210 shark/reef tank

[shallowreef]

Well i finally got the tank! My father in law and i went to go pick it up Saturday morning from Sho Tank Aquariums in Mundelein and boy was that tank heavy. It really surprised me how heavy glass can be. I mean i knew it was 350lbs but it felt like 700lbs. I must be getting weak! Anyways it took us about a half hour to load up the tank, the stand, the pipe work(which Matt did for me and did a terrific job thanks again Matt) the canopy and the 75 gallon tank that is my sump. We drove extra slow going home and watched for all bumps. Once we got home we did a quick inspect for damage and and everything looked good. I called up my dad and my brother and a couple of friends and we began moving everything. After a half hour of sweating our a**es off everything was in place. Big thanks goes out to all of my movers i couldn't have gotten this tank in the house without them.

Here are some pics of the tank once we got it in place.

 

[Krish]

Wrong house Nick!!!! I live in the Bahamas!!!(LOL) That thing is huge!!!! Can't wait to see it all set up man. Best of luck

 

[shallowreef]

After everything was accounted for and inspected i began to paint the back of the tank Black. I had to put on 4 coats of paint to get it perfect but it looks really good. Once all the paint dried i began to start working on all of the plumbing(glueing mainly) I hooked up my pump moved my sump into place and made sure everythign was tightened and connected and checked to see that the tank was leveled.

 

[Krish]

Cool, cool, cool...

 

[shallowreef]

Time to add water and check for leaks. I only had two and they were near the bulkheads. One was due to not enough glue when i connected the bulkheads and the other was because i didn't tighten a bulk head good enough. I was able to fix both easily and was under way. Once i got the tank full though i checked to see if the tank was still level and boy was it way off. All the water must have compressed the would on the stand because i went from perfect when it was empty to being off by a 1/4 of an inch! So we had to drain the entire tank and added shims and began to refill. I was so pissed because i couldn't store the water! That took about 4 hours to do also because i didn't have a good pump. After we refilled we were still off but it was by less than a 1/16th of inch so i was happy. We finally turned on the pump and let it run. It was so cool to see everything working so well.

Oh one word of advice if you can use a hose to fill up your tank do it! Its so much easier than using buckets and making trips.

 

[shallowreef]

After about 12 hours of work we were finally done. I went home and picked up my original tank light just to see how it would look all lit up and i loved it!

 

[shallowreef]

Well thats all i have for now but as i do more work i promise i will take more pictures and keep you guys posted.

Thanks for looking,

Nick ~shallowreef~

 

[Krish]

Cool Nick! Evertime you put up a set of pics, I thought it was the last set, and posted(LOL) Very nice setup so far. Keep up the good work

 

[shallowreef]

Thanks Krish, Yeah you were beating me to the punch everytime LOL! After Friday i really can start to make this tank look beautiful because i'm waiting on a protein skimmer and i need to pull my sump out in order to get the skimmer in. So once that happens than i can add salt and and heat the water up. After that i can close my old tank and start to move in the new live rock. Right now i'm making a to do list so i don't forget anything.

Thanks again Krish!

Nick

 

[morgan]

awsome stuff man are those polyfilment filter bags?
what kinda water flow are u going to use

 

[shallowreef]

Morgan,

Yes those are Poly filter bags. I'm just running the pump as is. Its a Dart Pump by Sequence. I'm not doing many if any corals in this tank so flow is not a major concern of mine. I am however going to grow Xenia in my fuge and i know that there is plenty of flow in there.

 

[spongebob lover]

Hey Nick that's a very nice tank, i love the color .... it makes it look fancy pantsy .
Seriously very nice tank.

 

[shallowreef]

Thanks Gabby,

I chose that stand because my fiances basement is really nice so i wanted it to match the decor. Also My fiances family was kind enough to let me put this tank in their basement free of charge so i wanted to make sure that it looked absolutely perfect. Sure it costs me more but i'm glad i did it. It looks way better than my stand from All-Glass.

I was just checking it out on my lunchbreak and i noticed something that i have never seen before. It was a sticker inside the tank not underneath that said that the bottom was tempered glass. I was so pissed because all this time i have been looking at it thinking oh, i'll just peel it off later. Now its staring me in the face and i have to somehow get down there and scrape it off. (wheres my snorkel?)

thanks again Gabby

Nick

 

[Mauisreef]

Looks very nice Nick.
Cant wait to see more pics.

 

[shallowreef]

Thanks Mauireef,

I am not going to have anything new and exciting to post probably till friday/saturday night. Once i get my skimmer i am going to work like crazy to make sure i get everything done as quick as possible.

 

[mm949]

nice job nick.....glad to see everything went well with the install...
tank looks bitchin down there...
keep us updated...

 

[shallowreef]

Well it never would have happened if my LFS wouldn't have talked me into it. I owe a lot of my credit to Matt for his great work and great prices! I really like this tank. I especially like the stand!

Thanks again Matt,

Nick

 

[spongebob lover]

I was just checkin git out on my lunchbreak and i noticed something that i have never seen before. It was a sticker inside the tank not underneath that said that the bottom was tempered glass. I was so pissed because all this time i have been looking at it thinking oh, i'll just peel it off later. Now its staring me in the face and i have to somehow get down there and scrape it off. (wheres my snorkel?)

LOL!!! ohh ohh .

 

[Fishead77]

So where did you add the shims to level it and what did you use for shims? How many gallons of water did you haul in a bucket? Holly Cow! That's a lot of water in the sump, right up to the top. What do you have to secure yourself from a flood down there in the sump area? NICE SETUP!!

 

[jsmkmavity]

tank looks great! maybe a neighbor kid would go diving for the sticker if you gave him some candy!?