My Half in, half out of wall 330 starfire build.
 

Huge work in progress, but I feel I am far enough in to start a thread and not have it move too slowly.
I started with a 90g in my condo, and once I bought my house I knew a bigger tank is what I needed, so a 330g 72x32x32. So to start I bought a 220g sump (72x30x22) to house the occupants of the 90g from my condo till I could afford to build the Display.

Started by spending hours figuring out how the basement will look. (Did this before I even had possession.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8...6f9a9291_c.jpg
The tank is 2/3's in the living room, and 1/3 in the fish/furnace room.

Walls going up.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8086/8...c6a6ab69_c.jpg

Walls kinda up, dry walled and painted the important ones. And put up a two tube 8' T8 fixture.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8...5228fc09_c.jpg
Huge mess, the sump turned temp holding tank is full of water and a bunch of live rock added.

Decided I needed a frag tank, and couldn't find room, so I hung it from the ceiling. You can see my skimmer and diy led fixtures.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8234/8...2f5524ba_c.jpg

After a few months the money to order the tank was available, so time to build the stand.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8095/8...ea23cc7b_c.jpg
It's all glued and screwed.

My saltwater mixing station, 20g fresh water barrel on top of a 45g salt mixing station. It's piped to the sump now, not pictured.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8090/8...59265a5a_c.jpg

Putting the top and bracing on the stand.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8367/8...6306152c_c.jpg

Because the tank is half in the wall I needed to have a table for them to build the tank on. Tank is 72x32x32.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8514/8...345992f9_c.jpg

Tank is built, black vinyl on the sides, black acrylic on the back.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8...256fec1a_c.jpg

Bad news though, they scratched the main glass.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8249/8...9d275e74_z.jpg
1.5" scratch that was pretty much dead center and eye level. sigh.

Replacement front glass....
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8231/8...02df5615_c.jpg
Yup, that's a scratch again. same spot but a vertical scratch instead of horizontal.

How'd that 4 year old get in there?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8514/8...2d734d80_c.jpg
Thirt time was the charm for the glass.

External overflow.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8...c09f2703_c.jpg

Didn't want to take a chance with another scratch.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8513/8...90c4ba4c_c.jpg
5 bucks worth of painters tape.

And 15 bucks worth of corrugated plastic.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8368/8...72f5b2ef_c.jpg

Did I mention I hate drywall work?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8236/8...c53d134c_c.jpg

A shot of the starting of the of my plumbing, and the hanging frag tank with my sump fish tank.
Just need to finish the plumbing and wait for the silicon to dry.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8247/8...da8a001d_c.jpg



It'll be and SPS tank.
I have the following fish right now:
Gold flake angel
Chevron tang
Blue throat trigger pair
4 snowflake clowns
5 Lyretail anthias

Want to add:
Purple tang
Yellow tang
Sailfin tang
Magnificent fox face
Blonde naso


I want to put an exhaust fan in the room too, but I need the exhaust to travel about 14'. Is that ok for a normal fan? or should I do an inline type fan?

looks great!! I'd pull the vinyl off the back, its nice to be able to see everything from the back side, you wont really notice it from the front.

Thanks.
It's an acrylic panel in the back. I've never seen a tank that I can see through that I liked, so I'll leave it there though.
I'll be able to see top down pretty easy.

Really excited to see where this goes, subscribed!

Have you run your stand by an engineer yet? I'm no expert but I would be a little wary with 330g of water on top of that beasty.

Im along for this ride. Looks great so far. I do have to side with above though. But dont take me too literal as I tend to use 2X6's on a 20 gal stand. (not really but you get the idea)

Very impressive build so far.

What program did you use to sketch the layout of your basement?

Thanks, I'm excited too.

As for how much the stand can hold.... Some math borrowed from an engineer.

Facts for the discussion:
-The parallel compression rate of a 2x4 -- 4,800 psi
-The rough end measurements of a 2x4 -- 1.5" x 3.5"
-Number of 2x4 in the pictured stand -- 19

The Math behind the discussion:
The Parallel capacity:

First, we take the end measurements of the 2x4 and figure the contact area. This is

1.5 * 3.5 = 5.25

This gives us 5.25 square inches of contact are per 2x4.

Second, we figure the total area that will be in contact. Remember that we have nineteen 2x4s supporting the frame of the tank. So, we multiply the number of 2x4s by the end area of a single 2x4.

19 * 5.25 = 99.75

We have 99.75 square inches of contact area.

Third, we bring in the compression rate of the 2x4s in relation to the number of square inches of contact area.

99.75 * 4,800 = 475200.

This tells us that the stand in question will vertically support 475,200lbs, assuming all other factors remain constant.

The Perpendicular capacity:

Now you need to look at the Parallel compression of a 2x4, remembering from above, the compression strength was 440 psi.

So we bring back the surface area

19 * 5.25 = 99.75

Then we multiply by the compression strength.

99.75 x 440 = 43,890 lbs


The tank is say 600 lbs. 330g of salt water is lets say 3300 lbs, and lets say I put 500 lbs of rocks in. That's 4400 lbs on the far upper reach of what my tank could weigh. So I have a 10x safety factor, not counting how much the all the cross bracing and stuff adds to the compression strength.

I'd agree with that too. That thing has gotta be pushing 4000+lbs when full.

Thanks
Google sketch up, it's awesome.

That stand is more than overkill. Keep up the good work. What's that secret room next to the stairs for?
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