Yes Yes Yes! New 450G is here and in one piece!!!

Whew it's officially in place!

I'm beat so I'll get picks tomorrow but I also cut and routed the starboard tonight and moved all the troughs and rock into the fish room (consolidating in the process from 4 to 3 troughs). I also installed three bulkheads in the overflow. For whatever reason when I ordered from Savko many months ago I shorted myself on bulkheads and need 4 more. I'll probably stop by Lowes tomorrow and see if they have any. If not then I'll order some more from Savko.

I need to pick up several other odds and ends so I'll probably be making a marine depot or PA order soon.

I also need to work on the electrical a bit. The plumbing will be pretty easy so I'm npt so worried about it,

I also need to pick up some black chloroplast for the back.

Tri it costs ~$500 for the movers!
 
Congrats!

Keith, I've never seen bulkheads at Lowe's or Home Depot, but have heard they CAN be found at Tractor Supply... Not sure exactly where you are in Atlanta, but you can search for one by zip from their web site:

http://www.mytscstore.com/
 
Gratz, All Kay and I are waiting on is for it to be up and running so we can make a trip to Atlanta.


Don't worry we have a place to stay. :D


But I do want to go to the aquarium.
 
Unfortunatly there is no way in the next several days I can make it to a LFS. I may have some time friday afternoon but heck by then I can have them shipped!

I boiught the aquacontroller 2 quite a while ago. I had it running on my 20G for several months. I'll soon move it over to the big tank!

Well I did several things. Put the starboard in, cut a peice of acrlyic to silicone into the overflow so you don't see it from the front and gave the tank a good cleaning.

Here are the promised pics.


From the front


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From inside the fish room (back)

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And here is a picture of the sumps pretty much in their final spots.

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No luck on the black silicone at Lowe's. I really need to find some pretty quick!
 
Awesome! Keith, this is what we have all been waiting for. For all of us who have "tank envy" we will continue to watch this thread while sitting in our own puddle of drool!
 
I'm coming to the realization that the biggest challange is going to be aquascaping I think. I have to be three steps up on a ladder to reach all the bottom so it should be fun!

Anyway I've done some but not a ton. My goal is to have the rock moved over and everything working by the end of August. With 2 weekends already taken though, a week long business trip, and a couple overnighters in between it will be tough for sure.

I made some progress on the plumbing. All the bulheads are in. I installed the dursos. I put the first part of plumbing on the back. I have to go back to lowes or Home Depot though. It wouldn't be a proper plumbing experience unless you forgot stuf which of course I did. Hence in the pictures you will see the leftmost 2 bulkheads (if looking at the back) with nothing but bulkheads in them!

I cut and put black coroplast on the and velcroed it in. That way I can take it down to scrape the back glass, etc. It looks pretty good but going around the bulkheads and stuff was a bit tricky. It looks OK but not great.

I siliconed in a black piece of acrylic in the overflow to hide the dursos. I went a little silicone hapy as you see but I didn't want water etting in there and then algae forming with no way for me to get to it.

I've also realized that with black everywhere the dynamic range of my camera is really freaked out. It tries to get both the light parts and the black and does a good job at neith so I'll hae to go back to manual mode.

Anyway onto the picks.

First a front shot from the viewing area. The color and stuff are way off but it gives you the idea.




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Here is a closer look. You can see the overflow and my bad silicone job as well as a coroplast seam.

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Just the left side

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The glass is quite dusty also which didn't help the picture taking!


As full a view as I could get of the back.

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And a closer look at the dursos. I painted the PVC with Krylon fusion and let it sit for 3 days. Seems to be pretty bonded.

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That's about it for now. Next week I'll try to pretty much finish the plumbing and then onto electrical!
 
I still haven't finished aquascaping my tank yet so don't get frustrated if you don't get it right the first few times.

I had a difficult time with the coroplast and the bulkheads as well but it should turn out alright for you.

Did you end up trying to silicone the starboard down?

Just another step closer. Everything looks good. Hurry up and plumb so you can start getting water and rock in there!
 
I love your overflow!! That is such a great idea. When I finally get a house to build around a tank, I am going to have overflows like that.
-Chuck
 
OK so today I'll post pics from Tues and before then tommorow I'll get a few more of the tank and trim, etc.

First shot is looking at the front as I just started to fill it.water. The PVC pipes are filled with sand. Their only purpose is to provide weight to keep the starboard down since it foats otherwise. I'll take them out once the rock is in there.

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Water finally in the tank :dance:

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Now for some plumbing. A little explaination first. I plumbed it where I could take the sumps totally offline if I wanted to. I also plumbed to where with just a few ball valve turns I could drain the lower sump. So it looks pretty complicated but the reason is that it's super flexible now.

Back. The far left had of the picture the right return is out of the shot. This is mainly for naming reference on the underneath pics.

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Here is a closer shot of the bottom. I really tried to keep everything high so I still have tons of room under the tank for storage.

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Yet another angle. Note the numbers on the ball valves and I'll explain the positions for various activities below.

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In normal mode with water darining to the sumps then returning to the tank

1,3 are closed and 2,4 open

When I'm draining to do a water change

1,3,4 are open and 2 is closed

For bypassing the sump (closed loop in tank basically)

1,2 are open and 3,4 closed

Hopefully that all made sense

Anyway last pic for now. Here are the PVC supports I made for the rocks. I laid them out pretty much how I want them in the tank. Where the lighter fluid bottle is is where a huge 18" rock will be. My idea was to hide all the Tunze and the bulkheads in the tank to have as clean a look as possible.


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That's enough for now!
 
I agree, this will be one sick system. Plumbing looks great. I wish I could have incorporated a water change system with my plumbing but I didn't. Aren't zip ties awesome? :D

So....rockwork next?

Nice job Keith.
 
Just curious what the coroplast is and where can you get it?

I am currently setting up a 360 room divider tank, but I am putting a long side against a wall this time. I need to black out the back, but can't mess it up so it can be removed and used as a room divider later.
 
Todd-

Coroplast is that plastic material used to make signs (i.e. yard signs).

It's very durable and very reasonably priced.

I purchased two large sheets at Regal Plastics right of of 820 in Fort Worth.

http://www.regal-plastics.com/
 
Mark it was built by Aquarium Obssessed. Bang up job. I would highly reccomend.

Ok the big today is tomorrow.

Today I out the first coat of paint on all the trim. I'm really pumped how it turned out.


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It a bar. I'm going to put a couple barstools (without backs of course there so you can sit and enjoy. I'll probably spend significant amounts of time here! Here is a profile shot.


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The top flips up. I still have to work on this some as I want it to flip all the way perpendicular to give me easier access.


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By the way I want to publicly thank Ryan (Servo) I virtually copied his inwall trim design. He answered several questions and even let me come over and examine when I was visiting Texas. (Hard to believe that was like a year ago) Anyway, Ryan I owe you a beer at MACNA.

Here is a shot of the quarentine tank under the big tank. It's a 39G Hex. I've used it for years and it works awesome. It looks hard to get to in the shot but it's really not. I plan on getting a copperband butterfly tomorrow and put him in there!



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I cleaned the room out tonight also so I don't kill myself tomorrow. I hope Nathan shows up. He's got my hopes up now! You can see the sink also in this shot and the plumbing where I can do a water change now.


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I'll be back to post some more this weekend. So far so good! I also shot a 76 this afternoon playing golf so life is good!
 
Man great job, that looks amazing!

The tank looks great in the first pics, I'm looking for a custom 150 for in the wall.. but I am hesitant since it will be totally boxed in, I hate limited access... Was thinking glass cages but your tanks construction looks far superior.

Can't wait to see more pics, we may need to get a group buy on airline tickets to come see it :p
 
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