Daplatapus's upgrade

[daplatapus]

Well, I bit the bullet and bought Taionereefer's 210 gallon. So I went out to Van yesterday hoping to make the 12:45 ferry. FYI, don't think you can get on a ferry in the summer, on a Friday by getting there only an hour before it's supposed to sail.
Anyway, after being the 3rd to last vehicle to make it on the 3:10, we finally made it, met Taionereefer and family, loaded the tank up and ate a couple of their ice cream sandwiches. . Thanks again!
And what's a trip to the mainland without popping into J&L. Just bought a couple bulkheads and drooled over some Mp40's, but I thought I've pushed my wife's buttons enough this month so left with just the bulkheads in hand.
Missed the 7:30 ferry, Du'oh! But got on the 9:30 after a nice pizza and beer in horseshoe bay. Got home at 1:00 am, crashed, and got back up at 6:00 am to drive to Saltspring Island to help out a friend where I'm writing this. And guess where... waiting once again for the ferry because they're running 40min behind. Gotta love BC Ferries.
Anyway this will not be a quick switch over, but hopefully be fun. Pics to come

[lockrookie]

following along congrats on the upgrade

[Snaz]

Congrats on the new box of water. With all that coin you are dropping at BC Ferries no wonder you left without the MP40.

[Leah]

Congrats on convincing her. One of the nicer tanks I have seen on here...so jealous. What a steal.... trust me when I say I am pouting.
Can't wait to see this come together for you.

[daplatapus]

Well, I was able to get some help and bring the tank into the basement where I'll work on it.
Preclean:


Post cleaning:

[daplatapus]

The tank originally comes with the 2 internal overflows. The drains are 1" durso's and 3/4" returns. I want to go with the herbie design though.
On my existing system I was stuck with existing holes and am actually running a 1 1/4" full siphon but at the bulkhead it reduces down to 3/4". I had originally run the 3/4" all the way but it couldn't keep up to the flow demand. That's when I used bushings to increase it to 1 1/4" on both sides of the bulkhead and it ended up being a bit overkill. My gate valve is probably only about 25% open.
So on this tank I'm thinking of using the 3/4" holes for my siphon but increased to 1" on either side of the bulkhead and use the 1" holes for my safety drains increased to either 1 1/4" or 1 1/2".
I really don't like the over the rim returns on my existing tank so I'm thinking of drilling 3 or 4 - 3/4" returns in the back of the tank. I did this with my cube and really like the results - it looks nice and clean. I've been able to drill the MIP-Locline adapter and have no issues with back siphoning when the power goes out. But it is only a 20 gallon cube, not a whole lot of pressure. If I drill the 3/4" holes as high as I can get them (which is roughly 1/2" down from the black plastic rim on the top of the tank) I'll be about 2 1/2" down from the top of the glass to the edge of the hole. And I was originally thinking 4 holes, 1 on either side of both overflow boxes. But I suppose I could get away with only 2 holes on the right side of the left overflow and the left side of the right overflow. The factory returns come with a splitter on them so in essence there is 4 returns anyway. Anybody see any issues with drilling that many holes? Or should I just go with the 2?

[lockrookie]

Looking good.... How much you want for the overflows?

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by lockrookie

Looking good.... How much you want for the overflows?

$10/ea sound fair? Plus any shipping. I'll clean them up a bit first. They measure 27 1/2" tall, 10 1/2" wide and 5" front to back. I can get a better pic if needed.

[lockrookie]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

$10/ea sound fair? Plus any shipping. I'll clean them up a bit first. They measure 27 1/2" tall, 10 1/2" wide and 5" front to back. I can get a better pic if needed.

No need to clean I can do that I have a project in mind for them so yes 10$ each is fair ill pm you about it...

[daplatapus]

Well, finished up early on the job for today so worked on the tank this aft. Did a water change on the 77 at the same time. Here's the previous overflow locations cleaned up a bit:



Any thoughts on glass thickness for patching the holes in the bottom??? I was thinking of cutting plugs for the holes and siliconing them in place, then adding a piece of glass on top and underneath with 100% coverage of silicone on them. Maybe wipe the silicone on them with a drywall trowel or something so there's no air what-so-ever in there. Any thoughts???

So here is where the tank was going to go:


I was going to remove the 20 gal cube and the 210 would sit right up against that white moulding. The distance from that moulding to the right wall is about 98" so there would have been a 24" cabinet on the right side of the tank to house my right side overflow, the MP40 drivers and my Jarduino controller.
Part of my problem with that scenario is my wife thought the dining room would look too cluttered and she'd have difficulty finding a place for that china cabinet that her parents got when they first got married. That and downstairs there is a finished bedroom with only 6' 8" ceilings that I'd have to tear down to add more floor joists. And in that bedroom there's a window the tank would have spanned over that doesn't have a header over it (house was built in the 30's). I had planned on flush cutting the floor joists and adding a header in it, but that was a lot of work.
By the way I am a renovation contractor and I had an engineer on board that looked at everything and was giving me direction. Do not do this at home kids By the way, I did all the upgrades of this house my self. Everything got stripped to the studs, reframed the roof from the inside out and vaulted my ceilings, custom fabricated all the window trim and crown moulding, updated everything. This house was a bit of a dump when we got it, but then again that's why we got it so I could do all this.

So, aaaannnyyy wwaaayyyy.....
Here's the next best place, my entry way:





The spot is just a couple inches narrower. The ceiling isn't finished downstairs so joists are easily added, and there's no window to span. My floor throughout the whole house is actually 3" of solid wood on top of the floor joists. 3/4" diagonal shiplap, 3/4" old hardwood that I couldn't save, 3/4" tongue and groove plywood glued and screwed, then the final 3/4" finished hardwood you see there. Even if I don't add any floor joists, my engineered said I'm good, but I'm erring on the side of caution with a 3000 lbs tank.
So now instead of having a right side overflow I'll be going left side and there will be a slightly narrower cabinet on the left to house everything. Added bonus of this location is that it almost never gets direct sunlight whereas the first location got about an hour or so every eve in the summer.
The only draw back of this new location is that armoire has to go and it'll probably end up in my office
The coat and shoe racks will go where the armoire is now.