I am going to reserve this first post for the most up to date pictures and stats on my system. At the moment, not a lot of progress ... a tank filled with freshwater, with the glass looking grim. Explanations in the thread to come.
Osric's 220
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So the saga of my 220G tank begins in 2016, when we were remodeling our basement. My old Solana cube had just crashed for the second time (both times while we were on vacation) and I got approval for a dream tank build in my office on the condition that it be absolutely bullet proof. So I embarked on this build with the goal of a tank that would be automated, redundant, and beautiful from day 1; as is so often the case, the perfect is the enemy of the good...
The tank itself was delivered on March 11, 2016, and placed in my office to have a cabinet built around it:
The office floor was already prepped with plumbing to go to my basement fish closet, which is directly underneath the tank's install site:
It's a bit hard, writing this almost 4 full years later, to think that at that time I had no idea how long it would take me to get this system up and running! But I was, and am, very excited to have such a sweet setup to start from.
The tank itself was delivered on March 11, 2016, and placed in my office to have a cabinet built around it:
The office floor was already prepped with plumbing to go to my basement fish closet, which is directly underneath the tank's install site:
It's a bit hard, writing this almost 4 full years later, to think that at that time I had no idea how long it would take me to get this system up and running! But I was, and am, very excited to have such a sweet setup to start from.
The first order of business was to get the return plumbing going. The drains are a BeanAnimal setup, and the return pumps are plumbed so that each side of the tank is driven by one pump for double the flow, or if a pump fails the other pump can be pressed into duty to run both returns.
Having put the plumbing in place I was anxious to leak test it and made my first large error of the build: I had no idea how much drywall dust was in the air from the construction and running water through my system coated every surface in this stuff:
Most people seemed a lot more chill about it than I was, but having paid premium $ for Starphire glass, I absolutely did not want to scratch it. Over the next several years, every few months I'd climb in the tank, laboriously scrape the glass clean, vacuum out all the dust with a dust extractor, and hope I'd finally got the last of it.
Sadly, to this day the battle with the drywall dust is still not over.
Having put the plumbing in place I was anxious to leak test it and made my first large error of the build: I had no idea how much drywall dust was in the air from the construction and running water through my system coated every surface in this stuff:
Most people seemed a lot more chill about it than I was, but having paid premium $ for Starphire glass, I absolutely did not want to scratch it. Over the next several years, every few months I'd climb in the tank, laboriously scrape the glass clean, vacuum out all the dust with a dust extractor, and hope I'd finally got the last of it.
Sadly, to this day the battle with the drywall dust is still not over.
Meanwhile, the cabinet makers were ready to come and build the cabinet. Here it is under construction - note the vents at the top left and right of the cabinet:
There was supposed to be a similar vent at the bottom left of the cabinet. Unfortunately they didn't put it in, and they weren't willing to cut it in place. I jury-rigged a CNC router clamped to the cabinet and cut the slots myself:
The cabinet makers were at least able to come and paint the slots so that the vent is much more subtle (similar to the top vent) in its finished form.
There was supposed to be a similar vent at the bottom left of the cabinet. Unfortunately they didn't put it in, and they weren't willing to cut it in place. I jury-rigged a CNC router clamped to the cabinet and cut the slots myself:
The cabinet makers were at least able to come and paint the slots so that the vent is much more subtle (similar to the top vent) in its finished form.
Fast forward to this weekend, and I finally am getting around to building out the fish closet. After trying three different off the shelf storage solutions for shelving, I eventually gave into the reality that if I wanted shelving that really would work for my project I'd have to build it. You can see here that I'm no carpenter:
And no visualizer either ... the sump sitting right over the salt resevoir of the mixing station is definitely not going to work out. My new plan is to put the sump on the left shelf, and have the return pumps be external so that they sit right under the plumbing that runs into the office to minimize head pressure. That, it seems, will be this coming weekend's project, along with finishing the drain plumbing and the drip tray for the mixing station.
But still I'm happy overall with how the shelving came out.
And no visualizer either ... the sump sitting right over the salt resevoir of the mixing station is definitely not going to work out. My new plan is to put the sump on the left shelf, and have the return pumps be external so that they sit right under the plumbing that runs into the office to minimize head pressure. That, it seems, will be this coming weekend's project, along with finishing the drain plumbing and the drip tray for the mixing station.
But still I'm happy overall with how the shelving came out.
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