280g Inwall

[lastlight]

Update looks awesome to me Tony. I think you were the one to say to me 'it photographs well' and we can't see and imperfections in yoor walls so you're actually allowed to pass it all off as perfect. Disclaimers for those that visit in person. Those are the rules man!

See what you mean about that brace and your pump. Just roll with it as is and 'see what happens' I'm sure you're fine.

The skimmer looks like a nightmare to take care of and I can only say good luck. You'll have to weigh the cost of the custom fabrication against something that's good value for the money like SWC etc. Or maybe it's worth it for now to just suffer the screws and do the weld-on thing?

Good points about threaded fittings. I went that route as well this time and yeah why bother worrying about re-use. It meants buying a ton more threaded parts to get to a slip fitting anyways. All slip again for me the next time around (years away!).

Looks like a really nice fishroom though I'm jealous as frag.

[Delphinus]

Thanks Brett and Mitch! It's finally nice to see a room with drywall. I want to hurry up and move the fish over so I can finish up the rest of the basement. Living in the construction zone for this long is starting to get a little old.

And yeah, Brett, I think you're right about the skimmer. Might just be further ahead to just fix it for now and get it going and just save up for a replacement sooner rather than later. It is a good skimmer, the tank it was on was a 230 with a 75g add-on and it seemed to handle the load well. So it should at least be able to get me started and I can worry about the rest later on.

[Lance]

Looking good Tony! Nice, neat, organized build.
I always try to go with slip fittings if possible. Like Brett said: "You nearly always end up with slip anyway."

[Pescador]

Nice work Tony, looks great. Save some room for froggies and fruit flies.
What are you planning for water mixing and top up?

[Delphinus]

Thanks Lance and Brian!

Brian to be honest I haven't much thought of what to do with that. Currently I have a rain barrell for RO/DI and a rubbermaid garbage can mixing SW. It's not food grade or anything so it's probably a terrible thing to use but on the other hand it has a few years worth of calcium buildup on the sides so it's really more of a calcium based tank with a plastic underlayer. I'll keep these going for now although it would be nice to switch to a glass based tank for SW mixing at some point.

Funny you've mentioned the frogs. Kien and I had to go to Atlanta together for work a couple weeks ago (we were working on the same project), to amuse ourselves in the evenings one time we went to the botanical gardens and then another day to the aquarium. Both places have nice dart frog displays and it's rekindled the interest in me in setting up a dart viv, either with some auratus or some azureus. But I've promised myself "no new projects" until this one is done (it's been embarrassingly long as it is, I can't believe how pathetic I am ) but I might just use it as the carrot on a stick to get this tank filled as soon as possible. How are your froggies doing these days? Any pictures you can share so we can live vicariously through the internet?

[Pescador]

I'm still using a rubbermaid can and the Lee Valley barrel myself.
As an afterthought on mine I would have run more RO lines in the wall with some kind of John Guest wall jacks.

Froggies are doing fantastic thanks I still have the same 3 leucs, only 1 orchid left but the broms and everything else grows like mad.

[Delphinus]

That looks fantastic!!

[PoonTang]

Very nice setup so far! I cant wait to see the finished product in action.

[christyf5]

Great work Tony!! Its all coming together now! Keep up the momentum and remember, you can sleep when you're dead

[reefcanada]

It's looking very good Tony, can't wait to see it full.