Benjamin's 57g Rimless Reef

revhtree · Nov 18, 2013

Oh yea here we go! HA!

mrbee2828 · Jan 9, 2014

So a year after starting this thread I'm getting things into motion. Now that the addition is just about done and the holidays are over we have our son moved into his new room and I'm going to begin the process of converting his old room into my office. As of last month it has been a storage unit for all our junk and my desk has been crammed on the side wall. Saturday paint and shelving will go up and I hope to get all this random stuff in boxes organized, sifted and up on the shelving. Not sure if I'm going to keep the truck decals or not lol.

Lilmatty5dimes · Jan 9, 2014

sweet sounds good. can't wait to see it come to life.

mrbee2828 · Jan 10, 2014

How is your's coming along btw?

mrbee2828 · Jan 27, 2014

This weekend I made a ton of progress the past few weeks and hope to have the office finished next weekend. Since my last post I've painted and got shelving up. I picked up flooring Saturday and began demo on the closet. We had the addition wrap up in December with bigger rooms for the kids but their old rooms backed up to each other and their closets were back to back. When we did the addition I walled off my daughter's and we built the closets out into the rooms so they'd be much bigger. This also let me make the new office have a walk in closet by knocking out the wall between them. So I got that going this weekend and removed all the old carpet. I should have the mud finished up this week sometime and then the new door will go up and laminate will go down after it's acclimated to the house. All that's left is relocating the electrical and cable I installed for my son's old TV and I'll be starting on the stand.

mrbee2828 · Jan 27, 2014

Apex, probes, holders and my Inland saw just arrived

FLipp · Jan 27, 2014

i would of been too anxious! lol

mrbee2828 · Feb 9, 2014

Here are some update's from this week's progress. You can see where I blended the wall a bit but it doesn't look bad in person. That's what you get when you are an amateur

Honestly, once the tank is up you'll never see it. My plan is to have a 5g ATO container in the closet and run through the wall to the sump. I hoped to have all the trim installed this weekend but alas, it never goes as planned. I got it all made and painted but it will be a few more days before it's installed. Then we get down to business...

mrbee2828 · Feb 11, 2014

I spent most of the weekend building acrylic accessories for our local club members and making almost 100 linear feet of custom trim. I got down 3 walls this morning before the daily grind began. I know... still no tank, no stand etc. It's coming I swear!

mrbee2828 · Feb 20, 2014

I'm just about done with the office construction. It's taken much longer than expected with some other stuff going on and work. Isn't that always the case? Now that the doors are up and the room is more finished looking I'm debating this tank. It will be sticking out from the wall 3' as a peninsula in a 10' room with 2' desks on the opposite side with 2 office chairs. I'm considering going with a more standard rectangular setup. I'm just not sure at this point. Once the tank is in here I'll set it up on something to get a rough idea for the footprint in the room.

mrbee2828 · Apr 30, 2014

For a few months now a local club member has been planning a 90g cube build in his new place. After moving in the other week, he's decided it's too much and is going to do a 57g rimless instead. I challenged him to a build off for fun and to motivate me to get mine going. I'm calling it 57 gallons in 57 days. We are posting updates every Monday with the tag #57days and sharing progress on the Facebook group. At the end, the members will vote on a winner for bragging rights and a piece of coral from the loser's tank. I spent time last week planning everything and drew up a stand that I'll be welding with my neighbor. I will most likely be ordering all the rock and fish later this week to begin the QT process. Stay tuned.

mrbee2828 · Jun 2, 2014

This build has been painfully slow but life is crazy right now. I finally got all the metal the other week, got it cut last week and went over to a friend's to weld it up last night. He let me drive and well... it came out ok. I may have spent more time grinding than welding

I decided to not do the gussets but did add some to the canopy to possibly help against sagging. I'm not sure how this floating canopy will work but I'm going to try for sure. I got all the skin mounting holes drilled shortly after taking this picture. Off to get powder coated tomorrow!

revhtree · Jun 2, 2014

Looking forward to it!

ethridge78 · Jun 2, 2014

Love this build thread.

mrbee2828 · Jun 9, 2014

I got the stand and canopy frames back from powder coating this weekend. You can see where the tank will go in the office better now and how it will work with the canopy off the wall to allow for plumbing. I'm still not 100% sure if the canopy will work as I'm planing but there is only one way to find out. I'm waiting on a new 3/4" hole saw bit to come in the mail as I've misplaced mine over the last few weeks.

mrbee2828 · Jun 22, 2014

I got back from Nags Head yesterday and jumped right back in with some new energy. I'm going to try and have this wet soon. I drilled a 3/4" return, made the overflow and got it siliconed in. Tomorrow I'm starting on the sump. With the tank peninsula style, it almost takes up about 1/2 the small 10'x10' room with the 2' desks on the opposite wall. It looks really good but you can't get a sense for the scale here. Coming down the hall, it appears to take up the whole room and with the window in the back it will look like everything is floating. I'm pretty excited after such a long wait.

mrbee2828 · Jun 30, 2014

Well I decided this past week to go with an acrylic sump. I was planning on working with Tony at Custom Reef Creations in Williamsburg, VA but said to hell with it... let's try. I have never made anything other than overflows and baffles with it so I was really nervous. I went with a U shaped flow and built in sock holders so needless to say, I started with the hardest design I could for my first try. I used 3/8" acrylic from left overs and 2 sheets of welded 1/4" for the sock holder. Water enters on the backside for a full syphon, cascades into the socks down into the skimmer chamber and over baffles to the return. It's about 23g when full at 24"x15"x15"

My final seam was the best of course and had almost no bubbles compared to some of the first which came out terrible. I chipped a corner, it's not perfectly square and I burned a side with the router on one of the final trim passes. I'm going to try to sand and polish it out though so we'll see. I also probably could have made this a bit bigger but I didn't want it too be too tight under the stand. I also made the panel insert for the base. It's holding water as of this morning. All this is major because I could potentially get this wet by the end of the week!

mrbee2828 · Jul 1, 2014

I was able to wet sand all the burned areas on the last seam from the router. I just ordered some polish and buffing wheels so it should look like new.