Blog Archives
Aquarium Lighting
I added a piece of wood between the two hood doors so that it would keep the light from shinning through when closed.
Using a couple metal brackets and a metal closet bar from Home Depot I made a place to hang the lights from.
Looking good. Just need to find some hinges.
Built-In Aquarium is Coming Along!
A couple update photos of the stand before and after the tops were added.
Here’s the stand before we put the tops on.
Here’s the stand with the tops on. Just need to finish up the top-right side and add paint. We’re pretty excited to get it up and running!
Tank Update!!!
It’s time for a tank update, lot of stuff happening! I should have probably broke this up into a couple different posts but I’ve not been on the computer much lately and still have lots of work to do.
Here are a couple update photos of the 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank acting as the temporary home for our fish. We actually really enjoy watching the fish and corals from above. The clams are very neat to look at too! So far the fish and corals haven’t protested the temp setup.
In the fish room, behind the display tank, I have set up a metal rack to hold the 90 gallon refugium and 90 gallon salt mixing tank. The refugium will go up high and have a drain that drops down into the display tank (to the right). Hopefully the refuge will produce lots of bugs for the fish to eat. 🙂 We’ve also painted everything white in the fish room with Kilz primer, added some can lights, and put in a small sink and hookup for the RO/DI unit.
Just got the ATO (Automatic Top Off) up and running this evening. I used a small pump and a 10 gallon tank for top-off water. I also got my APEX controller back up and running on the temp system.
While building the stand we ran three new lines to the breaker box, one for lights, one for pumps, and one for the refugium area. I’m really happy to have the aquarium system on its own set of breakers.
Moving the display tank…
6 guys, a trailer, suction cups, straps and an hour of grunting we had the tank moved. We think the tank weighs around 600+ lbs. (.5 inch glass with a bit of re-enforcement glass in the bottom). Luckily everything went well although we did bust off a fitting on the bottom for one of the returns. I think I might actually cut out one overflow (right side), deleting the broken return, and rely on my VorTech MP40s to create the majority of the flow/turnover in the tank. Originally I thought I would get a lot of flow from the return pumps (2 – Mag Drive 24s) but that just didn’t happen.
After a bit more thought and my wife’s “Not to scale” disclaimer drawings (lol) we had the stand figured out. Here’s where we are now.
(tops to be installed soon!)
Next time around we should have the tops installed, tank painted and the right side overflow removed… 😉 Time for some sleep.
Building a New Home for the Tank
Well, over the past couple of weeks we have been doing a lot of moving! In the new house I’ve setup a temp system (300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank + 90 gallon) and started on the new stand/room with help from my good friend Cliff. Every part of moving seems slow and painful. Still living out of boxes and not sure where anything is but the fish project must go on! Here are a few pictures of the progress.
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- The wall in the beginning.
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- The helpers
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- Adding electrical and a false ceiling. Wanted to make sure we could wall of the moisture if it stared some rust issues on the water pipes.
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- Getting the blue board put up.
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- Good bones for the fish tank stand!
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- The temp system.
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- The Mantis Shrimp bucket
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- Sheeting the outside of the stand, will show some finished pics later.
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- Finishing the inside of the stand with blue board.
