went with plastic spacers and stainless screws.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-08210711.jpg

Rather than look at the cut sides of the plexi, I put on aluminum trim all the way around. This should further strengthen the plex from sag (although I doubt 1/4" will sag) and make it less of a lethal weapon when I reach into the tank.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-08215239.jpg

A quick update for anyone who still has the patience to follow this build.

My contractor started on the stand and the canopy for the tank. This thing would hold 5 of my tanks, it's done so well.

Here's a quick pic of them starting to skin it:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0518-00017.jpg

Here's a quick shot inside:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0518-00018.jpg

And another:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0518-00019.jpg

Lastly a little closer shot of how the corners will go: Note that this isn't attached, its just put there for my picture.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0518-00020.jpg

1" plywood will be on top and there is even a hidden drain reservoir all around the tank hooked up to my sink drain beside the tank. It should be pretty sweet when it's all done.

My picture of the canopy didn't turn out so it will have to come later.

Rock SOLID stand!!!

Are you going to stain it or paint it? White would look really classy, I've taken to White lately.

It will actually be stained to match all the cabinets around it. All the trim is solid Oak and will be stained like my stair posts shown below:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0518-00024.jpg

Oooh very VERY nice!

Lookin good Mark!!! Glad your house is finally coming together for you. :D

Looks awesome ;) pro jobs are always so polished. Love the standoffs for the plexi too. That can't really sag.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Glad this slow moving thread still has a few readers. Things are going to start moving a lot faster over the next 6 weeks as the stand, tank and lights get moved into the house.

dude when you have a well thought out build like this ppl pay attention..we are addicted to that which we wish we had your contractors workmanship is amazing you will have a piece of art yu will enjoy for years to come....or curse at depending the situation.. so never apologise for the time its taking the end result is worth it.

cheers

Looking good! I'm sure you could park a bulldozer on that stand!

I may have to try that! :wink: Now we just have to figure out how to get this into the house. None of the doors are large enough. :sad:

Wow an update!

Looking good Mark.

I can't remember if you have doors or windows going out onto the patios. Any chance of getting the stand up there and in thru those openings?

Hey Kevin...good to see you on here. I have ton of windows...though most of the don't open. I think we've determined that a partial break down will be required. Stand is about 39" at its narrowest point.
I'm hoping the stand will make it into the house late this week.

I've been following your thread for a few months - impressive. Sorry to hear about the stand issue - that hurts!

Well, time for another quick update on the lights.

Got them all hooked up to my new APEX tonight. Ran through some programs and then put them all on at once. Note that this is a picture through the plastic film protecting the plexi...which I believe is cutting the light by 30-40%. Most of the lights are on at about 75% here.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...5-27211012.jpg

I have to say, it's pretty cool seeing the APEX put this through it's paces. The fixture is really quiet and you won't hear it inside the canopy at all. The fans are doing okay but right now, I'm a little concerned about heat at the two ends which are farthest from the fans. I will take my heat gun to read the temperatures after I get everything to 100% for an hour and see if it's within the LED specs.