dear god that tank is a thing of beauty! Those starphire euros are one heck of a nice touch.

What are your plans for the back of the tank? If you plan to have a backing on it...how will you also hide the overflow in a way that blends with your background?

The tank was pushed closer to the wall than I had originally planned. When I first conceptualized the tank, the idea was for it to be an island viewable from all 4 sides. I'm still thinking that I will keep the back side clean and use it as a viewable pane. Perhaps I could paint a section of the wall black just to give the illusion of darkness towards the back. At the very least, I plan to leave enough space between the glass and rock/corals to clean all of the sides. No final decision on this yet.

Thanks for the comments btw!!

The bottom bracing is in place. It's somewhat subtle and perhaps hard to make out in the pictures. It has silicone on all 4 edges of the glass, so it somewhat blends in. These aren't really for strength as much as for adhesion. The structural integrity is still primarily the glass panes.

As for water testing - I have to slow down a bit for the next while. I may fill it with ro/di water and do an extended leak test over the summer, but plumbing in the sump and adding salt will have to wait for now.

another one i have to tag along for sweet looking build

A weak point of the tank is typically the joints. I'm glad to hear you strengthened them :D... I would hate to see your fish flopping on the floor.

EPIC-ness!!!

(subscribing the s#it out of this thread.)

Looking supreme ! Is that glass covering your overflow box ? You must of enjoyed having it built at home, seeing the whole thing come together. That's also up my sleeve.

<New Content Posted>

Planning the ATO (Automatic Top Off)..........<moved to 38 - Changed status to draft>

Pretext: I’ve had my ATO fail while on holidays. This caused the sump return chamber to completely evaporate leading to a subsequent failure of the return pump. After fixing the ATO and replacing the return pump, the ATO did what it was supposed to do and pumped 10 gallons of saturated Kalk water (pH 12.4) back into the system. The result was a pH spike reaching upwards of 9.5. While I was able to recover from this without a tank crash and better yet, without losing any wildlife, it drove home the importance of a reliable ATO. In my opinion, it is one of the more critical components and can potentially fail without warning.

Wow!!!!!!!!!
 

Amazing how a quick look on the computer can generate such green eyed monster feelings................:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen :

Looking forward to seeing this develop!

Absolutely fantastic build. The level of detail and planning incorpotated into the build (as well as the great explanations) could (should?!) be made into a How-To for those looking at building large tanks. You seem to have all your bases covered on your build.

I do have one question, however:

In regards to the steel design (and redesign) I've noticed that on the stand that the aquarium isn't actually sitting on the back brace where you've added the additional support and the entire backside seems to be for the benefit of the overflow alone. You were very concerned in this build early on about having enough support but from my (rather limited, forgive me) knowledge it seems like you are ignoring the rear re-enforcement entirely. Can you give me the rationale for it?

I really hope this doesn't come off as a flame/troll post (it's not I assure you :) ) I just found it a little odd the way the tank fits on the stand.

Again, fantastic tank journal; it's making me itch for an upgrade :D