Swannyson7's 180g mixed reef

[swannyson7]

I finally got the tank plumbed the other day. I'm running the supply line off of a Mag 3 and there's a mini mag sitting under the frag rack for now to stir up any detritus that will build up. I think I'm going to switch it over to a Koralia Nano in the future, but it's all I had sitting around that wasn't way too much flow. I got some work done on the canopy and it's slowly coming along. Here's some pics from a few hours work yesterday. I built the frame and routed out the bottom so that it sits securely on the tank:

The entire top and front flip up for target feeding:

I added a little bit of trim last night and added columns like on the stand. The front of the canopy will have a piece of 1x8 poplar routed out to match the drawers on the stand and will have the same hardware to make it match. There will also be the same trim along the top and along the edges of the column. Instead of going fancy with the linear actuator (alot more expensive than I anticipated even for such a small setup) I'll be using a locking scissor hinge to hold the top in the upright position.

As you can see, the column is binding a little bit on the frame so the top isn't closing all the way. A little bit of sanding tomorrow should solve that problem. If things go as planned, I hope to have the rest of the trim added and have it sanded down tomorrow night so that it's ready for paint on Thursday. Then after a couple coats of paint I can mount the LEDs and throw some frags in to see how they like their new home.

 

[swannyson7]

Today I made some more progress on the canopy...
I added the remainder of the trim, routed a board for the false door, and filled some nicks & dings with putty. Tomorrow morning I should be able to sand it down real quick and add a coat of paint. Hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be able to mount the LEDS, add the scissor hinge, and have it ready to go on the frag tank!
Here's a few pics of today's work:

(The Forstner bit holes are so that the false door can be flush with the facing seeing as the screws that hold the handle protrude.)
Here's what it will look like once the false door is attached:

I also added a piece of the dental trim up top just below the crown moulding on the facing, but snapped pics before it was in place. This should help it look a bit more symmetrical and allow it to match the stand a bit better. Although the stand didn't have any dental trim above the base moulding, it was neccessary on the canopy to hide a small gap between the door and base moulding. (Apparently my radial arm saw wasn't cutting straight the other day. :choler:)

 

[swannyson7]

Finally got the canopy painted and mounted the LEDs. Unfortunately, during the painting process I managed to knock the thing off my tool bench and put a few dings in it. :beat_brick: It would be more work to try and get all the trim off to replace it than it would be to start over from scratch, so I'm just going to deal with it. Maybe next spring I'll get the motivation to make a new one, but probably not. Here's a few pics of the finished product:

And some cell phone pics of the contents (sorry for the poor quality, but my wife took my cameras for the day):

And yes, I know the middle drawer is still crooked. I used screws that were too big on the drawer slides and it's getting hung up on them. I've just been too lazy to swap out the screws....

 

[gar732]

Nice! looking good, it makes me want to get going on mine. It looks full already. I hope you've got some more room I'm going to be fraging some stuff for you.

 

[swannyson7]

Nice! looking good, it makes me want to get going on mine. It looks full already. I hope you've got some more room I'm going to be fraging some stuff for you.

Unfortunately, it is full already. I really wish I went with a bigger frag tank, but at least I got rid of some of the frag racks in the DT. I've got to frag some stuff for you too. I'm about to take the scalpel to the RHs and maybe the campfire palys. I can also get you some SPS if you're interested. Let me know

 

[swannyson7]

I got bored yesterday with all the rain in the northeast, so I snapped a ton of pics. My first attempt at some top down shots (sorry for the blur, my hands are far from steady):

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

A couple bad pics of what's in the fFrag tank. It's in the corner of the room and I couldn't get the tripod lined up right, so some blurry handhelds...:

 

[swannyson7]

And now for some better shots from straight on...

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]

 

[swannyson7]