1 metre cube tank build thread

[WillpoleReefers]

Hi again all

Fairly new here, as promised a build thread for my 1 metre (39 in cube). Depth will be as much as I feel I can tolerate for access, maybe 0.85m, approx 33 in, tank yet to be ordered. I warn readers things will be slow, I am doing all the preparatory work before ordering the tank. Maybe a few months before it is running. I am trying not to repeat some mistakes from my last time in reefing about 15 years ago, particulary not the primitive water change method involving sliding large containers f RO and saltwater around manually. This system is going to be as easy to operate as it can be, ultimately with automated water change. Top up will be auto of course. There is still a lot of planning to do, but at least I have made a start over the past 10 days. The stand and trim will be home made, including an overhead lighting enclosure. The system will incorporate a reasonably large sump under the cube. 0.75x 0.85m , depth 0.45m. The sump is being home made from 8mm glass over the next couple of weeks and will be pictured as I progress. It will have just two compartments, I don’t like anything too complicated but I did want to incorporate a Jaubert plenum into it, so the back part is to be partitioned off to create a 0.75x0.4m Jaubert section that can have deeper water than the front part. Anyway on to the pictures of the work so far!

A ”stand kit” was created shown here at the tank site. The timber is C24 structural grade, good for a metric ton or so per length in end to end compression. There will be 8 uprights plus a vertical joining piece sited at each corner.

I improvised a cutting jig so the legs match. The solid floor is dead level, checked again after siting a plywood square base

The design aim was big apertures front and sides no bracing in the way for good sump access

This view shows the upright design, the joiner pieces are not designed to take vertical load but strengthen the structure

No figures for the load bearing of the top one inch ply sheet so I didn’t take chances, the ply distributes load to multiple crossmembers.

I turned the frame upside down and further attached the baseboard

Finally the top, thicker ply for this. Fortunately still dead level so I didn’t have to shim the uprights.

The sump will slide in from the front and be pretty big. You can see the top overhangs slightly to allow for final decorative trim, style yet to be decided.
My next post will detail some of the early systems work.

 

[parclife]

Welcome and good luck with the build!

 

[WillpoleReefers]

OK so here in the UK we tend not to have so much space for fish rooms and we don’t usually have basements. However this is a single storey bungalow, so loft space we do have! Only issue is that everything will have to fit through a loft entry hatch. Salt will have to be lifted up there too. So anyway, that’s is where the RO and salt systems will go. I had a fairly large MDPE tank already that was bought for water storage and now unused so that will be the RO/DI storage tank. I will buy a cylindrical 200 litre tank for mixing saltwater. The loft area near the tank site was not well boarded, so first I did quite a lot of boarding:

The RO/DI tank is on the right. Salt mixing will be done far left. A board to attach the DIY RO/DI system will be fitted above all this.

I created a duct above the tank area after probing up to find where we were! Aim is to make running RO and salt lines down to the tank really easy

Don’t want floods. This tank is over our bedroom!

So here is the area below showing the tank stand top. I am extending the boxed area behind to cover any descending pipes and wires. Shouldn’t look too much worse than it does already. A saltwater drain will have to go through the wall behind, need to create a drain connection to get rid of waste water, that will be a whole other chapter as we don’t have any drains on that side of the house sadly and the floor is of course solid/was expensive. So that’s where we are this weekend. Sump construction to follow over the next 2 weeks I hope,

Steve

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Welcome and good luck with the build!

Good wishes appreciated , and the advice here so far, thanks

 

[TheBear78]

Hello to a fellow UK reefer.
It is frustrating when we see all the equipment stowed in the basement and/or fish room at many overseas houses!! There aren't many tidy options for such installations in a typical UK house but a least your bungalow has loft space!!
I bought my tank a couple of years after a loft conversion and ground floor extension to our bungalow in Portsmouth. So many things could have been incorporated in the building work but the reef tank just wasn't a consideration at the time.

It looks like you've planned things well and this patient approach will certainly be a benefit when you eventually fill your tank.

Good luck!!

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Hello to a fellow UK reefer.
It is frustrating when we see all the equipment stowed in the basement and/or fish room at many overseas houses!! There aren't many tidy options for such installations in a typical UK house but a least your bungalow has loft space!!
I bought my tank a couple of years after a loft conversion and ground floor extension to our bungalow in Portsmouth. So many things could have been incorporated in the building work but the reef tank just wasn't a consideration at the time.

It looks like you've planned things well and this patient approach will certainly be a benefit when you eventually fill your tank.

Good luck!!

Hi, good to meet you and thanks. We are just by the N Hampshire border so not a million miles away! Yes I envy those with spare rooms or basements to do all this. We do enjoy a good sized plot here so can't complain. Every inch of the house is precious though. We extended about 4 years ago which created the large lounge that the tank will sit in. So frustrating, no plans for a tank then. Half of the distance from tank to opposite drainage side of the house was new floor. The oak floor over all of this was laid at that time. I could have made a duct for waste piping! Now we have to dig trenches outside. Oh well. It's quite fun weaving the systems into an existing 1950s house, challenges the mind getting it right

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Spacer or not to spacer!

Building the sump for the new tank the coming weekend. Glass is masked and clean. What I have built before has been smaller and using thinner glass than the 8mm that this roughly 0.8m length sump will employ. I’m fully aware of the need to preserve a silicone filled gap in the joints. In the past guess I have got away without any spacers etc , probably because the glass was light and the tanks smaller. Feeling the 6kg weight of my side panels, which will sit on top of the base panel, I was concerned. Don’t want to go the full clamp and inject silicone route, wished to do this without much tooling. Agonised a bit about spacers and their effect on joint integrity. Easier argument for thicker glass than 8mm maybe, yet it’s thick enough to have some weight. I decided to bite the bullet and use spacers for the base panel joints. I had to hand some 1mm polypropylene sheet from a craft store … yea I know it wont bond well to silicone. Plan is keep the spacers small, about half the width of the glass, placed at the outer side. I can live with the pros and cons of them in the joint I guess. I will definitely be using an inside good fillet in addition to the seam silicone here, it is not a display tank. Anyway a guillotine to make a strip, then scissors, produce lots of little 1mm spacers. They were held in fine forceps and dabbed onto a blob of silicone so that a minimal amount coated one surface, then applied at well spaced intervals to the tank seam. it will be a couple of days until the tank is built up, but will hopefully get at least some bond with the applied silicone. An attached spacer pictured below.

Steve

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Assembled the sump today. Note to self. If using masking tape it should be low tack! The green stuff was a disaster, trashed my seams pulling it off. Had to wipe them over again in many places. Oh well, learning curve here.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Work continues on the loft RODI and salt mix area, plumbing and power feeds in.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Stand is looking great!

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Thanks . Got some varnish on it today

 

[Propane]

Can’t wait to see the progression on this.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Can’t wait to see the progression on this.

Thanks! It’s a multi month process. Getting it all ready before we order the tank. Though Im doing better than I thought. Sump will go live in a few weeks or so if it’s watertight. May as well have the thing cycling while we wait.

Steve

 

[Lebowski_]

Oh this is a fun build. Following along. Looking great so far.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Did a little bit today, nice smooth platform for salt mix tank and adapted UK domestic 15mm plumbing feed to 1/4 inch RO supply connection, from here onwards the parts match those those of my fellow US RO plumbers . Custom assembled RODI will follow soon,

Steve

 

[WillpoleReefers]

So, we have a sump, with very un-pretty seams partly due to a bad masking tape choice. Anyway I see no particular reason why they should leak. Glad this wasn’t an attempt at a display tank. The rear section is the deeper Jaubert part, overflows to the front, may direct that flow with edging. I have detailed the construction of the gravel bed support creating the plenum.

Jaubert plenum construction detailed using some grid plates I found on eBay that came with support pillars. I added a layer of silicone mesh over the grid, sold for baking use, suited to contain the 3mm aragonite I intend to use.

Final shot shows the grid in place

Steve

 

[WillpoleReefers]

This evening I managed to T into the drainage system to dump saltwater and RO waste. Solvent weld made a potentially impossible job possible in the tight space available and very little spring in the 40mm 1.5 inch pipes. Easier from here now but it’s a long plumb back via the loft space to over where the tank is. Air admittance valves definitely needed with this job.

Steve

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Another tedious plumbing post sorry. Became a challenge connecting from over the tank area in 40mm to the house drain system. The builder had crossed some beams above my planned vertical run. Anyway we got there, weaving a path through some serious timber. About 10 metres of the loft covered with the waste pipe run, we have reached the tank service area. Plan is to pump waste salt up there with a bilge pump and then let it drain all the way back across the house to the connection point,

Steve

 

[besskurz]

Thanks for sharing the process! I always thought about assembling my own display, but dealing with silicone is something that I don't have the skills. Haha

And btw, nice Porsche!

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Thanks, we will see if the sump holds water soon!
You spotted the 968