330g Acrylic

[Giovanni]

I have had marine tanks since 1991 on and off and have been reefing since late 2004 on and off. A couple of years ago I got out. I recently moved 45 miles closer to work and setup a Spec V nano. For some reason I decided I needed a bigger tank. While looking at tanks and locations in the house a 75g led to 100g to 180g and I landed on a used 330g (96x30x30) used acrylic tank. I have this build posted on another unnamed very slow board so I am moving over here and repeat some of my post. Hope no one minds the repost.

 

[Giovanni]

I have the tank home. Left home at 04:30 Saturday and got home Saturday night at 01:30 with about 1280 miles driven. Tank looks better than I thought it would. I felt the stand was to tall so we moved it in the house this am to see. Everyone but me feels it is good. I am worried that the most colorful part of the corals will be on top and I will be looking from the sides and up. Stand is 42 inches tall. Any way I loaded the tank is a 4x8 uhaul. It was a perfect 97.5 inches long so with moving blankets the doors were tight and held the tank in place for the trip. I strapped the stand to the top. Shhhh don't tell uhaul!:lol: I moved the stand back out to sand prime and pain it.


Here are some photos. First is the moving rig. Next is a normal shot of the tank on the wall and the third is a panorama of the room.

 

[akabryanhall]

Wow awesome spot for an awesome tank. Looking forward to more pics! (Or it didn't happen lol!)

 

[jaa1456]

Looks good, did you put anything between the stand and tank?

 

[Giovanni]

11/9/2012

The 125 I plan to use for a sump I purchased for $50. It was leaking. I cleaned all the silicone from the inside and resealed it.


I decided not to cut the stand down fro 42" to 36". If it was going to be easy I would have, but it was not worth the effort. Also a friend of mine thought it should be taller. I will give you three guesses to figure out who that friend was. The stand also had to be cleaned of rust, that took over three hours with a side grinder and wire wheel. I decided to paint it with a product from valspar that is a primer and paint all in one. I still had to put 3 to 4 coats on.


Will begin polishing out the fine scratches from the inside of the tank on Saturday. Sunday I will move the stand in and place the tank on it.


I am trying to decided on rock and sand. I have decided to go with a SRO XP-5000 external skimmer with auto neck cleaner.

 

[Giovanni]

11/11/12
I am waiting a couple of weeks before I put water in the resealed sump. I put the silicone on thick in places and want to make sure it is dry full thickness.




Moved the stand in to it's permanent placement last night thanks to some friends. I used a 3/4 advantech engineered product instead of plywood under the tank. It is supposed to be stronger and more moister resistant than marine grade plywood.

 

[Giovanni]

11/12/12

When polishing my tank, I was using an led light over the end of the panel being polished. This illuminates the scratches much better. I had noticed some crazing on the end of the top piece used for euro bracing. It appears that this crazing has migrated across the seam and into about 1/4 inch of the front viewing panel. Not sure what to do at this point!

 

[Giovanni]

11/16/12

Well I have all the medium to large scratches out of half the tank. That half needs a polish with novus #2. The other half has yet to be worked on. There were more scratches than I had noticed when I purchased it, but no worries.


I ordered and received schedule 80 bulkheads for the closed loop holes that were already in the tank. I do not plan on using them but did not want to glue acrylic over them incase I decided to setup a closed loop. As it turns out the 1" and 3/4" bulkheads were oversized. I called the seller and got a very obstinate sales person on the phone. I decided to use a sanding drum and enlarge the holes in the tank which took several hours yesterday. I will not be using that online store again.


I also ordered a Deluxe Puratek 100GPD RODI. Very nice unit that was producing water at 1PPM before the DI resin. I am very pleased with the quality.

I got 3 x 200g reef crystal boxes in today from DRsF&S. Got a good deal $48.95 a box shipped. I also decided on carbisea select sand and ordered 240lbs of that from premium aquatics Thursday. Their site says most orders placed before 2pm ship the same day. I got my order in at 1:59pm and it still shipped. Guess who my new online reef store is?


I was able to purchase 6 AI sol led units Thursday. Three are blues and three are white. I prefer the blue but the price was very good so I purchased both. I plan on swapping half the pucks in the blues for half from the whites in an every other pattern.


This weekend I will finish polishing out the scratches and water test. My tank sits on a load bearing wall but I want to see if my floor shifts and cause the tank to lean in any direction so I can address this now. When my sand arrives the long three day RODI fill with my new 100GPD RODI begins. It will take >85lbs of salt to fill just the tank!

 

[Giovanni]

11/18/12

Tested the reseal job Saturday. Looks good, been sitting overnight with water in it with no signs of a leak. Where the silicone was overly thick I did notice it took some time to cure completely through. I let this one set for over a week!

 

[Giovanni]

The wife decided to paint the living room before we get water in this beast. So I spent some time painting the wall the tank sits on Saturday. If the paint looks a little green it is the reflection of the walls that are still green. The color is supposed to be toasted almond.


I did manage to get about 4 hours of time to buff out the last scratches from the inside. I will get the outside once the tank is cycling. All that is left is to buff with #2 Novus. I hope to get that done today.
I was going to do an LED DIY but got such a good deal on the AI Sol fixtures that it was not worth the extra effort. They will not be here till a week from Tuesday. :(


Sand arrives Monday. I wonder how to get the water in without those rings of sand fodder that always seem to be left behind when you fill a tank slowly? Fill it then put the sand in the bags and cut the bags? I sure don't want to scratch the tank after all this work!

 

[Giovanni]

Polishing of the inside is done. Schedule 80 bulkheads are in. I will not be using the recirc system now so I have to put plugs in those. Plan on turning down some pvc plugs and cutting grooves for o-rings for this. Should make it easy to remove later and keep the sand out. Will also put threaded plugs in the bottom of the bulkheads. So maybe water test Monday or Tuesday night. Will start filling up the 125 G sump and 75G water mixing tanks with RO tonight.


Trying to decide weather or not to put the egg crate overhead light stuff on the bottom or not.

 

[Scoly]

Nice pickup! Following along! Isn't that a 375g tank though? What are your plans for it as far as livestock goes?

 

[Giovanni]

The outside dimensions will give you 375G. If you measure the inside dimensions and use the actual water height you get 330g. I am planing on sps dominated with some LPS and probably heavy stocked fish.

 

[Giovanni]

11/22/12

Started filling the tank with RODI. The 2" bulkheads had a slow leak where the threaded plugs screwed into the bottom of the bulkhead. I purchased a couple of pvc plugs and cut them down so they would slip into the bulkheads on the inside of the tank. Then I cut a groove for an o-ring. After I put them in I was able to remove the threaded plugs and no leaks. They can easily be removed later and prevent sand from getting in the bulkheads.

Also noticed that the RODI water has a blueish color. Is this because the water is pure or do you think it is picking the blue from the back of the tank?

 

[jaa1456]

Did you let the RO unit run for an hour before using the water? You should do that first, but I have never seen blue water, this might be from the DI unit if you didn't let it run for that hour. Or it could be just from the background.

 

[Giovanni]

I did run the unit for several hours prior to filling the tank. I also think it was the water picking up some blue from the background. My RODI unit is advertised as 100GPD but during the fill produced around 146.4GPD. The pre DI water was 1PPM. Did not look at the efficiency. Needless to say I am very please and hope the rest of my equipment works as well.

 

[FishLipz]

I can't wait to see this come together. I love a big tank build.

 

[Giovanni]

11/25/2012

I ended up starting with 240 lbs of carbisea select 0.5-1.0micron sand. I ran RODI into the bags and then place them in the tank which had salt water in it already. I cut the bags open and pulled out the bags. Once it settled enough to tell how much was in it, (12 hours), I added another 75lbs of carbisea seafloor which had been in a previous tank. This made the tank way more cloudy than it was with the 240 lbs of new sand.

I decided to go with a bean animal drain system. I am using three of the 4 drains in the overflows for that. I ran those three to a 2" drain that runs under the house to the garage. In the main drain that carries most the water, I ran the 1" pvc down inside the 2" to reduce noise. I ran a 1" line for a return and also 1 " line using only 45s to use as a wire conduit. I don't want to have to go back under the house to run a new wire later. There is some noise at the 90s where the drain drops through the wall and under the house at the. Sound a bit like the gutters when it is raining, very faint. This week I will build my sump stand etc... So for now I am cycling the tank through a rubber maid container to help clear it from the sand storm.

 

[Giovanni]

These photos show where the tank is in relation to the sump area in the garage.

 

[Giovanni]

11/27/2012
Lights and Skimmer came today. The skimmer I decided on is a RO xp-5000 external and an automatic neck cleaner. The light were used. I purchased 3 AI SOL Blues and 3 AI SOL whites. I think the whites will have to be sold for Blues. I may move the pucks around to see if I can get a more even color before I trade the whites for the blues. What do you guys think?