Cheryl's 165 Gallon upgrade

[CherylMcKay]

So I have finally had a bit of time to do some work on the 150 gallon tank. I purchased the glass for the overflow and decided I was going to use 1/4 inch glass. I am quite happy with the strength of it, although it took longer to drill my holes then ususal. Here it is all covered with tape and siliconed on the inside.


I have drilled the holes as close to the back as I can, leaving enough room for the bulkhead flange. It is going to be 7 inches by 7 inches (including 2 inches of egg crate).


Here is my poor empty tank, waiting for the overflow to be attached and then the plumbing to be done, again.


The pipes will run down the back of the tank and then a 90 degree to then run into the holes in the middle of the tank. I will pile the my rock over the pipes to hide them, but it saves me from trying to lay this beast on it's side to drill through the 1/2 inch glass. Big sigh, deep breath and lets try to get it right this time. I have decided that I need some new toys too.... I will add photo's as they arrive.

My fish and livestock are now in my 75 Gallon, a little crowded but so far everyone is getting along.

[CherylMcKay]

This long weekend has been great for getting things done on the tank. I had installed the overflow a couple of weekends ago and this weekend, I finsished the plumbing, the rock covers for the plumbing and actually got water in it.

The plumbing was fairly easy, just a matter of making sure I had all the cuts proper and wasn't stressing any bulkheads. Here is the overflow full syphon and the emergency. I did try to follow the herbie style...

The overflow is 48 " long and I centered it the best I could but as the tank is so heavy I had to do it while it was upright... what a pain. I knew I could deal with anything being off with the PVC and I did. The return pipes are not truely 90 degrees to the back of the tank.

I had been reading alot of threads where people were making rock walls on the back of thier tanks and I thought this would be an awesome way to hide the return pipes that have to run in the display tank. I took some egg crate, rocks (I had a bunch I had to kill off) and low expansion foam (pond variety and fish safe), zip ties and went to work. I made the frame so it would sit at the back of the tank around the PVC. I made it in 2 pieces, so I can remove it if I have to do any work on the pipes (God I hope not), an upright piece to cover the back pipe and a horizontal piece to cover the last strech going into the bottom of the tank. Once I foamed the peices, I poured some of my sand on them to cover the black foam.
The left side vertical piece:

The left side horizontal piece:

The left side assembled over the pipe:

Here is a FTS with the sand in the bottom and both sides in and assembled:

I had set them into place, using a little silicone and some foam at the back corners, and then let them cure overnight. I still have some live rock in a couple of holding tanks that will fill in some more space, but because I had to dry out this rock, I wanted it to cycle for a while without the live rock so I don't kill anything important. I figure I am going to get some major spikes from this stuff as it died when one of my holding tanks crashed, due to major bristle worm die off.... It was a small tank and the heater stuck on... major die off, thank god it wasn't the really good rock.

I am not the most artistic person, so I think it worked a whole lot better then I ever though it could.