My 180 build (pic intensive)

[Treadingwater]

Well, here it goes. Hopefully the pics are clear and not to large.

General disclaimer - I am by no means a profeesional, lol. This was my first attempt at building a stand and working with acrylic to build my sump. Overall I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. The tank is full and the stand hasn't crashed down and the sump doesn't leak (knock on wood), so I think I did ok. It's not the prettiest job, but it's functional, which is what I was going for.

These first 3 shots are of the stand. In the last pic you can see the leveling legs I used on the bottom of the stand. My basement floor is so unlevel that using shims wasn't and option. I used 10 leveling legs (each rated at 750 pounds) around the stand. 4 on the front, 4 on the back, and one each in the center of each side.

More pics to come

 

[Treadingwater]

The next pics are of my sump assembly. I was still waiting on my tank to come in so I was able to use the top of my stand as a nice flat, level surface to construct it.

 

[Treadingwater]

The next set of pics are of the tank in place, the plumbing and so forth. Speical thanks to Sam and Pete for helping my get this tank in. It was no easy task getting it down the basement stairs and onto the stand.

The stand sits pretty high up. From the floor to the top of the stand is 64 1/2 inches. As you can see in the last picture, my son is standing on a chair and he is still bearly as tall as the top of the tank. I really didn't plan for it to be this tall, but I have to admit, I'm very happy with it now. I don't have to bend over at all to see into the tank It does pose one problem, however. I only have 17 1/2 inches clearance from the top of the tank to the rafters and since I want an open top (no canopy) I had to devise a way to move my lighting out of the way when I want to get into the tank. This will be accomplished by build a frame for to hold the lighting and mounting the frame to closet roller tracks so I can roll it out of the way when I need to.

Well, that's all for now. The tank is full and started cyclying. In the mean time I will be working on my lights and will post pictures of the set up when it's finished.

P.S. - Sorry for the huge pictures. I need to learn how to use photoshop better to resize them.

 

[jazzsam]

Nice, you started after me and are already a few steps ahead of me!

 

[Treadingwater]

Yea, as you can tell though, I didn't do any finsih work on my stand. I'm just leaving it open since it's really not in a place where I need to close it in. Not like it's in my living room where people will see it all the time.

Leaving it open made it super easy for me to work on, especialy doing the plumbing. I'm saving the hard work for when I get my custom 180 and have it built in the dining room wall. Then I'll have to work in the crawl space to plumb it to the basement.

I'm going to work on resizing the photos and will repost them after I do. I also wasn't paying attention and left the pic with my son flipped. Probably try to get some better shots too. I'll leave these up for now though.

 

[AngelPete]

Nice work jack. were'd you get those rocks?

 

[Treadingwater]

I got the rock from Tropiquarium. It's all dead rock and I'm adding a few live rock pieces to seed it.

 

[AngelPete]

My stand looks exactly like yours expect i added beams in the bottom frame. the stand is 33" plus the 3/4" plywood. I'm going to try and have it painted by weeks end and hopefully i can being to move all the water and fish from the old tank.

 

[AngelPete]

what did you put in the water to get an amonia reading ? I dont see any fish unless you're curing the rock?

 

[Treadingwater]

I used four 20 pound bags of the carib sea live sand and a few pieces of live rock.

 

[AngelPete]

Jack
I finally finished building the stand will try to piant and start the water test by this weekend . thanks for all your help .

Peter

 

[mikem]

Looks good Jack.

 

[Treadingwater]

Nice Pete. Wish I could have helped more, but gald I could at least be a little help. Do you have help lifting the tank onto the stand?

Thank you Mike.

 

[AngelPete]

I may have my brother and cuz stop by but I'll you know. I'm going to do the fresh water test where the stand is now but then it will be moved to where the old stand is right now . I have several 20 gallon tanks where I'm going to put the fish during the move. thanks

 

[jazzsam]

I am around for both you guys to help with my expertise of lifting tanks! The one thing I can say that I do great in this hobby!

 

[Baxreefs]

Looking good, nice DIY sump.

 

[Treadingwater]

I have lights !!!

More photos to follow soon

 

[mikem]

Need a close up of your DIY lights.

 

[AngelPete]

very nice jack! so when are the fish and inverts coming?

 

[Treadingwater]

As promised....

First couple more pics of the tank with the lights on.

Right side

Left side

Pics of the light frame work. It's all made of aluminum and pop rivited together. Really couldn't have been easier. The rails are for hanging closet doors and I just screwed the wheel brackets into the aluminum frame.

I used 3/4" plywood to mount the lights. It sits right inside the aluminum "L" bracing. I used 1/4" birch on the sides for a shielding. The 1/4" birch is screwed into the frame.

I'm going to need to get some new bulbs, especialy the VHO's. The bulbs in there now are Aquasun's and they look pink I may also need to fix the VHO fixtures so they are lower down. Right now they sit high up and are actually above the height of the MH's.