Coming right along.........

[MCary]

Advice for DIY guys and gals. Make it a winter project. My house has been a construction zone and my yard work is suffering as well as my fishing. Okay, here's what I'm doing. I recently moved and there was this ugly built in entertainment center in the living room of my new house. White painted plywood. What were they thinking? Anyway it had to go:

Now what do I do with the hole? I have this:

Hey why not, what could it cost? You know, that hole is just too small..

There, that's better. Ok big mistake in planning. I am great at demoliishing but I know nothing about carpentry. What the heck, internet will tell me everything I need to know right? First build the wall:

Tile, grout, and paint and install floor drain Wire it:

Install a bathroom fan controlled by a humidistat.

Build a stand and drill for the closed loop:

Design and plumb in the closed loop, Dart on an oceans motions 4

 

[MCary]

Match the texture and paint the walls:

Add starboard, water, and some rocks:

Okay 85 pound more rock coming today. Then cycle and add my fish, rocks and coral that have been in my little 40 gallon fish motel for months. Install the sump, ca reactor, controller, lights, phos reactor, refuge............I'm never going to finish

Mike

 

[jlehigh]

Great work! Way to jump into DIY headfirst! Those are not easy projects to do especially to get started with.

 

[jetaero]

Looks great man!

-Josh-

 

[MCary]

Well this is how I planned the flow:

Back jets from the Sequence Dart are on a Oceans Motions 4 that fire 1&3 and 2&4. 1&3 shoot through the back jets (1) and clear out the bottom of the rocks. Then 2&4 fires through a jet on the right side and one on the bottom (2) this pushes the debris across the front and then up to the overflow. (in theory, seems to be working). This also makes a pulsed stirring motion which provides some dynamic non-laminar flow. The overflow box is deep which collects the crap that doesn't make it down the durso standpipe. So in the bottom of the overflow is a mag 7 shooting through a SQWD and firing through the bulkheads on the front of the overflow. A small secondary closed loop. I also have a Tunze that was lying around and it hid behind the overflow, so I decided to use it for some surface flow. And finally I have a sump return coming off a Little Giant 4 that will shoot down the corners clearing those dead spots.
How's that plan?

 

[zenn]

pretty decent plan. You sound like you know what you're doing. You're making me jealous with the in-wall setup. It would be nice. How hard was it to install the floor drain in the room?

Also, the tank looks like glass? How hard was it to drill like that?

 

[MCary]

Not too bad. I ordered diamond hole saws from a Hong-Kong guy on E-bay. I have a plastic dam with a suction cup ring that I use but you can make one from plumbers putty. You have to make sure the glass is not tempered of course. Then just cut away.

The floor drain was easy in my house. I just ran it into the crawl space and tee'd of the drain for the washing machine. There's also a tube coming up from the floor that feeds my auto top-off from an RO/DI system in another room. I have a 5 gallon reservoir with a float valve. I don't recommend topping off directly from the RO. If something sticks you dilute your tank and wipe out everything.

Mike

 

[spongebob lover]

i just wanted to say woouu.
For me, i think you're doing a good job and i like how you're setting it up .

 

[Krish]

Looks great man! You've done a great job putting things together thus far

 

[MCary]

Mutha @#$%&^ ,

I hate microbubbles and I can't plumb. So I got fed up and tore out all my hard plumbing in the returns of the closed loop and replaced them with vinyl tubing and hose barbs!

Can anyone spot the flaw in this. First no ball valves because I was impatient and no stores were open on the Sunday I decided to do the plumbing. Second, no union fitting. Then as an added bonus, hose barbs ID are smaller than the tubing so it restricts some of your flow.

Anyhooooooooooooo, I put in 90 more pounds of rock which proceded to release a bunch of sand and stuff that was subsequently sucked up by the intakes and VIOLA it jammed my oceans motions 4-way. (which BTW has excellent customer service by the builder himself and is magnectically driven so there is nothing to burn out in a jam).

Since I'm still cycling its not a huge deal. I ordered some ball valves, unions, and spa flex and I'm going to re-do it when that arrives. Then I'll clean out the OM. In the meantime it'll just percolate and cycle.

Moral: If you do your own plumbing, measure carefully and never force any joints, use spa flex where appropriate, always assume it may leak or need to be taken apart for some other reason and plan accordingly.

Mike

 

[CarlaW]

Nice job, you coulda called a couple of people here that are local and we would have helped, ya know!!!!!

 

[MCary]

I moved from Kalispell Charlie. You'd have had to drive 300 miles. I'm down by Billings now. And BTW how's it going?

I still have that tank they gave me from the hospital lobby. Can't afford to set it up yet;

MIke

 

[CarlaW]

Well Ok, I didn't know that. In that case I take back everything I said
Anyways, looks like you got your hands full down there, but it still looks good. Oh, and thanx for the referral, I talked to Wade last nite.
If you need some frags, let us know up here, or shoot me a PM, be glad to help you out.

 

[MCary]

I got a new house. Couldn't afford one in Kalispell. Starters running $200,000. Wow. Look what I got for $120,000.

Cenral air, 1800 sq ft, new kitchen with solid counter tops, hardwood under the rugs. I have some sanding to do. Probably cost me $300k in Kalispell.

Mike

 

[spongebob lover]

wwouu !!! you got an awesome deal on the house dood !!!
here around my neighbourhood they start at $400, 000 and they're not even houses, they're town houses .
Seriously, nice house dood !!

 

[Krish]

Nice house Mike! What size is that huge tank on the stand???

 

[MCary]

That tank is aboooot, 240 gallons. I think its 6 ft long, 2 ft wide, and 32" deep. It was in the lobby of the hospital I worked at and sprung a leak. They were going to take it to the dump. I volunteered to take it off their hands. Took $12 worth of silicone to fix it. I cut out the entire inside filet and re beaded it. The original leak was only a very small drip. Anyway, I wet tested it for a week and the leak is fixed. Now I just need the funds to set it up. Ang I need to figure out what I'm going to put in it.

Mike