250G High Tech Tank

[Consigliere]

After almost 7 months of waiting for this tank, it has finally arrived.  Not much to see yet since it is still in the crate but here it is.



With most of the crate material removed.  Man what a stressful job messing around with crowbars and prybars with a giant glass box inches away.



Here's a shot of it the builder sent me prior to shipping.  It's looking pretty good.

[sdivell]

Wow... the builder is clearly better at building tanks than building crates! 

The tank looks great! can't wait to see your progress!

[Consigliere]

Haha yup!

[Snider82]

thats alotta beer!   nice tank!   

[salvini55]

Wow... the builder is clearly better at building tanks than building crates! 

LOL - thats what i was thinking!

[Consigliere]

Finally the first update in nearly a year.  This project has been on hold until I finished the basement that the tank was going to be installed in.  I found out very quickly that having your first child will put a little damper on the projects you had going before.  Nearly 1 year after the tank arrived it has been uncrated and is almost ready to be put on the stand.  I'm thinking I will have to have professional movers do this job. 

I've got the structural part of my stand built.  It is 2x6 and 2x4 construction.  3/4" plywood on top.  My wife is paranoid it isn't strong enough for a 250G but I think it's plenty safe.

Here's the stand going together:

The top frame that the plywood will be screwed to:






and the whole thing clamped together ready to be screwed.



I also realized that if I tried to put the tank on the stand and then put the manzanita wood as a whole in it wouldn't fit and there is no way I was assembling it by hanging into the tank so I have started putting together my stump that will go in and I will install it in the tank before I put the tank on the stand.  I'm building it on the stand so I can get it sized correctly. 

Looking for some feedback on the arrangement.  I have lots more good branches that will beef up the right side a bit more so it isn't complete yet.

Straight on:



Closer:



From the left:



From the right:



And still to be put into the arrangement:

[Toss]

Sorry I missed out the beginning of this tank build. I thought this is going to be a SW tank until I saw the driftwood. So I guess this is going to be a high tech freshwater planted tank?

[Stussi613]

I like the way it looks right now, the right side being slightly less dense will leave some open space on that side which would look good.  Having wood all the way across without any "negative" space might be too busy.

If you want to sell any of the manzanita you don't end up using let me know

[Consigliere]

Here's what I think will be the final arrangement. I got every piece in, including a couple small pieces I had in an old tank.

Straight On:



From the left:



and the right:



What do you think?

[Malyon18]

I think it looks pretty sweet, good work

[Toss]

This is just my personal opinion, I like the original wood arrangement. The final one is a bit over powering. If it is going to be a planted tank, not much room left for the plants.

[magnosis]

What has happened with this tank ?  It started as a fairly epic build ...

[Consigliere]

I'm looking at the dates on these posts and it seems like I get the itch to work on this project about this time every year.  What turned out to be the most difficult aspect of the entire project was completely overlooked by me when I designed this tank.  Moving it to my basement was an absolute nightmare. Professional movers turned down the job but in the end my two brother-in-laws, my dad and myself moved it from my garage to my basement.



Making the Plan



Not the most comfortable moment



Don't let go


Almost there



Almost two years from delivery it finally makes it into my house.



Front view



Better lighting


I can finally get started on all the setup.  The plumbing will be the first job.  The filter the second.  That will be the moment of truth on filling this thing with water and getting the pumps going.  I'll be posting the drainage plumbing design shortly.

[Cheebs]

Wow, that is epic!! Great looking so far, don't keep us waiting til Oct 2012 to hear more!

[Yams]

The patience you have! lol, long time since starting to now, looks good though.

Also, that crate your aquarium came in, is the worst crate I have ever ever ever seen. And I have seen alot of crates! lol, but excellent looking tank!

Excited for you!

[Consigliere]

The last few weeks I've been installing the drainage plumbing onto the bulkheads. A few design changes were necessary as I installed things to make sure there was room for the return plumbing. The isolation valves for the rightside upper drain bulkhead will be hard to get to so I think I'm going to drill a hole in the valve handles and put a threaded rod and nut through it so I can pull it open or closed from above. Here's a couple shots of the drainage plumbing installed.

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The next step was to turn my old 70G tank into the filter. I'm doing a sump setup underneath the stand. The design is based on a bunch of nice saltwater sumps I've seen on the internet. I chose Lexan for the dividers. Glass would've been better but Lexan was easier to get and wasn't overly expensive. It took a little bit to figure out how best to cut it. There are a few chips out of some of the dividers that hopefully will be filled with silicone. You'll see I didn't spare any silicone when I installed the dividers. Before I installed each divider I sanded the surface that was going to be siliconed to the glass. Hopefully the extra surface area will make a strong enough bond to stand up to the flows in the sump. Here's the photos of the transformation of the 70G tank to the sump:

The pump mounts have some rubber grommets siliconed in below the screw heads. There will be 2 more rubber gromets sandwiching each pump mount with stainless washers and nuts to keep everything together and vibrating without hitting the glass.

With everything installed here we are:

Overall the filter has 5 distinct features. A submerged return pump, a bubble trap before the return pump. 2 sections of bio filtration, sump pump with float switch connected to the house drain and a 15G or so refugium. The sump pump still needs to be installed but the plumbing is all in place.. The refugium will initially be used for keeping isolation from new fish while getting them exposed to tank conditions. After that I'll use it to grow some plants.

The next part of the project is the plumbing for the return system. I have some check valves on order that I need to get that finished. There will be 3 of them for redundancy since check valves aren't as reliable as an above water siphon break. I decided to give up on doing a siphon break and spend some extra money on heavy duty check valves. The return system will include a 3" PVC CO2 reactor with injection via pressurized CO2 and regulator.

Here's how everything looks together right now:

[Cheebs]

All I can say is... Wow! Lookin good

[daworldisblack]

WOW! Just another thread I HAVE to follow! Looks real good so far and I am in total awe!

[charlie]

All I can say is... Wow! Lookin good

X2, can`t wait to see the final product,great job so far

[redbelly]

Cool build!

Are you sure that your return pump is designed to be run internally?

I have never seen a return pump that can be bolted down that can run internally. Usually its only external pumps.