Headline: "Relative noob puts big tank in office"

[rhitee93]

Well, there is some good news. I received notice yesterday that my tank was ready to ship! <Thunderous Applause>

I'm hoping it arrives next week, so I can start the actual build process.

In the meantime I made my first reefing mistake. I had my little 10-gallon practice tank cycled (seemingly) and I popped into a LFS on a lark. The next thing I know is I had these little guys in a bag in my car.

As you more experienced folks might have expected, the ammonia started to climb. After a week of doing 20-30% daily water changes to keep the ammonia down I went back to the LFS and bought a few pieces of mature rock out of their system.

The ammonia started to fall almost immediately. It still isn't quite zero. My Hanna checker read 0.09 this morning, but it's at least going the right direction.

It's a good lesson for when I get the 120 setup.

 

[ryanrick]

Thanks for the detailed updates - will be watching as your big tank is assembled!

 

[rhitee93]

The tank and stand arrived this morning! More updates to follow...

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The tank and stand arrived this morning! More updates to follow...

Stand looks great!

 

[rhitee93]

Well, here is some progress. Stayed after work a couple of nights to get the cabinet stained to match my office furniture. Spent some time this morning painting the interior white, and getting a couple coats of finish on the outside. I should be ready to move this into the office sometime this week!

I'm quite happy with the stand. The build quality is quite good, and the wood and hardware are top-notch. They even used soft-closing fully-adjustable hinges on the doors.

 

[rhitee93]

The inside of the doors are painted, and I got them hung back on the cabinet. I'll do a rub down with some steel wool and dark wax, and then it'll be ready for the office.

 

[ryanrick]

It looks fantastic! How fun to have that in your office; I don't think my workplace would let me get away with that!

 

[rhitee93]

Thanks! I'm sure I'll get some eye-rolls once everyone understands the scale of what I am doing, but after nearly 24 years with my company I have a bit of credibility to burn.

I spend so much time in my office that it was the natural place for me to put an aquarium. I'm here an hour before anyone else, so there is some time for testing and light maintenance. Stopping by on Saturday mornings has become part of my routine, so water changes and larger maintenance tasks can be done then.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The inside of the doors are painted, and I got them hung back on the cabinet. I'll do a rub down with some steel wool and dark wax, and then it'll be ready for the office.

Incredible progress on the stand! Love the wood look!

 

[rhitee93]

Here is the new view from my desk:

I've got a little more space in the cabinet that I feared I would. Everybody has thought the sump looked huge sitting in my office the last few months. Looks tiny now

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the tank up on top. I've got plenty of warm bodies around to help but you can't get many people around a 4' tank. It's only 200lbs, but there aren't any good handles.

 

[thedon986]

Here is the new view from my desk:

I've got a little more space in the cabinet that I feared I would. Everybody has thought the sump looked huge sitting in my office the last few months. Looks tiny now

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the tank up on top. I've got plenty of warm bodies around to help but you can't get many people around a 4' tank. It's only 200lbs, but there aren't any good handles.

May be able to ask a local fish shop if they have some suction cups you can borrow or buy on Amazon.

 

[rhitee93]

May be able to ask a local fish shop if they have some suction cups you can borrow or buy on Amazon.

I was thinking along those lines yesterday, and ordered a couple of decent looking glass handler suction cups. Didn't think about the LFS though. I may ask if they have a couple more I could borrow.

 

[rhitee93]

It's an exciting day! We happen to have a die cart in the shop, so that made lifting the tank up to the stand easy.

My latest view from my desk:

They built the overflow out of glass, and then fabricated a black acrylic cover that actually hangs on the glass rather than using silicone. I didn't know this was a thing, but I like that I can see the bulkheads well while installing them.

I got a nice start on dry fitting the plumbing. I shorted myself a 1.5" schedule 80 elbow, so I used a white one for the dry-fit. I'll swap that out with a schedule 80 when I order some more fittings I need.

I need to get a check valve for the return line, and I'm thinking about plumbing in a "T" so I can have a manifold later.

 

[rhitee93]

Oh yeah, I also covered the back with window black-out vinyl film...

 

[rhitee93]

I got the overflow piping glued in, and have a couple of gallons of water sitting on top of the bulkheads right now testing the seals for leaks. Had a bit of a drip from the larger one, but after tightening it a bit more it seems to have stopped. I need to get a bit more loc-line for the left return line.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Oh yeah, I also covered the back with window black-out vinyl film...

That window black out looks good!

 

[rhitee93]

Swine bulkheads!

My 1.5" bulkhead kept dripping in spite of incrementally getting it tighter than I think I should have had to.

I siphoned out the 2 gallons of water I had in overflow so I could remove the bulkhead, wipe everything clean, and reinstall it. We'll see what happens next...

 

[rhitee93]

Making progress. I took today as a vacation day so I'd have a long weekend to hopefully get water in this thing.

I'm still fighting a slow drip with the 1.5" bulkhead, but I'm hopeful it's fixed now. I've had 15" of water sitting in the overflow chamber for a couple of hours now, and haven't seen a drip. If it's still dry at the end of the day I'll glue the emergency overflow pipe in place.

Meanwhile I'm fettling all the other odds and ends that need to get installed. Gonna be a lot of cables to manage...

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looking great!

 

[rhitee93]

Ok, I think the live sand goes in first thing tomorrow morning followed by the water.

I still have a lot to do with mounting all the little controllers that come with each piece of equipment, but I think I can work on that while the tank cycles.

Hard plumbing is done...

...and the dry rock is ready and waiting. I've decided to add some mature rock from my lfs once I get everything going.