280g Inwall
 

This is easily the slowest tank build in the history of Canreef. Tank was built by Interamerican/Bow Valley ... in 2005. :redface: I started on a tank stand at the time, then decided on a different design, .. then we had a kid, and in the inevitable life-gets-turned-upside-down, the process got derailed and the tank sat on my basement floor for a very long time before I got back on the horse.

Anyhow, the specs:

280g 72x30x30
Eurobraced
1/2" Starphire/Low-Iron glass on front and sides
3/4" bottom pane, 5/8" rear pane
Front pane is tempered.

Overflow is a standard corner overflow, in the left rear corner, 2-2" bulkheads. Although it wasn't the original intention, this will work well for a Herbie style overflow.

My sump will be a 100g UFA livestock watering tub... Planning on using this mostly just because I happen to have one, and I might as well do something with it. (It was my "backup plan" in case a tank got dropped when we moved into our current house.) It won't work great for baffles because it's oval in shape, but I'm hoping to avoid needing baffles by going Herbie on the overflow anyhow.

Here are pictures of the progress so far.

November 2007 - Stand more or less built, so time to put the tank on the stand.

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...g_party2-0.jpg

Not having a clue what I'm doing, mostly I go by trial and error. At this point, I decided to check the level of the tank on the stand in its final location, and I found that I had lost my level. So, I did what any self-respecting aquarist would do: I filled the tank with water. :lol:

Then I measured the water level on the corners and found that the left side was down a solid 1/2" from the right. The stand itself is perfectly square, it's the basement floor that is out that much. So I emptied the tank, shimmed the stand, and refilled. So far, seems to be holding, and seems to be level.

I'm not sure I'd recommend doing this. I wanted the stand to be more or less transportable, in the event I ever move again or decide to sell the tank. But the other way would have been to build the stand as a wall and have it levelled right at the get-go. There are probably better advantages to doing it this way over how I did it, but c'est la vie, it is what it is.

Woot! Looks familiar, Tony. I look forward to following alone and then admiring it all in person one day :)

Umm. I don't think I ALONE will be following ALONG. He he. Oops.

The first thing that struck me (you can't really see this in the photo) was that I had to have the furnace and HRV ductwork redone. There were three enormous pipes overhead that were going to interfere with the canopy and wall, so I called the place that installed the HRV and asked what options I had.

One pipe was HRV and two were furnace outlets. It turned out that the furnace outputs could be combined into one stepped up pipe. As it turns out, the HRV had been installed incorrectly when it was first installed (two years ago) so when they came by to give me an estimate, they noticed this, and told me that it was incorrect and they wanted to fix it free of charge. I was pretty happy with that. :) I had no idea it was incorrect, but I am happier with the way things are now because the pipework is far less intrusive around the furnace area now.

I don't really have any "before" pictures but I will show a picture of the piping in my next post.

I used "Air Pro Heating" for my HRV and these guys are top-notch. They were recommended to me by another Canreefer (Monza, we don't see him online too much anymore, bummer - great guy). They did an analysis based on how much air turnover and how much floor space and air volume I had, to rectify the problem of excessive humidity based on the tanks. Anyhow, anyone in Calgary considering a tank room, or even building a new house - I very highly recommend talking to these guys about an HRV.

Anyhow, more pictures!

Next up was to build some wall framing and hang a door for access into the tank room.

Seems that maybe not going about things the easiest way, but, I want walls to be flush, or near to flush with the tank, as opposed to having the walls a 2x4 thickess out from the tank.

Also, I wanted to avoid the usual "picture frame" look to a typical inwall tank because my favourite tanks are those that can be looked at from multiple angles. Ideally, if I had had the space, I would have made three sides viewable, but unfortunately I just don't have enough space to pull it off ... so the end result is the best compromise I could do, a "front and right-hand side viewable" tank.

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1090047-0.jpg

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1090048-0.jpg

As you can see, I haven't bothered draining the tank yet from my "verify the tank is level" step. :redface: That's some skanky water now, but I'm leaving it for now because I'll use it to test my plumbing when I have that ready (hopefully soon). Seems to me there's no need to waste 280g of water in the meantime. :lol:

Here's a close up of the furnace piping. "If I knew then what I know now", I'd have sprung for 9' ceilings in the basement. With 8', there are definitely a lot of low spots to work around due to things like this.

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1090049-0.jpg

Currently, I'm at a bit of a standstill because the joists have more flex to them than I anticipated. I only have 1/2" of clearance between the framing and the top of the tank, and it appears that if someone walking in the living room directly above, hits the "sweet spot", there is about 1/2" of flex in the whole joists. This means the framing actually can contact the tank. Not good.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to solve this. The drywall should take out some of the flex but I'm not sure I want to rely on the drywall to prevent my tank becoming a "load bearing wall."

I might try some cross-bracing, or, I might end up putting a corner post on the right. This second option should work well but it would involve some creativity on the finish to keep it looking good. My main hope is to avoid it looking like an afterthought (even if it IS an afterthought).

Bummer...not picturing what is happening though...

Put a big red X on the Sweet spot and make everyone who enters your abode sign a disclaimer form. Sheesh some people make things so difficult.:)

Hey Tony,

Looks great so far - and ya that is taking your time. One thing I woud recommend is not using that rubbermaid container as a sump. I did this myself initially and was ultimately not pleased with it. Pick-up a used sump, or ever make one yourself either with a new stock tank or a used tank. Dave

looks goof there Tony. I like the way that you framed in the tank.

Yah I'm building my tank in wall right now to. Just saw how you did yours, now I want to change it and build it like you did. Seeing down the sides is a really cool feature, especially on in wall tanks.

Did you ever consider having access from the front of the tank? With that depth and height it is going to be fun reaching from the back.

Take a look at the results of a google search on "sister joist". This additional joist support may help remove the flex.

Looks good! Good luck on solving your "sweet spot" problem. It was cool to have seen it with water this past week (skanky or otherwise).

hey tony your best bet for that flex is to put another joist right beside it...in other words to double it up, that should stop it from flexing and will still look the way you want it to in the end!!

Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far! Yeah, I haven't ruled anything out. I did get started on the cross-bracing but ran into a couple of problems ... mostly, the joists aren't sitting perfectly square so a 2x10 cut to the right length doesn't fit right! I end up with gaps on the diagonals. :neutral: Well, and, well, I guess I didn't do enough cross braces because it didn't seem like it was helping at all.

@ Gools - I did consider front access but (for better for for worse) I have decided against it for now. I'm thinking of trying to make this along the same lines as untamed's tank or Superfudge's tank - on the viewing side there is only viewing. If you've ever been in my basement you know that it's a howling sensation of fan noise, pump noise, overflow sloshing .... in this project I want to be able to hear the tank as little as possible in the main room. I'm even thinking of putting in sound insulation into the framing to this end.

I guess I haven't shown much details about the stand - so I guess that's the next few things I'll try to take pictures of. There is a catwalk along the back edge so that I can stand with my feet at the same level as the bottom of the tank - which should help some. I'm only 5'9" (or thereabouts) so reaching into a 30" tall tank is a challenge anyhow. :)

@wickedfrags - yeah, it may only be a temporary thing anyhow. The main thing though is that it will work to get me going - down the road I can look at building a proper sump. The costs associated with a tank this size are more than I'd like, so to compensate, I'm phasing in purchases for some things, and making do with what I have for other things in the meantime.

Anyhow thanks all for the comments! Hopefully having this thread open will be a motivation to show progress in a more timely manner from this point forward! :)

Well I'll be damned, you're way farther along than I thought. You might even get it finished this year!!! :razz:

:biggrin: <--this is me, note I'm not holding my breath :wink: Just kidding.

Hi Tony,

If the crossbracing isn't working out, and the joist spaces have mechanicals running through them that would prevent sistering of the joists,I have a couple of other suggestions:

-It looks like your door frame wall is extending into the floor joist space above. The best way to frame and attach a wall to a ceiling is to first place blocks between the joist space above where you want the wall, then build and attach the wall to that height. Usually you place blocks every 24" for drywall backing, but the structure of the door wall will also add some stiffness to the floor above.
Glue and screw the blocks to help even more.
Maybe use that 2 x 10 for the blocks and place them every 16" or even 12".

or

-re-frame the bulkhead above the aquarium to allow for the flex and cover the space with moulding trim.

Mitch

When I think about it...

If that door wall is actually extending into the floor joist space above,you will have to re-frame it anyways, because you will have flexing at the ceiling-wall joint.
That will give you constant drywall cracks.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news....

Mitch

Maybe not entirely reframe the wall with the door. To save reinstalling the door maybe try cutting the studs in place and install the upper plate as Carpentersreef noted.

Thanks guys. I haven't ruled anything out at this point, seems like there are plenty of options.

The amount of flex shows up the most on the corner of the bulkhead. The door wall doesn't really extend upwards into the joist space as much as it looks like it does in the photos. Well, it does extend up into there, but only in that it the top piece is resting on the exterior wall (same shelf that the joists sit on). I have 2x4's flanking this piece holding firm to the adjacent joists. There is some flex but it seems like only about 0.5cm? I wasn't worried about it until you mentioned it.

(Having said that, I'm not sure I'm still terribly worried because I was hoping to go with a drop ceiling instead of drywall ceiling.) Nevertheless I can put some more studs in place as you describe. Unfortunately I don't see this solving the bulkhead bounce issue, but I think I'll try the joist-sistering and see how it goes. I was thinking maybe sistering the one joist in question that seems to be giving the most bounce, and then cross bracing after that right at the spot. (Disclaimer: I'm still reading up on that method so if I say anything here that doesn't make sense, it's because I haven't finished my homework on that one.)

Yeah Tony!!! Look at you go. Things are really shaping up over there and looking good. Won't be long before you're up and running. Call me whenever you need a hand.:smile:

What where you planning on for return flow? Is there a link for info on Herbie overflow, I hadn't heard of one till just a few days ago?

@Greg - Thanks!! I'm started to get excited, it's starting to look like a tank!!

@ J.Llow - I have a Sequence Dart lined up for sump return duty. It might be a bit overkill but so I'll probably dial it back with a gate valve or a ball valve until I can get a frag tank/refugium online (in which case I'll T off of it). Or, if it looks like the tank can handle the pump at full bore, I'll do that. :) If you valve a pump back it actually consumes less electricity, so that's kind of a neat trick. More head pressure seems like it should be more work, but it means the impeller turns less fast and consumption is based on motor speed instead of motor load.

A Herbie overflow is one where you have two drains in your overflow. One is an emergency backup, one is the "main drain." The main drain you throttle back with a valve so that the water drains at the same speed as the sump return. The end of the pipe is submerged in the sump, so there's no splashing. No air gets into the drain, and thus this eliminates microbubbles. Plus, it's nice and quiet.

The downside is that it's risky to have a valve on an overflow, if a snail or something gets in there, it could block the overflow. Hence, the emergency backup pipe. If for some reason water slows down in the main drain, the emergency backup pipe takes over.

Here's a link with more info - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=344892

Dude! You beat me to it again! :rofl:

It doesn't need more studs (the vertical pieces that make up the wall), the wall should be shorter in height (the thickness of the top plate - 1-1/2"), blocks placed between the 2 joists above then the wall top plate screwed up into those blocks.

With the structure of the wall beneath those blocks, it will act as a support for the joists, and the added support will reduce the flex of nearby joists.

Mitch

Wow Tony things are coming along. Looks good.

Ok guess I'm getting messed on terminology. I didn't mean vertical studs, I meant the blocks you were talking about. I still don't see that as fixing the problem with the bulkhead though because the door wall is within 4 feet against an exterior wall (ie., a spot where minimal flexing is anticipated), whereas the bulkhead corner is at least two joists away and within a couple of feet of the centre of the joist (ie., a spot where maximum flexing is anticipated). The more I read about sister joists however, and couple that with some cross-bracing, makes me think that there is merit in at least trying that before undoing all my framing ... :neutral:

reply
 

It worked! (inside joke)

Tagging along.

Interesting...the wall above my tank is just a 2x2 frame. I may just have gotten lucky as I've not seen any flexing from people walking directly above the tank.

Hi Brad, do you have a gap between the frame and the tank or the frame and the ceiling? I looked specifically at your thread and it looked to me like it's resting on the tank straight to the ceiling? I thought maybe you were able to get away with this because you have an acrylic tank ... Or maybe you just don't have a bouncy flexy joist like I do. I'm starting to suspect these engineered joists that I have are supposed to be bouncy and flexy. Which is great for reducing noise but not so great in this scenario.

Oh well, I have high hopes for the sister-joists method .. I've gone and bought the lumber but just due to the nature of the work I'm unable to put it up by myself. My wife is about 7.5 months pregnant and suffering from every pregnancy related ailment so I've been .. kind of not asking her for help. I have to wait until some poor unsuspecting other person comes along. The next person to ring my doorbell to tell me about Jehovah's Witnesses or sell me a Calgary Herald is in for a surprise. :lol:

No, no gap at all to the ceiling. There's a strip of foam door insulation between the frame and the tank. I put that foam there to prevent the wood from sitting directly on top of the tank where it would get wet.

While the frame is connected to walls on the left and right, it isn't connected to the ceiling at all. That means that the weight of the overhead wall/doors is largely resting on the tank. I suppose that an acrylic tank lets me get away with that.

Like I said...I think I just got lucky because I didn't consider ceiling flex at all.

:lol: :lol:

Mitch

:eek:

Mitch

Well, a year has passed so it's time to resurrect this thread and show to the world just how pathetically slow I am at getting this project going.

In my defense, there have been some massive challenges to overcome that have nothing to do with how to set up a tank .. but everything to do with how to (or how not to) build a house and/or renovate a basement.

Highlights:
- Removing flex from the ceiling
- Painting concrete
- Finding the floor drain that I paid the housebuilders to put in. Apparently I didn't pay them enough to put in the floor drain because when I lifted the cover it was just a 3" pipe end encased in concrete. Oh there were swear words as I sat there and chipped at the floor for about 6 hours trying to get the pipe open.
- Building a light frame and then discovering that my furnace and HRV vents overlap the tank too much and I have a problem on my hands. I SHOULD have just said "to heck with it" and moved the tank over 12" ... but I was stubborn to my belief that I've picked the best spot for the tank and I'm just going to work with it as best I can. Big time headache that nearly had me throwing the towel on this project in earlier this year. Next house I build (which will be never, hopefully), but if I do find myself in the position, I'm springing for nine foot ceilings. I've learned that lesson...

Overall it's been a bit of a tough year for me in the hobby so I've taken long breaks at times while considering my next moves. I might also have had a second kid which tends to shake your life upside down for a bit. :lol: But anyhow, enough excuses, and onto the updates.

I'll start with the floor. I opted to paint the concrete because I thought that would be easier and quicker than lino. I was probably wrong.

It turns out you need to "etch" concrete, preferably with muriatic acid, before you can paint it. Home Depot would not sell me muriatic acid .. "Are you nuts? That stuff is far too dangerous." Uhhh thanks guys, but the paint YOU sold me said I have to in the instructions? I finally found a guy working there who knew of an alternative though, so off I went.

But first, the floor drain. I had a floor drain installed by the housebuilders. But I never thought to look at it. I finally popped the cover off and found .. it was not a floor drain but just a pipe encased in concrete.

I didn't think to take a picture of it initially. After about 6 hours of bashing the concrete with a sledgehammer and chisel, and a hearty dose of swearing, I got it to this point..
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p7270005-0.jpg

Hard to tell in the photo but the pipe isn't even centred in the hole. Technically, I should have just jackhammered the concrete, installed a proper drain and repour concrete, but that was just not on the table. I just worked the concrete until it's a basic funnel shape and left it at that for now.

Here's Tasha inspecting the drain hookup from the laundry sink. You can tell she's thinking "WTF?"
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p7270003-0.jpg

Plumbing installed (hot and cold lines, I used 3/4" pipe) and drain installed:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p7270001-0.jpg

I opted for 3/4" line because I thought it might be better for the RO/DI feedline, the more pressure for RO, the better.

I also subverted the household pressure regulator so I get about 96psi at the tap and a reasonable output from the RO/DI.

I don't have a picture handy but one thing I did that was a sort of "oops" was install the regulator back on the household supply backwards. OOOPS. It makes a rather interesting sound as it slams shut at the speed of sound and you wonder why there's no water coming out of any taps in your house .... :lol:

Here's the first pass of the aluminium light frame.

It's had to be modified because it doesn't fit over the tank thanks to those %$#%$!#!! furnace/HRV vents overlapping the tank. There's been a few choice swear words uttered over this particular predicament. We'll see how it turns out..

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p7270007-0.jpg

With the Lumenarc mini's ..
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p7270008-0.jpg

Here's the inside of the canopy. I chose plywood instead of drywall for this side because I think it will hold up to moisture and humidity better.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1020001-0.jpg

I'm using quarter round on the inside corners just to help keep humidity out of the ceiling. Here's my triple-mitre job, I'm pleased how that turned out. :lol:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1020002-0.jpg

Finished painting..
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1030003-0.jpg

And just how it looks from the outside..
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...p1030004-0.jpg

Starting to look like a tank!! Yay.

There's still so much ground to cover that I get queasy thinking about it. My goals for the next two weeks are:

- Install the HRV vent covers

- Install the barndoor hangers for the light frame, and hang the light frame in place

- Get the electrical done

- Get the tank plumbing done.

That might be enough for me to get water and rock into the tank and start cycling, while I finish off the rest of the room (ie., drywall the walls inside the tank room and on the tank display side, get the decorative moulding in place on the front side and so on).

You are making me want to get 3 lumenarcs too now Tony.

Progress!!
 

Congrats Tony!!

It's good to see this starting to come together

Cheers!

Rattler