The "I'm about to cut a hole in my wall and put 150 gallons behind it" build thread

HeyJay

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Hey all, I've been "planning" an in wall upgrade to my 80g shallow tank for quite a while, but things move slow with 3 small kids and a full time job and a global pandemic.

My stand is built, equipment is here, and the SCA 150g tank is (hopefully) arriving tomorrow.

Next step will be to cut studs and frame things and move the one electrical cable. Not necessarily in that order.

20200812_192848.jpg
 

Mastiffsrule

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HeyJay,

The build sound cool. Saw you were having a problem getting the matt underneath. Don’t have any suggestions other than manually removing it. Looking forward to updates once you got it figured out.
 
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HeyJay

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I thought this slipped under the radar :cool:

The tank arrived in one piece and the driver graciously wheeled it up my sloped driveway and into my garage. My kids lamented the loss of their scootering space.

20200813_170340.jpg


I tried to plan out how to get the tank into my basement while I finished up the stand and wall. An oscillating tool was a lifesaver that allowed me to cut out studs without damaging the wall, in addition to actually cutting through the drywall cleanly. Still need to add studs under the stand and screw the drywall in there, but it's steady enough for now.

20200821_160012.jpg


Getting the tank down my narrow basement stairs was... Something. A team of 4 was assembled, ideas were tried and quickly abondoned. We ended up putting the tank on a piece of plywood and sliding it gracefully down the stairs. Two people held straps at the top that were wrapped all the way around the tank to stop it from running away, while the other two managed the weight from the bottom and gingerly lifted over each step.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, getting it onto the stand didn't go as planned and the mat had to be tossed during the process. So now it's installed, but I'll have to find a way to get the mat under it.

20200822_152438.jpg


Time to trim and finish up odds and ends. Then do a water test after the mat is in place (if there's a leak, I'll generally be giving up on life because I don't want to move it again!)

Then eventually I'll be transferring the contents of my 80 gallon. And trying to aquascape from the back.
 
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HeyJay

HeyJay

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Well, I got the mat under the tank, filled up it and added dry sand.

20200831_211248.jpg


And after plumbing, I have encountered the dreaded drip of "time to re-plumb". Since I refuse to believe I made a mistake, I'm going to blame the cheap bulkheads that came with the tank. At least I had the foresight to use a union, so it shouldn't be terrible.

20200831_210602.jpg



And here's a behind the scene shot of the pre-organization chaos.

20200831_211305.jpg



My plan is to fix the leak, then transfer the contents of my old tank over during the long weekend. With no real idea how to aquascape from the back.
 
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HeyJay

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20200903_224542.jpg


Starting to scape with dry rock. I'm using about 40 pounds to add to the ~75 pounds coming from my current tank.
 
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HeyJay

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Aquascaping from the back was terrible and I'm not thrilled with the final result, but I can live with it.

I only have 4 fish at the moment... My foxface, lyretail anthias, and clownfish adjusted quickly. The royal gramma is hiding in a corner.

20200905_143418.jpg 20200905_155716.jpg
 
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HeyJay

HeyJay

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I started playing with the pro settings on my phone's camera to get better shots. Pleasantly surprised to find it has a color temperature adjustment.

And please excuse some of the unhealthy coral. Life got in the way in my last tank and I'll try my best to bring back what I can.


IMG_20200908_165148.jpg

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IMG_20200908_165224.jpg
IMG_20200908_165215.jpg
IMG_20200908_165233.jpg
IMG_20200908_165237_1.jpg
 

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20200907_171029.jpg


Just about done from this side, still some work to do in the fish room.

I have a spotbreast angel and a melanurus wrasse coming this week, pre-quarantined from TSM Aquatics.
Looks great!
love the ultra-clean look of the in-the-wall installs

which magnet cleaner is that?
Won’t some models rust up?
 

W00F

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Wow that looks amazing.
I wish I had a setup like that.
 
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HeyJay

HeyJay

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Looks great!
love the ultra-clean look of the in-the-wall installs

which magnet cleaner is that?
Won’t some models rust up?

That's just a standard ole mag float. It's probably 10 years old. I bought a tunze scraper to replace it because I didn't think it would work on 12mm glass. But I was wrong.
 

oversd

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I thought this slipped under the radar :cool:

The tank arrived in one piece and the driver graciously wheeled it up my sloped driveway and into my garage. My kids lamented the loss of their scootering space.

20200813_170340.jpg


I tried to plan out how to get the tank into my basement while I finished up the stand and wall. An oscillating tool was a lifesaver that allowed me to cut out studs without damaging the wall, in addition to actually cutting through the drywall cleanly. Still need to add studs under the stand and screw the drywall in there, but it's steady enough for now.

20200821_160012.jpg


Getting the tank down my narrow basement stairs was... Something. A team of 4 was assembled, ideas were tried and quickly abondoned. We ended up putting the tank on a piece of plywood and sliding it gracefully down the stairs. Two people held straps at the top that were wrapped all the way around the tank to stop it from running away, while the other two managed the weight from the bottom and gingerly lifted over each step.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, getting it onto the stand didn't go as planned and the mat had to be tossed during the process. So now it's installed, but I'll have to find a way to get the mat under it.

20200822_152438.jpg


Time to trim and finish up odds and ends. Then do a water test after the mat is in place (if there's a leak, I'll generally be giving up on life because I don't want to move it again!)

Then eventually I'll be transferring the contents of my 80 gallon. And trying to aquascape from the back.
Hey so just wondering is this tank dimensions 72x18x28 if so can you send me a End shot I want to see how much of the end of the tank you lose, I’m thinking to doing this but in my hallway and the back side is my Dining room. So it would be a pinnesula tank with the one viewing end losing a little in the wall

thanks ahead of time
 
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HeyJay

HeyJay

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Hey so just wondering is this tank dimensions 72x18x28 if so can you send me a End shot I want to see how much of the end of the tank you lose, I’m thinking to doing this but in my hallway and the back side is my Dining room. So it would be a pinnesula tank with the one viewing end losing a little in the wall

thanks ahead of time

This tank is 60x24x24. A peninsula would be a different situation, but the sides of my tank are fully visible behind the wall.
 

jandlms

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Looks great! Only one observation. Not a critique an observation.
Thats going to be one gigantic piece of GSP in the front right quadrant after it inevitably takes over the whole rock.
 
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HeyJay

HeyJay

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Looks great! Only one observation. Not a critique an observation.
Thats going to be one gigantic piece of GSP in the front right quadrant after it inevitably takes over the whole rock.

That's maybe 10% of what came out of my 80g! But it's a great point. I can pull that rock out a bit so it's isolated when I need to.
 
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