Big Kennys 220 over haul

[bigkenny76]

Let me start this off by saying ive been in the hobby around 7 years , i started saltwater with a old scratched up 220 and some buckets of sand from a old shark tank , i didn't know any better , just dumped the sand in (un rinsed) put in 4 bags of salt and filled er up with tap water . after years of ups and downs ,(not many downs ) Ive managed to keep a decent looking mixed reef , Tried to learn as much as i coild as i went and enjoyed the hobby. Now im using what ive learned and im building myself a nice setup the way i want it . First issue ive always had was the height of my old stand, it was maybe 26 inches tall, heres a pic of the old tank.

This is a basic set up with a 30 gallon cube plumbed into the same sump and used as a macro/ mangrove tank. Loved the concept but i had so many pumps and everything was soft plumbed and basically it was a rats nest of wires. So its time to upgrade. Also i must mention this stand was about 10 years ols , and the stand was starting to fall apart and teh canopt was also on its last leg.

So myself and my good friend John found a set up we liked , he wanted the acrylic 6 foot 220 and i wanted the stand, now follow me if you can , he already had a 6 foot glass 220 with dual overflows that was reef ready, so we swapped , he used his old stand with the new acrylic tank and i got his glass tank with the newer stand we just got..........i could have been happy with this and set it up but NOOOOOOOO i had to make it my own. and since i might get only one shot at this might as well do it right the first time, So we switched johns tank over and put the glass 220 in the garage. and this is what we had with the new stand we just got. needed work but still better that what i had ... this one was 6 foot and 32 inches high.

So we start with this

not a bad start, all the hinges were rusty and needed replacing , but it was solid. Then i decide i want to add a small cube on the side like with my old tank, so now we have to add on to this stand , so we add 2 feet onto it and since its still only 32 inches , we build a riser for it to bring it up to 44 inches, now its at a height that i like.

So now we need to slap some paint on this old girl, so since John has access to a paint boot , why not paint it with gloss black car paint and throw on about 3 coats of clear........Sure why not, so after a long weekend of sanding , spraying and drying , we have this

 

[bigkenny76]

Here is the stand before paint

so now we start building new doors for the canopy and stand and painting the inside with a couple coats of white, after the doors were added we ended up with this (john cheesin for the pic)

so we decided to throw the tank on it and see how the canopy fits

And this is what we ended up with , this is when we had to take time to do all the small stuff , like
no slam stoppers on the doors , dj power strip mount , installing strip leds under the stand and dry side
for lighting and doing the plumbing, also installed a 75 for a sump

Took a few weeks until we were ready for the install but it was there before we knew it . so out with the old , in with the new

 

[bigkenny76]

So now for the last bit of the install,

Old tank being taken down

New tank going up

Decided to go with the same d120 black boxes for light on the big tank and im lighting the cube with a Kessil a350

 

[bigkenny76]

So i moved all the corals and fish back to the tank, and everyone is doing ok , here are a few pics of the tanks as of this weekend

 

[revhtree]

Beautiful job and we won't hold the Dawgs memorabilia against you. Roll Tide....