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reefwars 55g natural seawater custom build from scratch:*check out the new rockscape*
so after all that here i am again starting another build, i sold off all my stuff and kept some little things here and there to start another tank.some hard times seen me have to move back home and knowing i probably would pay out the azzzzz for a tank here on the rock i decided to take some glass home with me and build my own tank from scratch;)
the tank i have choosen to build is a 55 gallon cube 23.5" all around it is drilled for a herbie using 1 1/2" and 1" plumbing.the tank is all polished and beveled edges.it will have a diy stand which i will build and i will also be building a diy sump from a large bin(keeping my eyes out for something that will fit)the sump will be pretty basic and pretty much just a giant refuge.not sure if im going to run a skimmer ...short term ..no long term....yes.i have kept my halides and my ballast good for 3 x 250w halides and 4x 54w t5's so ill add some later for my frag tanks right from the same ballast:):)the tank will eventualy run full zeo but that will be down the road once we mature a bit and get stocked:) i was able to buy 5 pieces of glass which i wrapped like no tomorrow lol the glass was 24" x 24" x 12mm i had one of the pieces cut to fit for the bottom and drilled in three places in the bottom for a herbie style silent overflow. i placed the glass into two packages one with 3 panes and another with 2 panes and a piece of black acrylic....wrapped in bubble wrap then in 1" styrofaom...bubble wrapped again lol and covered in cardboard.....then put wrapping plastic around like you wouldnt believe lol:):) by taking it on the plane with me i didnt have to pay for shipping:):) glad to say it all made it down no problems at all........... not so glad to say i broke it when fitting it together dry here at home...knoched a fine chunk off the corner:( so i went and got a replacement piece which was half the cost of what i payed for everything in the first place:( and after getting it i realized i gave him the wrong measurements.......i had origionally planned the tank a different way and gave the guy those measurements instead of the new measurements i had made that day:( just a great start eh lol my own fault for reading him the measurements and not looking at the drawing ...grrr sooooooo now i have a new project two pieces of glass need to have 1" taken off them in order to keep my cube shape......i wont settle for an uneven cube lol so it was off to the workroom and to set up the wet saw and with a little luck i would just cut it off;) glad to say it worked like a charm and was just as smooth as what the glass guy had cut for my bottom piece .....whew that was a relief lol:):) so today i started putting the puzzle together and with some alcohol(not the drinking kind lol) some tape,level,square,clamps,paper i got to building my cube....glad to say it all worked out great and the tank is now in one piece waiting for the silicone to cure.......two weeks to be safe before i touch it again or think about adding water:):) i will be installing a coast to coast overflow with privacy glass so as not to see the plumbing and i have the returns being split into two via loc-lines which i took home with me:) retrn is 600gph i also decided to take live rock home with me as its 11.99/lb here on the rock so i have about 35-45 lbs and will be buying another 50lbs from eco reefer i have it curing now in a bucket as each individual piece spent 12 hrs wrapped it wet newpaper and then wrapped in bubble wrap and wrapping plastic then boxed and shipped down....also free from the plane;) all the rock came from my zoa tank and was full of life when i sent it so alot should have been preserved;) ill be using natural seawater for this tank and constantly checking to see what needs to be dosed as ive heard its not very consistent;) im living in a very remote location where sewers or anything man made isnt an issue....pure ocean here baby!!!!!! plus im only about 200 ft from the water lol:):) not sure what im going to stock just yet obviousy if you know me it will be a zoa dominated cube plus some other goodies:):) theres a phase two to this tank which is the fragtanks and yes i said tanks lol once i choose what skimmer i will run i will be running 4 x fragtanks none of them huge but most likey in the 40g breeder range.....ill have to make them too as it seems the prices here are out of whack lol but once i get my cube running and matured a bit ill be building some frag tanks in a bookcase style fashion one over the other and it will sit beside my cube......the basement its in is unfinished and we are talking about doing a fishroom so im not 100% certain of how im going to do this but if i go the fishroom route then it will be alot easier to plumb with alot of crap out of the way;) ill be adding some pics in abit as soon as they upload to show where i am in the build and i have a video as well of me and my friend cutting the glass through the wet saw if anyone wants to see how simple it is:):) cheers guys and tell me what you think??;) pics very very soon:):) |
Sounds like you've had an interesting adventure so far, can't wait to see pic.'s of your new set up. Hope all is well with you :biggrin: BTW now that you've moved you should change location in your user profile :wink:
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Question...
So knowing that sea water varies around the world... are you actually sure that it is suitable for tropical species of fish? Our ocean water seems very different from say... Australia/Hawaii... so just curious. I have never heard of this in Canada... only in warmer climates. Pics yet? |
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theres quite a few on this side doing it by this side i mean atlantic ocean, from what i gather salinity is a little low as my water was only at 1.020 and alot of stuff may need to be dosed but ill soon know enough, so far ive only tested for phosphates and amonia .i have some rock curing now in a bucket and ill actually do a full on test here soon but i figure ill have to add a little bit of everything....salt here is very expensive and the savings of not buying it is worth it to dose for the sake of 5-10g a week:) im going to have to use the small skimmer i have now(just a crappy wei-pro to skim my sea water before i use it in my tank....probably gonna use prime as well......good idea anyone?? for the first while ill be testing all new water constantly for everything untill i can get an idea of what is real low or high:):) |
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thanks laurie glad to say i survived the flight...barely lol worst flight ever lol im happy with the new build so far but it seems like ive got my work cut out for me as theres not a whole lot of places to get the things i need :) thanks for the profile tip ill be changing here right away lol but i did get my sig shortened to the point where its not crashing the canreef forumn anymore because of its size lol:):):):) |
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pics are being uploaded to photobucket right now should be done soon and the video will be on tomorrow as youtube is sooooo slow on uploading vids lol:):) thanks for the interest guys :) miss you all:):) |
YAY!!! DENNY!!! glad you're back!!! PICS DAMNIT
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So change your location to NEWFOUNDLAND, don't pretend that you are in ALberta shame on you
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I was just going to say, where the hell is there ocean in alberta?!?!.... I almost felt like an american for a second. That was distressing..... |
Awesome news Denny! To bad for the airline for cracking your glass especially how well you packaged it. I guess it could have been worse though :wink:
Good luck with the sea water, can you just order salt for cheaper? Set up some sort of group buy maybe... |
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unfortunately it was me who broke the glass lol never really broke right across just a little bit off the corner but when i put it all together theres a good inch missing from the corner so i didnt want to take any chances and made anotherplus it would have looked like crap lol;) im sure i could order salt for cheaper as alot of the stuff i buy will be online anyways but im doing it as my own little project as well:) ill make the decision as the first corals are going in whether or not i stay with it or not:):) as far as fish go as you all know....not much of a fish fan lol so im not sure yet what ill add prob just a clown or two and some shrimp:):) |
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yes asmodeus sir!! (in my loudest military voice) hehe getting right on it ;) |
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Good luck with the new build. :smile: |
hummmmm so i guess now its time to get to making the mess lol so i put some paper down and broke out the alcohol i gave all the edges a good cleaning for one final time and i got to glueing......glad to say it came out bubble free and everything was perfectly square....glad i leveled off the table completey before building lol:):)
silicone turned out great i wanted to go black but it cant be got here and i dont want to order it or spend countless hours calling around for who "may" have some thats safe to use in reefs lol so i went with the GE clear:):) once it sets completey ill trim off any excess with a blade and pretty it up but right now in its rawform its looking good to me;) enough ol gabbing heres the pics ;) http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 i didnt get any pics of me actually sealing it because i didnt want to get silicone on the camera and i really wanted to just get my glass on and everything done as fast as i could so the silicone didnt skim over......total put together time once i had it all cleaned and paper down.....about 20mins:):) here is the final stage as its drying now......in a few days ill do a little trimming of some excess silicone and get to installing the overflow which is just a single piece of glass about 4 inches from the back......unsure yet as to whether or not im gonna do a eurobrace....????? any suggestions?? http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1298252901 hope you enjoyed it so far more to come shortly plus i have a video of me cutting a full sheet of glass through the wet saw;) |
heres a link to the vide of us cutting the glass:):)
http://s924.photobucket.com/albums/a...t=IMG_0953.mp4 *****edit****--------should probably add this is not intended for a lesson and wouldnt recommend anyone to do as i do.....im slightly crazy;) so follow at your own risk:)cheers cheers!!! |
Sweet pictures! Really nice silicone job :biggrin:
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lookin good so far :biggrin: Sorry to hear your flight sucked, but at least you made it.
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That didn't take long for you to get back at it, looks good Denny :biggrin:
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Denny where's your PPE? look it's on your hat!:lol:
I knew it wouldn't be long before your return! Great start. |
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hahaha for the first one was wearing them but like always they dont end up getting used lol youd think after 15yrs of doing construction id be on that but.....nope lol:):) told yee all i was slighly nuts besides if i had of gotten any glass in my eye i just would have picked it out with another piece of glass lol ......:nono: |
thanks guys, so far its been the cheapest build yet lol im still waiting on some goodies to come in the mail here soon then ill have some more updates:):)
im going to get to building my tiny stand and grabbing some pvc here in the next few days, i have all my fittings and the gate valve needed for the herbie and return just need some pvc lengths to join it all together:):) |
Did you have any skin irritation when you used your hand to wipe the water back into the saw?
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haha nope lol after plaing guitar and drums for around 20 yrs and consruction for 15yrs its safe to say my hands are as tough coraline;) heres a fun crazy fact about me: i once ate a handful of fiberglass insulation to show someone it doesnt itch.........yup.......slighlty borderline nuts!! hehehe cheers:) man i want that zoa colony your selling!!!!! ;);) |
Hey Denny, glad you made it home safely! Its good to see youre making a lot of progress on your tank in such a short time, cant wait to see it running. Take care buddy :)
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thanks john buddy, glad to have something going even if it is only 60g today im going out shopping for some sort of something to mount my retro fit halide.....shopping for unique lights for a cube is fun!! alot of cool ideas as opposed to your average 4' :):) updates later today!!!
cheers little buddy and thanks for the babysitting favor your a good fellow:):) |
Glad to see that you are good to go, Denny!
No down time, eh? We're missing your sunshine face and personality at our meetings. Very best of good luck and cheers!! Lenny. |
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thanks lenny i couldnt not have a tank lol glad to say theres a reefmeet here once a month and i was at my first meeting wednesday night:):) updates coming later for the cube!!!!! stay tuned and dont change that station!!!!! |
Hey Denny wheres the pics!
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Denny what type of blade where you using on the wet saw?
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hahaha funny you should ask as ive gotten all my plumbing supplies today, wasnt easy i tell ya but its all figured out now....so tonight i will fill and test for leaks and then do the plumbng tomorrow.... herbie style overflow. ill have some pics here right away, ive also built the stand and its now ready for what ever i decide. im thinking just tile nothing too crazy. ive also got my light ready and its just a retrofit 250w metal halide so im going to mount the light to something cool me and a friend stumbled upon the other day.....its a giant curved leaf about 2' high and metal or steel in color....and is steel lol on the leaf will be mounted a small metal box the same as the leaf is made from and in that box facing down my actual light will go so it will look like the leaf is curved over the tank;) we hit just about every home decor store and department store on the island and took about 1000 pics of different things together before we came up with this;) its gonna lok pretty cool with the stone stand.... pics soonnot much hapened over the past week or so as ive been letting the tank harden so tonight i fill for a test:):) cheers:) |
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just your standard diamond blade, gold series at home depot for $20 .......nothing fancy ;) |
Hey - The tank looks great so far. I'm jumping on early so I don't have to catch up later :smile:
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edit****
sorry gonna repost as my pics didnt upload....stay tuned;) |
the number of pictures retrictions on this site is f ing stupid....two hours typing up **** and 60 pics and cant upload it.....bullshit!!!
p.s- to the maker of apple computers i am going to seriously burn my laptop in the woodstove tonight!! lol:):) |
Hey Denny use photobucket and just give us the link to the album, itll make your life a little easier :)
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Hey Denny use photobucket and just give us the link to the album, itll make your life a little easier :)[/quote]
yeah i use photobucket but i didnt put the link down i guess thats what ill have to do it just rots me that i spent hours typing up this stuff and it tells me i have 60 pics on there when i only had less than thirty but apparently it counts the " img" as a image plus any smiles so .....giant waste of time ....i tried splitting it up into 2 posts and i get nothing but question marks for my pics...grrr!!! anyways heres the links if anyone wants to view through .... http://s924.photobucket.com/albums/a...ustom%20build/ |
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Lol. |
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hahaha its def the user lol i do ike it im just use to windows lol you wouldnt believe how long it took me to even figure out how to copy and paste stuff:):) |
haha.... my boss has this saying whenever there's a computer problem. He calls it a PIC problem, as in Problem In Chair!
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