* WE"RE DONE!!! WOOT!!! *

[Nyx]

The tank is empty!



The living room....



And the dining room are NOT empty!





From 150G to 45G, the fish are not so happy.



The corals on the other hand are enjoying their day at the pool!



AND, the tank seems to be stuck in the cabinet so drilling may have to be done vertically this evening.

Are we having fun yet?  

[robt18]

Looks like a ton of work already! Glad to see all of the corals doing well so far, they'll be a lot happier in the end! Good luck drilling!

[RossW]

Call me paranoid, but it looks like your heaters are sitting on the bottom of the kiddy pool.

[Gaspare]

Good point about the heaters.  I don't think they will get hot enough to melt the pool but to be on the safe side I will rest them on a piece of live rock.  Thanks

[Jeff1192]

Wow....now that's a big job.....We're planning on doing major house renos next spring and I'm going to have to figure out something for my 90 gallon at that time. I'm NOT looking forward to it. At least mine's freshwater so I'm a little less nervous about it. Good luck, hope everything makes it.

[Nyx]

Thanks, Jeff. Although the pool in the livingroom was a PITA, it was a good way to place all but out largest corals and clam under water with circulation and light. We do it that way again, if we ever needed to tear down for whatever reason.

The end is in sight! Gasp drilled the two holes last night, vertically, as we couldn't get the tank out of the cabinet. It took an hour per hole but they are perfect, not a single chip. Totally amazing, since it was Gasp's first attempt at drilling a tank and the glass is almost a half inch thick.   

The back and side tank walls are painted black. The overflow box is in place and most of the plumbing is done. Woo hoo!

[FocusFin]

You're going to be so much happier with a sump, the options are unlimited. Congratulations.

[Nyx]

Thanks FocusFin. We already had a sump but were using an overflow box that was for undrilled tanks, with a chamber that goes inside the tank and another that goes outside the tank. After our very large gold-spotted rabbitfish got caught in it and died, almost flooding the livingroom in the process, we decided to bite the bullet, drill the tank and use something that nothing bigger than food particles was going to get into except, hence the new drilled overflow box with teeth and a lid. 

[dan2x38]

Have you thought of keeping that pool in the living room? It looks cool with all that background...

Nice looking tank BTW glad it is coming together for you guys!

[Nyx]

lol Dan and thanks, the tank is all back together. We started on it again at 6 am this morning and just finished up a half hour ago. Of course, that includes an hour break in between to run a few tank-related errands. Now comes the fun part. Cleaning up all the crap that's accumulated in the living and dinning rooms over the past week. 

[Nyx]

This is Gasp's progress as he drilled the holes. The glass is a half-inch thick and the holes are 3" diameter. Gasp had to drill with the tank in situ because we couldn't remove it from the cabinet. It took approximately an hour per hole. I supervised and cheered him on.

Gasp made a little well out of a plastic coffee can to hold water to keep the glass and hole saw wet while he was drilling. It worked sort of on the same principle as a wet ceramic tile saw.

And the drilling begins!



Success!



Close up of hole. No chips!! And the little plastic well, held in place with plumber's putty and duct tape.



The glass version of a donut hole:



All done! With holes anyway.


And the tank is back together, a little bleach out due to the corals spending a few days lounging around the pool.
You can see the new overflow box in the upper left corner of the tank. The 1.5" return output is in the upper right of the tank. There is one Koralia 4 just to the right of the overflow box and two more hidden in the two caves. We have an amazing amount of gentle flow.



And, no more kiddie pool in the living room!

[Thunda]

Things are looking great.  Congrats as that was quite the undertaking.

[robt18]

Wow guys, tank looks awesome! Well done, wanna do it again with mine?

[Hookup]

Excellent!  Like it was planned by pros

[redbelly]

Nicely done!

[Nyx]

Thanks everyone! 

[dan2x38]

Looks good very nice job! Any noise from the overflow? How did you guys do the plumbing or did I already miss that?

[Gaspare]

Hi Dan,

The plumbing was very straight forward, 2x2" elbows (with vent tubes) and a straight 4' run to the sump.  I did have to angle the drain lines to stop the splashing noise coming from the drain pipes. As for noise I am very please with the overflow box. All you hear is a little noise form the water entering the box. Overall an excellent product.

Gaspare

[dan2x38]

Awesome sounds like a successful mission - congrats. Nice when a plan comes together.