180ish In Wall Started

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ss95003

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Well I got home from vacation today and have the rest of the week off. So I decided I would tear down the wall and see what I have to work with.

I all ready knew it was a load bearing wall and I knew there was an electrical outlet. Neither of which is a big issue. I am going to put a header that will support more then enough weight to cover the 6 foot span. And of course the wires will be no problem to move. However I did not expect the water pipes to be there. I want to thank my home builder Dr. Horton for the great idea of putting the hot water heater in the attic. It should be fun when it fails and floods my house too. I plan on upgrading to a tank less water heater before that happens.

This thread will move at a snails pace since my help is my dad and he travels a lot. Neither of us expected the water line and I am not real sure what I am going to do there yet. I do not want to drill holes in the support legs on the header since it is load bearing. So it looks like I will have to go out of the wall and then back in. Which means when I/If I ever sell my house I have to do it over again. I was hoping to just patch up a 6 foot hole.
 
@ChuKronos wrote:
You can have them go over the outside(inside fish room) and around the tank. That way you won't have to drill. -Chuck said:
That is what the plan is. Hopefully have a plumb friend out here tomorrow. The only problem is when the comes out, I will have to have it redone again. and that is somethig I really did not want to do. I'll just deal with that when or if I ever sell the house.
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Just ordered the tank today and planned out what I am doing with the plumbing and header.

The outside dimensions of the tank are going to be 70x25x24. So it will be roughly 170 gallons.

I plan on building a light rack on a pulley system to get it up out of the way when I am working in the tank. I have 10 foot ceilings so the tank will be at eye level and the high ceilings will give me plenty of room to get it up out of the way. I am going to make the rack out of Aluminum like Marc did. Very light weight study and corrosive free.
 
Wow the updates are very Slow on this thread.... :lol:

Well today I had my plumbing moved out of the way and hopefully on Wednesday I will install the header and start on the stand. Hopefully by the end of the month I will be done with the construction type work. I should have the tank next weekend. Can’t wait!!!

I defiantly want to thank Rick Carter (smashmix) for driving all the way out from Fort Worth to do the plumbing work. Not only did drive all the way out here he did the work for a fraction of what I would have paid any where else.

So if anyone needs a plumber give him a call. 817-995-8477
 
PICTURES ... PICTURES ... PICTURES... I think it must be a requirement in the hobby to like to look at pictures,, hehe :twisted:
 
nothing exciting yet...no tank. and no stand... the wall still looks the same except the cooper pipes are not there yet. i will take plenty of pictures of the work when i really get started. Hopefully this week.
 
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Well I finally have several updates. Last weekend I picked up my new tank with some help from Vincent at Tranquil Scape. Here is one reason I shop at his store, I was not real comfortable moving the tank with just me and my dad so he said no problem I’ll drive out there with you and the 3 of us will have no problem. It’s like 40+ miles form my place to his shop and he did not even think twice out about helping out. Well here are some pics of the tank. I love the euro brace I will have plenty of room to work with no center brace. The seam job are also good. The blue tape is where the holes for the closed loop are. I have them taped off getting ready to paint all the sides of the tank except the front.
 
Also today I took the day off work and really got some work done on the wall. I have the load bearing wall completely braced up. What we did today to brace it was cut small holes for the 2x8’s and then used 2x4 to support the 2x8’s. I am trying to do this will minimal damage to the wall in the living room. As you can see the wall in the closet is completely ripped out. Tomorrow comes the fun part. I will cut the studs out and put in the threshold. My early guess is next weekend I’ll have the tank in the wall. At least I hope I can.
 
@ss95003 wrote:
Last weekend I picked up my new tank with some help from Vincent at Tranquil Scape. Here is one reason I shop at his store said:
Not many of our friends are likely to do this let alone a LFS owner. Vince is a great guy! :D
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Well yesterday my dad and I completed the threshold. As I stated before I wanted to get this in with minimal damage to the viewing wall. I think we were very successful in doing this. I only have to repair two holes near the ceiling and then 8 holes the size of a saw blade. I was surprised I was able to rip out the old studs with out at least knocking out the nail holes on the viewing wall. My help had to go out of town last minute today so my project is on hold until the weekend after next. Kind of sucks we are pretty close to finishing. All we have left is building the stand and then little odds and ends before the tank goes in the wall. There is a hole in the wall for the tank already but it’s about 6’’ smaller length wise and 4” smaller height wise, this will give you an idea of the size in the wall. Here are some pictures.
 
Well I have made a lot of progress but I got lazy and stopped updating this thread. Some thing I had to have done before I could but the tank in finally got done. I installed an exhaust fan that is hooked up to a thermostat, so it will automatically turn off an on. Not sure what temp to set that at yet will have to play with it. The only problem is the fan moves a lot of air but it runs completely silent so I am not sure how I will tell how often it is on. I wanted a silent fan since the wall the tank is on is adjacent to the living room. I do not want to hear any tank noise at least that is my goal. I also finished my light rack made out of 1” squared aluminum. I went with the square and not just “L” type so it would be a little more rigid. Also I mounted the 3 250W MH DE pendants as well as the VHO atenic. The light rack is mounted to a pulley system so I can “easily” move it out of the way. Not sure how easy it is the pulley system was kind of cheap but it gets the job done.
 
Last weekend I got my dad over and a couple of buddies and made more progress my dad wired up all the ballast for me and the buddies help lift the tank into place. Today my Dart pump came in and I bought all my plumbing parts, took 3 stores to find it all.

Unfortunately I am a Browns fan and I painfully watch all their games. And they are playing today so no plumbing work will get done, I will start that tomorrow and hopefully have the closed loop and the sump all plumbed in by the end of the day.
 
The back of the tank is covered with Corroplast (I think that is what they call it) which is held in to place with Velcro so I can remove it if I need to see in the back for some reason. My dad has gone out of the country for a couple of weeks but when he returns we are going to wire up the dedicated circuits and get power to the power station I have already built. After that I should be ready to add the saltwater and get some LR and sand in place. O yea also need to trim out the front of the tank.
 
Nice!!...Quick question on the plumbing reroute, I can't see in the pic's where you added the connect for your ro/di unit that will feed your top-off etc. Hopefullyyou didn't forget that since your setup would be perfect for that. I wish I had water lines that close to my tank. Keep up the good work, this is gonna be awesome :p

Cheers!
 
I still dont understand why you didnt run the water lines through the wall. I work in new homes everyday and we drill load bearing walls all the time. A 3/4" hole will not affect the integrity of a load bearing wall..and you wouldnt have to redo it when you sell your house!! :D

If you were to rip all of the sheetrock down in your home, you would find much bigger holes in load bearing walls to fit 1.5" and 2" pvc through :)
 
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