Dez' Tank Journal

[Dez]

Just a side question here....does it matter what thickness of foam that goes under the tank? I have some 3/8" stuff that's supposed to be used on the outside of houses before siding. It's got a reflective foil on one side and green on the other. It's pretty soft. Does it matter? Thanks.

Des

[Dez]

Today I painted the plywood on my stand so that at least it'll be nicer to look at until there's a skirt around the stand and fish to look at. Here's the final product (sorry for poor quality pics, all pictures in this thread are taken with a cell phone camera):



Now that the tank is almost ready to go in, I decided to silicone the overflow box onto the tank. As usual, I cleaned the glass with newspaper and vinegar, masked off the area for a "clean" look and went at it. Here are the pictures:



I still have to razor blade off the excess silicone from when I built the box itself. But here is the picture freshly siliconed:



I was pleased with the bubble free joints:



And this is what the tank looks like with all the masking tape off. I'll let it cure for a day before even moving the tank.



Thanks for looking everyone. Sorry that this build is so slow and uneventful.

[Delphinus]

Don't apologize dude, this thread progresses just fine.

[Dez]

More progress. I put foam on my tank a yesterday and then my family wanted to lie down on the tank stand . My daughter joined in later. I almost took a snooze on it.



Then with the help on my 2 neighbours I lifted the tank into place. At first I grabbed one neighbour and he tried but didn't trust himself to lift it, so later we grabbed another neighbour and we got her in. My neighbour then proceeded to lift up one corner of my mini since he was in the "lifting" mood. He got the car up about an inch in one corner....yikes.

Here's a picture looking from the living room.


Here's a picture from the den side, my tolerances were tight. I have about an eighth of an inch on either side of the tank and my overflow is about an eighth of an inch away from the wall. I'm so glad it fit:


The external overflow - the 2" bulkhead in the bottom of my tank is the intake for my closed loop.


Tonight I decided to make my first piece of aragocrete. The idea is to make a piece of rock around a 2" plumbing "Y" to use as an intake for my closed loop. I hate the idea of the strainer and trying to hide it with rocks, so I'm making a strainer rock.

Here is the Y with a ton of holes drilled. I've kept the shavings to add to my aragocrete mix to make it more porous.



Here's another couple of pictures with straws inserted so that there will be holes to suck water in from. The balloons are to prevent my aragocrete mix from going into the fitting.





And finally, my artwork. Hopefully the backside turns out alright. I think I'll put the backside toward the overflow side cause it's going to be rather "flat". The reason I'm using a Y is to try to create more surface area for the suction to create less "suction" points. I don't know if that makes sense. Not to great with words. Hopefully you're enjoying this slow tank build.

[subman]

what a great idea can't wait to see more!

[Dez]

Thanks Subman. I forgot to mention that after the aragocrete cures, hopefully I'll be able to pull all those straws out. *cross my fingers*, worse case scenario, I'll cut 'em flush and they'll be eventually covered in coraline algae anyway.

[golf nut]

You might want to do some math, you need about 165 drinking straws to handle a 2 inch feed, likely twice that much considering the friction loss, starving a pump is going to cause nothing but grief.unless your plan is to leave the ends of the wye open as well.

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Mr OM

You might want to do some math, you need about 165 drinking straws to handle a 2 inch feed, likely twice that much considering the friction loss, starving a pump is going to cause nothing but grief.

Ahhhh.....you wonder why I have balloons covering all parts of the Y....it's because I took your advice and I'm just going to use eggcrate to cover the two 2" holes at the Y. The straws are just "extra" to spread it out even more. I really did take all of your advice to heart and am planning it the way you suggested. Instead, I didn't use a T, cause a Y takes up less space. You wanted me to draw water from top down, so that's what I'm doing.

Thanks for the advice.