Kris’ 390g Drop of Ocean

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Thanks for all the kind comments. I will try not to write any more novels:oops: I just had a lot of catching up to do!
 
It never ceases to amaze me how photos just don't capture the size of large tanks....until something like..oh...I dunno....salsaking and brett go for a swim in theirs, your daughter stands next to this one and is dwarfed, or I convince Tim he should get into a tank to drill the holes for bulkheads. Your tank looks great. Keep the updates coming. Another quality job by CFI.
 
Your right Cy, pictures just don't do it justice. I tried to convince my granddaughter to let me put her in the tank for a perspective shot but she refused. Then when her mom came to pick her up then she decided she wanted to get in the tank. There is just no reasoning with a three year old!

This is mostly going to be a weekend project. Although my husband did get the wiring done this week. So now I have a dedicated 20amp circuit plus 4 15amp circuits, 2 of which run to the gen-x switch for the generator. This should eliminate the temptation to plug 6-ways into 6-ways which I know is dangerous, but it seemed with only 2 outlets before I just never had enough to run all the equipment. In fact this spring we had knocked a small hole in the wall and built a shelf for my closed loop pump and plugged it into an outlet in the room behind. I had ran out of room and didn't want to tempt fate with the 6-way into the 6-way.

This should be a productive weekend coming up. We have the materials here and ready to go to put up the new wall!
 
Kris,

I must have missed the pic with your daughter and the tank. I cant find it.
 
Tank is on the Stand!

Got the tank up on the stand tonight and then pushed tank and stand into the room it will be in. (Okay, I took pictures while all these guys lifted and moved my tank . . .) Now we are ready to start on the wall in the morning.

OK lift . . .

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Place on stand . . .

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Now push . . .

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Nice and safely tucked back in the room while we build the wall, notice all the room to spare!

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Once the wall is built we will push the tank and stand up to it.
 
Kris,

I told you we could have gone another 5/8 of an inch more! Looks great, and can't wait for more progress pic's!

Jason
 
Kris,

I told you we could have gone another 5/8 of an inch more! Looks great, and can't wait for more progress pic's!

Jason

You should have, it'd top the huge tank (you built? too lazy to look it up) that didn't fit through the door.
 
:lol::badgrin::lol: If you look closely in the picture with the tank in the room you will see that we removed the wall plates on the outlets and the cover on the wall heater just to have enough room to squeeze the tank and stand back in the room!

Got most of the framing done yesterday. Will post some pictures later.
 
We made good progress on the wall this weekend. The framing is steel, my husband works with this material a lot in commercial construction. It has the advantage of no knots, bends, twist, warps etc. Best of all it was free (surplus from a job). Before you ask, that is not rust, rather it is a little dirt as this has been laying stacked in my yard for a couple of years.

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Next we put up the sheetrock and framed the arches

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On the inside lower part of the wall we are using a product called p-lam. It is sheetrock laminated with plastic (kind of like countertop laminate). We had a couple of sheets of this in the garage (just waiting for the right project to come along) leftover from a job my husband did at a butcher shop where they wanted walls that could be pressure washed. The corners will be sealed with silicone, and once the self-leveler product is poured on the floor and then sealed I will put a silicone bead between the floor and wall. I hope this will give me a nice waterproof area below the tank and around the sump.

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Shot of entire wall.

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Behind the wall (I cannot get back far enough to get the entire back in one shot, there is this big fish tank in the way:lol:)

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It looks like It should be big enough to keep you satified for a few years! I really, really like the access holes your hubbie is building.
 
Kris,

Looks great. I agree with Trido, I am very jealous of the access holes in the front of the tank. Unfortunately, with my small kids this was no an option. :(
 
The access holes will have panels in them that can only be removed from the back side. The idea is that from the front it will not have the look of doors, in fact if my ideas work it will appear as if there is no access from the front. At this point I am planning on making the panels from artist canvases, which I will fill up the back side, inside the frame with rigid insulation and then apply some type of cover over that. I am trying to keep the panels very light weight so they are easy to remove. I will then paint the canvas side, haven't decided exactly what I am painting, maybe a sunset, maybe an ocean scene?

My original design did not have access from the front, but Jason told me I would come to regret not having front access when it came to bigger tasks, such as aquascaping, gluing frags etc. As I thought about it I could see where this would be difficult to do with only a top down view, and then I imagined my husband and I trying to aquascape with one of us in front directing activity while the other was adding rock from the back. Well just imagining it I could see a pending divorce, so I went back to the design board and worked in some front access.
 
can't wait to see how it's going next week

^^^Me too ;)

Did some online shopping this week. Ordered a bunch of salt from Doctor Foster and Smith. It's on sale! and there shipping is ridiculously cheap (only $12.99 for 3 buckets, if you go with ground, expedited shipping was like $398.00, glad I have plenty of time).

I also ordered one of these:
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I got this idea from Tracy (salmonslayer). I will use this as a lift for my light rack. The company that sells these ( garageappeal.com ) is in Washington, so the shipping is quick (ordered it on Monday and received it on Wednesday), but because they are in Washington you have to pay sales tax:(

My husband started taping the joints on the wall last night.
 
^^^Me too ;)

Did some online shopping this week. Ordered a bunch of salt from Doctor Foster and Smith. It's on sale! and there shipping is ridiculously cheap (only $12.99 for 3 buckets, if you go with ground, expedited shipping was like $398.00, glad I have plenty of time).



My husband started taping the joints on the wall last night.

I hope he's using duct tape. Thats the good stuff :lol:

How many buckets did you order? I went through four when I set up my 210. They tend to go fast during setup.
 

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