troylee's one of a kind diy, drop off tank....

[Troylee]

this is a long drawn out thread so please bare with me..
im gonna cut and paste here so a couple parts might not make sense lol...
here we go...
first up the routers i used...
one is mounted in my diy router table with a fence clamped on it so all my pieces are exactly the same size.....everything was cut on the table saw to a 1/8" of my exact size then ran through the router table to get the exact size and perfect edges for gluing...

then i double side tape some straight edges on my pieces to get the cuts for the drop off and route them nice and clean...

 

[Troylee]

all the materials ready to go...lots of pieces parts for this tank and some complicated gluing but i can handle it.....

and the first piece glued up....i tried to take a pic of the glue joint to where you can see the acrylic ooze out each side along the joint it creates a dam and prevents the air from entering and leaving bubbles......sorry forgot to take a pic of the pins part...but i got plenty of joints to glue/weld so they will come...:smile:

 

[Troylee]

here is a shot of the glue joint with pins in it....
and the tank ready for a bottom and euro monday morning then it's done...:smile:

ok guys some updated pics...i got the ctc overflow done and got the euro done and the background installed...all that is left is 2 pieces on the bottom and a quick polish...:smile:

 

[Troylee]

got the first of the 2 bottoms glued on.... also found a good use for a cannister filter...lol
one more bottom to go, put the external overflow box on and polish and we got our selves a cool looking tank...

got the other bottom glued on....
the tank will officially hold water now...
just a quick flush cut and finish polishing i already started...

well i got the stand started....i always wanted to try a aluminum stand so why not now :lol: i don't see it being a problem it only has to hold 1600lbs..:lol: "FINGERS CROSSED"
it's made of 2x2x3/16th aluminum sq. tube...

 

[Troylee]

were getting colse!!!!!!

ok todays project for the tank was a 50gal sump and a 25 gal ato. resevior...
got them both knocked out in a few hours on top of regular work...:lol:

and the ato.......

 

[Troylee]

ok here is some pics i couldnt take last night in the dark....
first is the ctc. overflow...

then came the water test and deflection test....i had zero deflection...sweet!!!! my first acrylic tank this big with no center brace...all calcs were good and it worked perfect...

and a shot of it on the aluminum stand with50 gal sump installed and 25gal ato. resevior on the right....
everything looks sweet and works as expected....:smile:

 

[Troylee]

btw. the chemcast material i used on the sump is not really of preference, but i had it in the scrap pile at work so i used it....althou it is cast material it's not amongst the great's such as plexiglass "g" which the tank is made of or acrylite "gp" or polycast...
alright guys here is a update and some quesstions???????????????
to rock wall or not???? a good friend of mine gave me a rock wall made from travertine and concrete i think...it's pretty cool but im really debating to use it or not since i don't want it to take away from the bonzai scape.....here is a sample i got 4 of these enough to do the wall across the whole back...

Well guys..good news and bad...
Good news is the tank is plumbed and ready to go...I got all the tank jets installed a manifold made for the dart to blast threw them and the beananimal dead silent failsafe overflow hooked up...everything ready to rock and roll besides cutting the holes in the rockwall to accommodate the tank jets....
So the bad news is the **** sun went down so fast I couldn't take any pics with my phone...sorry peeps...:sad: on a higher note I'm mixing the last 50gal of saltwater to fire this puppy up tomorrow...so late tomorrow night or early sat you will have pics of the tank scaped and running....:smile:

 

[Troylee]

ok the update...
these will provide the flow in the lower portion....with 3500gph blasting through them it will be plenty.... good ole dart return

beananimals dead silent failsafe overflow...
gotta handle the 2500 to 3000 gph the dart puts out on the return..

 

[amore169]

Wow that's going to be a sweet set up!!

 

[Troylee]

the tank on the stand and the start of the fill....rock wall partially installed..

 

[Troylee]

it's up and running already..
give me a little bit and i will finish this thread..gotta get some work done...boss is walking around...lol

 

[akabryanhall]

Looks amazing so far, Jealous of your skills

 

[Azurel]

That's what I want since I seen that French guy's drop off.....That is one bad tank.

 

[tangdiver]

Very very nice, man what a cool idea.

Did you ever work for atm.....you are in Vegas right?

 

[My Saltwater World]

Great job so far. Amazing looking tank.

 

[Troylee]

Very very nice, man what a cool idea.

Did you ever work for atm.....you are in Vegas right?

ya im in vegas.. but i have never worked or even been to atm....
one of these days i might go over there and see if i can get a tour..that would be cool...im just a guy having fun...

 

[seafansar]

AWESOME! Great work! Can't wait to see the up and running photos!

 

[Troylee]

here is few more while the boss is not around lol...
and 100lbs of marco rocks just thrown in there to start the cycle...aquascaping tomorrow.... then the stand and canopy next week....
more updates to come...

a couple pics with my 250watt heaters sitting above it...the water was like 66deg.... got the rodi out in the garage.....this was this morning...i have been playing with the aquascape for the last 3 hours and im still not happy with it.. i cant take any pics of it rite now because i made it very cloudy....maybe in the morning....

 

[Troylee]

well my amoinia is off the charts so i found a old seaclone someone gave me to use as a skimmer untill i get my new one built....
who said seaclones dont work i filled the cup in 7hours....lol
i think there is a ton of dieoff from the rockwall that has sat outside for a couple months after it was pulled from a tank....also my sand has been in 5gal buckets for like 2 weeks....im dosing the crap out of it mb7 in hopes to speed it up..

here is a few updated pics...i got the drop aqua scaped but not sure if im tottally happy with it yet or not.... hard to tell with cloudy water...
the left side will be a cool bonzai coming out of my solana when it is ready to go....

 

[Troylee]

some quick pics..i gotta jam..it looks okay but the rock wall needs to evened out lol...

YTanks cloudy again....
I had to lose the rock wall the tank just looks to much.... the scaping didn't stand out I'm really diggin the way it looks now....pics to come later....
Had to man it just didn't look rite and I wasn't happy...I feel a lot better now thou...just need a few more rocks now to complete it....