New Wife, New Life, and The tank I've always wanted! - Part 1

[Siderjan]

I've always wanted a saltwater tank. I've only ever been allowed to have freshwater tanks, but I've got a new Wife that has liked my old freshwater tanks and when I brought up the topic of getting rid of those tanks and building a saltwater setup she was all for it.

Last year I started building my tank, and refugium/sump. This year I got to build the stand and started buying what I needed to get the tank wet when I got everything purchased. It'd be a long process since I have a lazy ex-wife that can't work fulltime cause it'd take away from her tv time. I used photobucket to hold the photos so I wouldn't use disk space here as there is a lot of pictures.

I'm posting everything that has come together since I first started last September.

Here I purchased a 13"x48" piece of tempered glass for the bottom of my 55 gallon display tank. I picked up some 1x2 oak I was going to make into my own trim but couldn't get it level and square so I ordered black trim for it and was told that was the size of the bottom was 13x48 which is wrong so I had to put all the glass aside and start over.


We had large item garbage pickup near the shop and my boss told me if I wanted a big aquarium there was one around the corner. So I took a quick trip to the corner and loaded a broken 35 gallon tank and put it in the back of my car. The bottom and sides where broken. After work that night I pulled it all apart and threw out all the glass and cut new pieces for the tank. I figured it would make a good tank for my refugium/sump. Here's the build of it.

Getting ready to cut all the pieces.





Measure Once....


Cut Once...


Sanding the sharp edges off the pieces of glass.


Pieces cut cleaned and dried off.


Sump is together and ready to put the dividers and baffles in after I clean the dust from the tank sitting at the shop for 2 weeks.



First divider is installed.


Inlet, DSB, and left baffles done.


Return, right baffles and skimmer section are in place.


Refugium/Sump is finished, dried and home. The acrylic on top was to build an overflow with but decided to drill the tank instead. I did build the overflow and it worked...after I fixed all the leaks in it.


All the pieces are cut for the display tank and I'm getting ready to drill the overflow in the back of the tank.





The ABS fitting fits in the hole.


Here's all the pieces laid out for the display tank and ready to put it together.


One of my bosses, Terry, holding the pieces while I take pictures and tape the pieces together.


Me putting the back on while Terry learns how to use a cell phone to take pictures.


Ok, enough pictures...can you hand me the tape please.


All put together and ready to be caulked. Back view.


All put together and ready to be caulked. Front view.


All caulked and drying.


I wanted 55 gallons of water in the tank so I made it taller than a normal 55 gallon. 22 1/4" high.


Standard length. 48 1/4".


Standard width. 12 1/2".


Sump/Refugium getting filled for a leak test. Had a leak in one of the baffles and as long as there was a few inches of water the bottom didn't leak. I drained it, dried it, resealed it and it held water for 3 days.


Display tank being leak tested.


No leaks in the display tank.

[Siderjan]

Let's fast forward a year and here's me making the stand.

Here's the bottom put together.


Bottom and top finished.


Sides are out on.


Supports aded to the sides.


All supports on. Frame of the stand is done and it only took one Timmie's.


One thing about building a stand without any plans, you make mistakes in measurement and have to modify on the fly. Here's me modifying the stand.


I'm saying the floor isn't level....so I'm adding shims to the stand to level it.


I'm putting 1/4" floor underlay for a undercoating on the stand.


I've worked for years in tobacco in my younger years and loved the smell of curing tobacco, and thought of lots of uses for the slates so I called a farmer friend of mine that doesn't grow anymore and got a couple bundles of slates to use over the underlay.


I have the door marked out and ready to cut.


Here's a better view of it.


Doors are almost cut out.


Time to paint the back of the display tank black while I wait for my kids to come home and help me finish cutting the doors out. I had to clean a years worth of dust off the tank so the paint will stick.


Taped and papered...time to paint.


After one coat of paint, here's what it looks like.


I thought I should see if everything fits on/in the stand before I carried on.


Everything fits. Refugium is a little tight but it fit.


I was going to wait to plumb the tank til I had the stand finished but my oldest son has his first girlfriend and doesn't like to come home and help his Dad. I scratched the back of the tank when I tried carrying it from the garage to the basement by myself.


Here's the scratches. I have a little paint left to cover them up.


Plumbing is all dry fitted. My memory isn't what it use to be. I thought the the ABS fitting was 1 1/2" but it was 1 1/4" so I have to wait til next week to get a reducer.


Here's my refugium/Sump plumbed and in place.


I've labeled it.


Plumbing is glued and finished.


The tank is in place.


Here's the doors trimmed out and almost finished. Just need to wait for the lumber store to get the handles in that match the hinges.


I didn't like that you could see the black trim on the tank so I added some trim to the stand to hide it.


I did the same to the side.


Let's open the doors and have a look.

[Siderjan]

My Wife went to the lumber yard to pick up something didn't have a clue what she was getting. That's why I love and married her! An egg crate for the rock to sit on.


No egg crate.


First layer down.


Double layered to raise the rock over the trim. I hate trim but don't trust my building skills.


The mess from cutting it. Good thing I have a shop vac look a like.


I don't know if this counts towards my build but I was looking on Kijiji for some live rock cheap and I came across this setup for $200. Yes you read it right. $200. I had to call and make sure it wasn't a type-o but it was $200. Only problem was she was ahving someone come that night to look at it. Thinking it was going to be gone that night, I called the next morning to see if she still had it. My luck has never been so good as it has since I met my Wife, the guy never showed up. 2 days later it was sitting on basement floor. Being so close to Christmas I had to wait over a hour for my wife to come home to ask her if I could buy it. It was covered in algae as she had quit taking care of it. Since I'm going to use everything for my build except the tank, hob filter, and gravel, I'm going to post it.


The next pictures are what I purchased for $200.
























Here's a word listing of everything I bought.

Here's a list of everything I purchased last night.
2 5gal pails with lids (1 labeled fresh & 1 labeled dirty)
Mag-Float Glass cleaner
Koralia 3 Power head - 850GPH
500g Kent Marine Supperbuffer -dKH
1/2 a 50 gallon bag Instant Ocean sea salt
Black Diamond Premium Active Carbon 1.87L minus an inch from the top
Emperor 280 Filter System w/ 4 active carbons
Vibra-Flo 1 Air Pump
Maxi-Jet Powerhead (In pieces so not sure the size or if it works)
SeaClone 100 Protein Skimmer + 3 filters (extra pump)
Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium 7 1/2" container never opened
Aquarium Systems sea test
45 - 50 lbs LR
55 Gallon Tank
4' 2 tube T5 light with 4 extra tubes T8 bulb that I have no use for
7 snails
3 hermit crabs
1 black and white clown
1 Red Spotted hawkfish
AquaClear 70 Fliter with 2 carbons
2" freshwater coloured gravel on the bottom of the tank
All the water. (except for what ended up all over my Mom's Jimmy) Sorry Mom!

Here's it covered in algae that I had to clean up.








My Wife and I really liked this guy so I did some research and we bought him. A 'Purple' Urchin. Too bad it's pink.


I need to purchase a return pump, sand and plumb it and a little more Live Rock and I can move everything to my build.

[Siderjan]

This weekend has been a busy one. Thursday I picked up my new return pump and plumbing for it.

New pump;


Here's the plumbing finished. (friday night)




I bought a new Maxi-Jet 1200 to add more flow.


I needed to cover my overflow with something to keep the live stock in the tank so I took a piece of pet proof screen from work and fastened it in place with a wire tie.


Refuguim/Sump is full of water and getting ready to put live rock, cheato, and heaters in it.


Say goodbye to the old tank. Saturday it is getting drained & moved.


Here's my wife, Kim, helping me wash the substrate. Smile Honey!!



She did a good job cleaning it.


Starting the move. I forgot to make a stand for my skimmer so I hung it using string.




Here's a pic of the mess Kim has been begging me to clean up, and the last picture of the old tank.


While taking the LR out, I came across 4 new majanos anemones. Grrr!




I was told there was 50 lbs of LR with the old setup, but there was 41 lbs. I put half a pound in the refugium. I took 7 snails, 3 blue legged hermit crabs, my urchin, hawkfish & maroon clown to the babysitter for him to watch til my tank's temperature stablizes.

The water transfer begins.


Half full....or half empty. Not sure which. Half done sounds good.


Time to put the rock back in and Aquascape it.



Return pump is running and adjusting the flows.



Finished except for adding livestock back in.


Here's a short video of my Aquascaping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFML6inUoy8

[Flash]

nice job! looks great!

[Madreefer]

Cool! Good job! Interesting watching you guys build your tanks from scratch. You put alot of work in to this. That skimmer is more of a water mover than anything. You should be able to get a good used one for a reasonable price on this site.

[Siderjan]

Originally Posted by bean

nice job! looks great!

Thank you. Can't wait to put my livestock back in it. Need to get my saltity lowered and can't add anymore water. sitting at 26ppt

[Siderjan]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Cool! Good job! Interesting watching you guys build your tanks from scratch. You put alot of work in to this. That skimmer is more of a water mover than anything. You should be able to get a good used one for a reasonable price on this site.

Thank you. I heard that about the skimmer. LOL. Waiting til after christmas to get a better one. It doesn't really fit my sump anyways.

[Siderjan]

Water conditions as of 11:41pm

GH - 180
KH - 80
pH - 8.5
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
Saltity - 26 ppt
Temp - 80F

[Delphinus]

Looks like things are coming together nicely! That spot where you have the screen over the overflow, keep an eye on that, looks like a pretty tight weave and I see that getting clogged pretty easy. If it proves to be a problem down the road you could consider some gutter guard, the holes are more like 1/4" so less prone to clogging (although not immune to clogging).