OldSchool 225 build with some new twists.

[OldSchool Reefer]

The last piece of the puzzle installed! Weather should be cool and dry the wife says I should put a coat of polyurethane on the stand in the morning so we can air out the house so I guess I’ll be buffing at the peak of the day. Anyway here is the last of the sump build for a bit.

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Did I mention I hate painting if I’m not spraying it? There are lots of things I Can do even somethings well but paining with a brush isn’t one! And to add insult to injury as I was almost finished the wife says “I would have done it but you didn’t ask” :mad: I’m done, one coat and done! I guarantee I’ll have more fun wet sanding and buffing!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Today on Pimp My Sump we will cover the finer aspects of cross hatch sanding for scratch removal verses the orbital sanding for fine craze/haze removal.

Time permitting we may even go over fine line pin striping with acrylic! So stay tuned!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Ok I’m thinking a 13 hour day is enough so I’m enjoying a fine 10 year old from Kentucky.... Bourbon that is!
Things you are going to need if you try this at home;
Sanders lots of sanders, orbital, vibrating, small for tight spots and corners. I chose my oldest sanders because working in a puddle of water with an electrical device let alone one with questionable electrical connections is hazardous! Who said Reefing wasn’t exciting? Air tools would be optimal!
Sanding block and big arms, all that shaking doesn’t work after 3000 grit, you have to use long strokes in a cross hatch pattern for the finer grits and you’ll need it for working across deep scratches with course grits!
Sandpaper; Wet Dry, everything from 600 to 6000. I like the full sheets you cut yourself, the ones I got from the Box store was for a slim long sander and I couldn’t get but one from a strip with a big chunk left over, good for hand sanding but that sucks!
Water; It ain’t wet sanding without water! Spray bottle and hose, one for sanding and one for rinsing.
Squeegee; if you don’t have one take the wife’s from the shower, better yet man up and get to the Auto Zone!
Sham Wow; You Gotta get some of these! They suck up the juice like nobody’s business. Don’t get the cheap ones they don’t suck! Get the real ones, They’re made in Germany Way better! Better than slap chopping a ****** on South Beach!
Polish; cutting and finish Mirror Glaze, whatever! Novus is for acrylic and Bezos delivered it for free.
Comfort; this is most important of all! A drywall mud bucket works but constantly moving that heavy sucker sucks!
Beer; lots of beer! You are going to be doing this for a while!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Pumping is hard work, but that bling tho! Got up early and started my day. I had finished polishing the red rings around the bulkheads on the top had to sand a few holes with the Dremel and cut a few compartment tops. As I l was busy wet sanding the last inside panels around noon I realized I forgot about my regular Sunday tank maintenance.

The wife asked if I fed the fish, hell I made her breakfast what else could she want on Mother’s Day? I hadn’t changed the fleece in the filters either or checked the chemistry, I’m such a slacker!
So I fed the fish swapped out the fleece and looked at the the big tank. I have had some VHO actinics running on it for about 3 days now and wouldn’t you know it there was some hair algae popping up on a few rocks :mad: I tell the wife and she said I need a cleanup crew and would it need to be larger or the same size as the last one I got?
Here is my getaway option, shoot to the LFS for a hundred crabs and snails have them test the chemistry and I’m back to polishing in no time! I call ahead with my order and tell them I’m on my way! Luckily the LFS is only about 2 miles away when I get there there were 3 ahead of me on the testing but they already had 50 red legs counted out. I have plenty of time to look at frags. The wife refused to call it a reef tank until there were corals in it. Fish tank no more! Get home after an hour and start dripping

Still haven’t told the Misses about the frags, as I’m researching the CoralsRX one shot

Just a couple of Blastos a Monty and a Rhodacits, but she can’t say fish tank anymore!
Dip Dip Dip! It was only a few nasty little starfish it could be worse!
So I have waisted some good daylight, I still have to polish and buff and trim and fit a few compartment tops before I can call it a day. It’s back to Pimping I go!

I still have to trim out the sections for the skimmer and reactors but they are ready!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Strange long day today! Hurricane season is at the door and getting ready is something we do here in Florida! Having a dependable generator is key. My 8k is plugged into a transfer switch and wired into the main box. It has run for 10 days straight powering the AC, refrigerator with a few outlets in the kitchen and 2 circuits for the Tank! Well it was due for a tune up, oil change and new battery. So along with taking the sump to meet the largest 5 axis CNC machine I have ever seen I had to take the generator in for service. Well they both are a 2 man lift and I’m all by myself in the heavy lifting department around here had to wait till 11 for help to arrive before I could get going. Having a few hours free this morning I sanded and buffed the repair I made to the bottom of overflow box, and started working on a few compartment lids. Seems like I’m not the only one Hurricane Prepping around here, I called 3 shops and all said a week to ten days so I scheduled a service with a drop off today with the shop that WAS closest come to find out it’s not right around the corner but 20 minutes across town. Pleased to say this is the largest commercial mower dealership in town and the largest show room of lawnmowers I have ever seen. ( lawn care is big in Florida) With Most of the day shot I managed to get the lids for the reactor compartment trimmed!
After some math X marks the spot!

I’ll have to wait for the sump to get back from the machine shop so I can take some measurements with the skimmer in before I can trim the lid so I guess I need to get started on the light fixture!

 

[F i s h y]

Fantastic build thread. I just read it start to finish. Your attention to detail is astounding. I have so much to learn...

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Thank you! This is my last tank and I want to be proud to say I built that.
It’s disheartening to me that we as a society are loosing the ability to do many things and do it with pride! Technology is great but we are rapidly loosing the ability to do things by hand. The other day I went to an Old School Sign shop, looking for some colored acrylic scraps, the guy had been in business for 50 years. He was 1 of only two shops in the state that still did neon. He still hand rolled and Bent the metal letters and cut the Acrylic by hand, hand painted and gold leaf, he did it all! He was saying he couldn’t keep up with the vinyl sign or CNC guys couldn’t get help to learn the old School way or get him help setting up some technology. It was really sad on Tuesday when I went to see if he could bend up the metal for my pendant, he had closed cleaned out GONE. :mad:

 

[DH78]

Just read through this. Kudos do you on your attention to detail, skill, and willingness to do the work. Not many people who would want to put in this amount of time.

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Here is yesterday’s post today because I was so POed I needed to cool down and see if after more time things got better :mad:

The plan was to line and seal the stand with Sheet PVC so any loose water could be sopped up or would run out one of the doors. I didn’t want to use screws to hold the PVC in place for obvious reasons. I don’t know many times I have to learn this lesson, DONT LISTEN TO THE IDIOTS AT THE BIG BOX STORES! I was looking for a PVC glue that would not only glue PVC together but also glue it to the wooden stand. Well I let this idiot talk me into getting the ULTIMATE Adhesive;Facepalm starting on an end I cut a big section of board to fit but I’m thinking I should squeeze out a bead under the edge of the bottom board. First thoughts were this is very hard to squeeze out and what’s with the smell? I wipe up a little with my finger that oozed out along the seam it had the consistency and feel of petroleum jelly and absolutely no smell it wasn’t even tacky. At that point I knew better but proceeded anyway:mad: clamped it up and went and cut the next few boards before I knew it I was out of clamps! Time to give this stuff some time to set up so I’ll make the last two tops for the sump compartments.

Thinking that it’s been several hours that there should be a few clamps available I’ll go back to PVC board installation. I take off 2 clamps from the second board I put on and it fell off What The Actual? It’s been at least 3 hours and this still feels like KY Jelly:mad: I had to walk away! Thinking I’ll check later...... well this morning still just tacky and when I took off the clamps one more fell off. I have a huge mess!

So mad I had to check again, yup the last one is PVC!
I hope I don’t have to rip it all out!

 

[F i s h y]

Here is yesterday’s post today because I was so POed I needed to cool down and see if after more time things got better :mad:

The plan was to line and seal the stand with Sheet PVC so any loose water could be sopped up or would run out one of the doors. I didn’t want to use screws to hold the PVC in place for obvious reasons. I don’t know many times I have to learn this lesson, DONT LISTEN TO THE IDIOTS AT THE BIG BOX STORES! I was looking for a PVC glue that would not only glue PVC together but also glue it to the wooden stand. Well I let this idiot talk me into getting the ULTIMATE Adhesive;Facepalm starting on an end I cut a big section of board to fit but I’m thinking I should squeeze out a bead under the edge of the bottom board. First thoughts were this is very hard to squeeze out and what’s with the smell? I wipe up a little with my finger that oozed out along the seam it had the consistency and feel of petroleum jelly and absolutely no smell it wasn’t even tacky. At that point I knew better but proceeded anyway:mad: clamped it up and went and cut the next few boards before I knew it I was out of clamps! Time to give this stuff some time to set up so I’ll make the last two tops for the sump compartments.

Thinking that it’s been several hours that there should be a few clamps available I’ll go back to PVC board installation. I take off 2 clamps from the second board I put on and it fell off What The Actual? It’s been at least 3 hours and this still feels like KY Jelly:mad: I had to walk away! Thinking I’ll check later...... well this morning still just tacky and when I took off the clamps one more fell off. I have a huge mess!

So mad I had to check again, yup the last one is PVC!
I hope I don’t have to rip it all out!

Hopefully this works for you. I've used liquid nails a few times on things, but not sure how it would work on pvc.

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Hopefully this works for you. I've used liquid nails a few times on things, but not sure how it would work on pvc.

I’m sure it would work better I used regular Gorilla glue on the top of the stand and it held fine!
This is the stuff I’m looking for, I went back to the depot to look for it but no luck. I was praying the hole time that that salesman didn’t come back there and ask me if I needed help. It could have gotten ugly! :mad:

When I get home tonight we will see how I’m going to proceed.... NEVER LISTEN TO THE IDIOTS AT THE BIG BOX STORES!

 

[JumboShrimp]

What a spectacular project... did I ever mention that people with amazing woodworking skills 'disgust' me? LOL! But seriously, keep up your incredible craftsmanship, it is slowly nearing the finish line. Best wishes!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

What a spectacular project... did I ever mention that people with amazing woodworking skills 'disgust' me? LOL! But seriously, keep up your incredible craftsmanship, it is slowly nearing the finish line. Best wishes!

Thanks, I don’t know about the finish line it doesn’t feel like I have made it through the first curve yet and there is still a lot of work left to do!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Ultimate Glue status report........ yup it still sucks! 30 hours and it’s dry but rubbed off the PVC like one of those buggers they put on your new debit card when you peal it off the card paper you got in the mail from your bank Softer than real silicone much easier to rub off than the silicone that I used to seal between the tank and the granite!

 

[F i s h y]

Ultimate Glue status report........ yup it still sucks! 30 hours and it’s dry but rubbed off the PVC like one of those buggers they put on your new debit card when you peal it off the card paper you got in the mail from your bank Softer than real silicone much easier to rub off than the silicone that I used to seal between the tank and the granite!

Going to be able to clean it up and start over?

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

Going to be able to clean it up and start over?

Probably only one board board so far, I haven’t tugged on all the boards yet and I’m not real excited about a few hours of rubbing buggers off of PVC boards

 

[F i s h y]

Probably only one board board so far, I haven’t tugged on all the boards yet and I’m not real excited about a few hours of rubbing buggers off of PVC boards

I completely understand... hate doing things twice...

Here is a pic of my not as impressive diy stuff stand, sump, and controller cabinet all diy...

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Absolutely awesome build! Following!

 

[OldSchool Reefer]

I completely understand... hate doing things twice...

Here is a pic of my not as impressive diy stuff stand, sump, and controller cabinet all diy...

I like the up front and bare all for everyone to see approach! I was going to hide the fuge in a cabinet and have the controller cabinet over that but things change it will be an open mangrove lagoon Fuge now...... but where will the controller go? I’m Still working on that!