In wall 120 gal UPDATE

[chrisT]

I have been at this project for a while now and decided since it is up and running I would like to share it with the rest of the group. I have to blame Marc for this build because after helping him move his 280 I had to have a seperate room to house the equipment, heat , humidity, and noise not to mention I have a two year old into everything.

I started by having to relocate my water heater to make room for the tank and stand, then had to cut an opening in a load bearing wall. Next was sheet rock and tape and bedding. Then painted the inside of the room with a high gloss epoxy to help with the humidity.

alt="">

alt="">

I wanted to keep the power cords clean and neat so I ran outlets from a switch box to controlled outlets layed out to power certain peices of equipment close to its respective outlet. I got a little ahead of my self and now making changes to house a dc8 and dc4 fro a neptune controller.

alt="">

I still need to build a auto topoff, I have enough acrylic left from building the sump and have always thought the weatherson chamber was a very cool way to keep the sump topped off. I just need to get the parts ordered and acrylic cut. I will mount it on a shelf above the RO/DI unit so I have clean source of water and a near by drain for an over flow in case of emergencies.

alt="">

I drilled the tank for a closed loop using an oceansmotions 4 way and a Sequence dart for the bulk of my flow in the tank. I am having a few issues with this. One I drilled the intakes to close to the sand bed and the 4 way is easily locked up with sand, but it is easy to drain and disassemble. I have the drum that opens one port at a time now and it is just too much flow for one jet, I will be ordering the drum that opens two ports and that should solve my sand blowing troubles. On the outputs of the 4 way I have two jets on each end of the tank and split the other two outlets with lockline fittings giving me a jet at each corner of the tank.

alt="">

alt="">

alt="">

I also still need to trim out around the tank so we can stop being blinded by the 400 watt bulbs.

alt="">

alt="">

The pictures are a little blue-er than real life but I got tired of fighting with my white balance settings.

Thanks for looking and comments, suggestions are appreciated.

Sorry for the crooked pictures, but I m too lazy to retake them.

 

[skgru]

looks great ,keep us updated
Scott

 

[tnn1567]

The rock work looks great. That's going to look really neat when you add the fish where the can swim in and out. Are you planning to go with SPS or LPS? Super job on the electrically work. Wish I could have done that with the tank.

 

[melev]

Very nice! Keep updating this thread, I'm sure many will benefit from it.

Moving the water heater and cutting out a hole in the wall. Boy does that sound familiar. Plus being blinded by light. 8)

 

[blide]

Very cool and looks like a nice install... Just make sure you finish that trim, so you can give Marc some motivation to finish his.

 

[commandertekki]

Love the plumbing dude. absoluely fabulous.

 

[chrisT]

@tnn1567 wrote:

I plan to make it a mainly SPS dominated tank, I cant do without a few clams though.

This plumbing job really took a while. The oceanmotions 4 way is a good piece of equipment but plumbing it :shock: !

 

[peterlin]

That looks great !

 

[Glenn]

Looks good Josh.

Do you have picks of the load bearing wall as you worked on it?


How much noise does the 4way make?

 

[chrisT]

@Glenn wrote:

No Glenn I am sorry,I had a hard drive crash and lost the photos of the actual room construction. Basically from the inside of the house I screwed a 2x4 into the supporting studs above where I was going to make the cut then used jacks and other 2x4s to unload the studs in the wall, cut them then re framed the opening with 2x12 header.

The entire closed loop is virtually silent, the return pump on the other hand is another story.

 

[chrisT]

@peterlin wrote:

Peter, thanks its good to see you around.

 

[elinder]

very nice looking set up.

 

[Charles_2000]

Update? New fish Pic's? You should be ready for the 2010 tank tour.

 

[chrisT]

Nothing too much going on with the holidays coming fast. We did add two percs to the tank and they have been doing very well with the tank all to themselves.

alt="">

I also ripped out the electrical set up in order to install plugs and power strips in preperation for a controller.

alt="">

I also had an issue with my Dart closed loop restatrting after being turned off, come to find out the plumbing was putting pressure on the plastic housing causing the impeller to the grind to a halt and not restart. I got some spacers and industrial tie wraps and secured the plumbing to the stand.

2010 huh? not at the pace I move :lol:

 

[washingtond]

Nice job and you can tell that you have put in a lot of hard work and advance planning which is paying off. Looking forward to seeing it when complete.

 

[chrisT]

OK update time, the tank is cruising right along, I have some hair algae growing but its not out of control, I figure I will give it another 2 months and then add a clean up crew to help clean up what the clowns don't eat.

alt="">

I was having issues with my closed loop blowing sand all over the tank and I was looking into having a custom made drum from oceans motions but I decided it is just a piece of pvc and I have a dremel :twisted: .

sorry I dont have a before and after pic but the hole now spans two ports right next to each other instead of opening just one port at a time.

alt="">


Unfortunately two ports open is still not enough!

alt="">

alt="">

You can kinda see where the sand is jamming the drum up. I still need to play with backing off the flow on the different legs of the closed loop.

alt="">


On a good note Santa dropped an Aqua controller on his way out. Thanks Santa!Now the AC3 controls all the wall mounted outlets keeping all the wires out of the way. I still need to get the wires dressed out and tywrapped up but I am still situating things.

alt="">

 

[chrisT]

It looks like I will try and re plumb my drain, my skimmer is fed directly from the drain and there is too much air in the mix causing turbulence in the chamber. I have been lurking over at the Deltec forum at Reef Central and have some ideas how to reconfigure the plumbing to fix the issue.

alt="">

alt="">

 

[chrisT]

Almost forgot. Some clown pics. I am in the same boat with Rick I couldn't shoot a decent picture with an expensive SLR to save my life.

alt="">

alt="">

 

[Ashlar]

Man, Chris, that is a _clean_ install.

 

[Glenn]

Wow Chris, Now I have to work harder to get mine done. Had my AC3 from shortly after Macna and still not running it on the tanks. Thanks for the pics. Motivation is a good thing.