ZED102's 100g Build

Z

zed102

Premium Member
Well after having my 90g up for nearly 3 years, I am finally ready to start over with a new tank that has all of the things I wish I had in my old one. I have always kept a list of the things that I like in prepartion for this day. So lets get started.

This tank in a 100g DAP glass aquarium. It is 48l x 20d x 24h. The stand is also a DAP product.

To start the build I first wanted to prepare the stand. After witnessing many spills in my old aquarium I wanted to ensure that this stand was better protected. The inside was painted with several coats of Killz primer and then the shower liner was stapled in. The white spots in the picture is where the staples were siliconed ove so they would not rust.

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Next I had to prepare the sump. This sump is a trigger system sump with the dimensions of a 40 breeder. One thing that I decided after my 20g sump in the last tank was that bigger is always better. I was always trying to squeeze more euipment in than I could really fit. This made it very difficult at times to work underneath the tank. I also decided that I wanted to have places in my sump to hold my probes and the float valves for the auto top off. So I used some weldon 16 to bond some acrylic holders in place.

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Now one downside to having such a large sump is that getting it under the stand can be quite challenging. But where there is a will there is always a way. After a little work I had removed the center brace and the sump was in. This unfortunately was the easy part. The hard part was getting the screws back in after the tank was filling up the space. Here is how I got it done.

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After getting the center brace back in place the stand was complete and moved into the house.

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It was now time to move onto the tank. For the tank, one thing that I really wanted was a rockwall for the background. After doing a bunch of reading on different builds, I decided it was best for me to start by laying out some rock onto eggcrate and then filling in all of the seems using the black pond foam. I purchased this foam from the garden section at HD. Once the foam cured I did some trimming and then coated it with epoxy. While this step is not required for the pond foam, I wanted to be able to cover the foam in sand for looks. I found it cheapest to use epoxy from http://www.uscomposites.com. This stuff is used widely in plywood tank builds, so I figured it would surely be safe for the foam rockwall. It was also priced right.

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After this cured I installed it into the tank. To do this I used daps of GE Silicone I it several places on the back of the panel.

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This is how the tank sits currently. I have made significant progress on the lighting and canopy, but I have not taken too many pictures of it yet so I will post this part of the build later.
 
Very nice job so far. I am planning on a rock wall on my next tank, I'm pretty excited about building it. Keep the pics coming!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Small update:

I spent a majority of the day wiring in the new leds, but unfortunately the task was so tedious that I never got motivated to take any pictures. I really just wanted to get it done. The good news is that I did get it done. The bad news is that I did not have a plan to actively cool Steve's drivers. So I had to run out to radio shack and pick up a few things. If I had planned better I would never have got these things at the shack. It cost me about 5 times as much there that it would have if I would have got these things off the internet. But nevertheless, after picking up a project box, a DC fan, and some 12 pin connectors I was able to peice this together.

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I will try and get some more pictures of the LEDs, custom light rack, and canopy when I get the wiring complete. On a bigger note the tank is finally wet. While it is not with salt water it is still water. Since all of my large containers are being used to hold my livestock I have to mix the water in my tank. So I am filling it up 5 gallons at a time.

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Finally I have lights.

The rack is all made from aluminum. The main bars that the LEDS mount to are all part of Steve's setup. After bonding all of the LED's on and wiring them up I them attached them to some 80/20inc adjustable track so that I could adjust there position in the tank after I figure out where they need to be. I then attached some c channel to this rack in order to mount the glass splash shields. The shields themselves are made from 3/32" glass from home depot. All of the cuts and holes were made with a diamond dremel bit. After polishing the edges I then mounted the glass to the c channel with some aluminum spacers, stainless all thread, and stainless nuts and washers. This rack will eventually sit inside the canopy on some wood rails that allow the rack to tilt back and out of the way when I need to do tank maintanence.

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I must say...these things are intensely bright. I can pretty much guarantee that my 2 250w metal halides with lumatek ballasts and lumenbright reflectors were not this bright. I look foward to seeing how the corals react to the new light.
 
Your LED setup looks great. Where are you located? I may have to pick your brain when my LEDs come in.

Sent from my MyTouch4g
 
Thanks guys. I am finally back in town so hopefully the progress will be picking back up on the tank.
 
So today after returning home, I got after the plumbing. I am going to let this cure over night, and then tommorrow comes the aquascaping. I am currently wanting a more open tank so we will see how it plays out. Anyway here are some pictures of todays progress.

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Well just before I had to leave for last nights festivities I finally got the water circulating. I know it is a mess right now, but here is what it looks like for the time being. Today I am going to get all of the equipment properly installed and get my controller back online. I am also going to do some water tests to see how things look. I am betting that this tank will probably go through a mini cycle due to the rockwall being added which had dead rock in it.

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Hopefully if things go well I can get my livestock back in shortly. Unfortunately, while the fish seem to being doing great the coral has had a rough time in the holding containers. I lost a very large basketball sized birdsnest colony at the beginning of this whole process and that caused a spike in alkalinity which sent the rest of my coral down the tubes. So it looks like I will be starting over.
 
I got a lot done today, and the tank is mostly complete now. The only thing that I have left is to make a top off container to hold my water and it will be complete. Unfortunately, as I suspected the tank is going through a small cycle so it will be a few days before I can get my fish back in. On a positive note, I am extremely impressed by the leds. They are by far my favorite looking light setup. Hopefully, the corals will like them also, but just in case I left room on my light rack for some T5's.

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everything looks great. I am really liking the rock backing and the LED setup looks awesome. Keep us posted
 
I can't wait to see them in there aso. Unfortunately, the rock wall has caused a small cycle that is still running its course. It is almost there though. Which is good, because keepin up with the water in the holding tank is a PITA. I have been getting some things done though. I have been continuing to make some mods to the LEDs and my top off tank is curing. I will post some pictures later.
 
So after a major error I finally got my top off container in and running. It turns out that the first time I made it, I misjudged the with of the opening and made the container 1/2" to big. So I had to cut the tank apart shorten it and re-glue it all together. I am now not 100% happy with all of the joints but I will keep an eye on it and watch for any issues. So here it is.

It now just barely squeezes in.
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I wanted to make the tank big enough to hold a weeks worth of water. This one holds just over 13 gallons. Hopefully it will be enough.
 
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