225gal in-wall predatory mixed reef upgrade

[whatcaneyedo]

By late Sunday night I had the plumbing complete and most of the equipment set up. The live rock, coral and fish were back in although not looking their best. I lost the Flame Angel due to low oxygen in the stock trough. The bin had plenty of flow and a heater but was densely packed so most of the fish were gasping by Saturday morning. After I added an air pump things were okay but the damage was done.

I still have a lot of work to do to finish off the stand and fine tune the system. But overall its looking good and I'm happy with it.

[whatcaneyedo]

I have a problem. The centre brace on the 120gal which now serves as my sump/frag tank has broken. I foolishly had the MH above it hanging too close and the heat caused this. I guess the simplest thing to do would be to have a new piece of glass cut and silicone it on top to tie the two broken halves together. However I have always hated this brace and it would be nice to come up with some alternative. Any suggestions?



Here is what the rest of the top bracing looks like, its sort of a thin eurobrace on either side of the centre brace. For now I'm supporting the front and back panel with some lumber but even prior to noticing the damage and adding the supports the overall deflection or gap between the broken halves was only about 1/8"

[1eyedjyde]

You could silicone euro bracing along the front and back to the underside of the existing glass trim and completely remove the centre brace.

[Madreefer]

Your plan to solve the problem works fine as that happened to NE's tank before I took over. Looks like ass though.
I would think it would work just fine without it as your not going to be filling your sump to the top anyways

[whatcaneyedo]

I remember hearing/seeing that on the NE tank too. The normal operating volume is 3/4 full. But if my return pump is shut off the sump does fill to the top. I don't really want to drop the water level to 1/2 but if I did I guess I could get away with not having it and not doing anything else. I like Craig's idea of siliconing eurobracing to the underside front and back trim. The main issue I have with patching the centre brace is that I want to continue to use a single MH pendant over top which puts everything right in the way of the light.

[pgtanks]

put some stainless steel braces in

http://reefbuilders.com/2014/11/24/d...ce-steel-rods/

[whatcaneyedo]

Thats another cool idea. But I've already paid for some 1/4"x4"x46-3/4" strips to be cut by Speedy Glass so I'll be ghetto euro bracing it.