180g build!

[jmt1030]

Hey everyone,

My name is Jorge and I'm new around here. I've always been enamored with fish tanks, as I'm assuming most of you guys and girls have been, for pretty much my entire life. In my old house I had a 55g setup and then we decided to sell that house and move to a bigger house; and you know what that means....new house...new tank! I decided to go with a 180g tank build as I loved the 6x2x2 area.

The new house had a perfect area for the tank. The space was supposed to be used as a wet bar, but the developer that was building the house wanted way too much money for the upgrade. This is when we decided to use the space for a big tank, and thus began the planning of the tank. We needed to tear a wall down so I can make it look like I wanted.

I was looking for a tank everywhere; Craigslist, OfferUp, etc. I finally found a 180g that I liked. It was priced well and I decided to take the 1.5 hour drive to pick it up.

Nice and secure in the truck!
IMG_0585 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

Final resting place of 180
IMG_0800 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

All was going well in the planning stages until we went to the final walkthrough of the house before closing.

The developers decided to throw in the wet bar instead of making it an upgrade!
2016-12-16_09-31-44_410 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

We had already bought the tank and some parts so we decided to just continue on with the build as planned.

This is the plan for the area that we have
2017-01-06_10-44-40_410 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

About 2 days after closing on the house, the destruction began...
2017-01-06_20-38-08_191 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

2017-01-06_20-49-07_336 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

2017-01-06_20-57-57_309 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

2017-01-06_21-48-42_000 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

 

[Bpb]

Following. Can't you use some of that cabinetry in the stand and canopy build

 

[jmt1030]

Following. Can't you use some of that cabinetry in the stand and canopy build

Yeah, I could've, but I decided to just use those cabinets for the laundry room and for the garage to give the tank a completely custom look.

 

[jmt1030]

So now part of the wall must come down and we needed to move some electrical stuff since it was in the way.

2017-01-07_15-53-08_898 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

2017-01-08_11-11-30_804 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

Drywall back up
2017-01-08_17-49-01_976 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

Also decided to leak test the tank
2017-01-08_17-55-36_140 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

Everything was great, so now it's time to pump the water back out. I thought it was going to take forever, but this cheapo pump from Amazon did a dang good job.
2017-01-10_19-49-24_315 by Jorge Tijerino, on Flickr

 

[jmt1030]

Heres the equipment list that i'm going with for this build:

Tank: 72x24x24 Made by AGA
Overflow: Synergy Reef Shadow 16" overflow
Sump: Custom 48"x18"x20" with a separate compartment for ATO and 2 part supplement.
Lighting: 60" ATI SunPower 8 bulb Fixture
Return Pump: Jebao DCT-12000
Flow: Jebao RW20
Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 7
Auto Top Off: Tunze 3155
Heater: (2) Finnex HMO 300w

Btw, want send a huge shoutout to my buddy @ReeferEric that's helping me with this build. He's been invaluable throughout this whole thing.

 

[MaiReef]

Welcome to R2R! Look forward to seeing your build.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Welcome!! Looking forward to following this build!

 

[merfish101]

Following

 

[jmt1030]

Just realized how huge the pictures were. Sorry about that! I'll make them smaller going forward.

For the sump, I was going to go with a wood one following RocketEngineer's plans, but my stepfather knows a guy who works with aluminum so I decided to go with that.

We used 2x2 tubing for the whole stand to make sure it handles all the weight


Mock up of where it will sit


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[Taylor Harnden]

Following. Looks great!!

 

[jmt1030]

Here's a mockup of the custom sump


ATO and 2 part which will go next to the sump


Finished up the wall and sprayed knockdown texture to match the rest of the wall. Also moved the light switch to its final position.




Also poured some concrete in the hole left by the wall
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[reef-rc]

Tagging along. Looks like you are putting much thoughts into this and it is going well.

 

[richie6]

Looks good, tagging along

 

[ReeferEric]

Your nuts to be tearing down the house already for a tank. I'd get killed or feel guilty about beating up a new home. lol, see ya tomorrow!

 

[A+Aquatics]

Looks like an interesting project!
#Tagged

 

[jmt1030]

Tagging along. Looks like you are putting much thoughts into this and it is going well.

Looks good, tagging along

Thank you!

Your nuts to be tearing down the house already for a tank. I'd get killed or feel guilty about beating up a new home. lol, see ya tomorrow!

If you don't tear it down, then it's just the same as every other house on the block!

Looks like an interesting project!
#Tagged

Thank you!

 

[jmt1030]

Goodies have started to come in!

This thing is an absolute beast!


Since the developer had this as a wet bar, I have a drain here which I plan on using for water changes. No more buckets! Just turn a valve on and the water goes down the drain. I can't wait for this!


Ethernet cable passed for the Apex


Brought down extra power outlets so that it's closer to the sump making it easier
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[jmt1030]

The man, the myth, the legend, Eric came by yesterday to drill the holes for my overflow.

The Shadow overflow looks great on the tank!


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So, as the house was being constructed, I would come by about once a week to check to make sure everything was going fine. In one of my trips, I realized that under the stairs there was a ton of space that was going to be covered up. Once the house was done, we decided to open it up and turn it into storage. I also used this space to pass ethernet cable to one of my Ubiquiti access points and also the ethernet cable to the Apex that you saw above. One day I got a bright idea to pass some PVC from my garage to the fish tank so that I can easily pump saltwater from my saltwater station directly into the sump. With this, along with the drain that's already there, should make water changes as easy as turning on a pump and turning a valve. My plan was to make the water changes as easy as possible to assure myself that I would stay on schedule with it.

This is the space that was opened up


Where the water station will be


PVC coming out to the water station


Comes out the other side


Goes up


And down towards the tank




And out to the sump
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[reef-rc]

I learned something similar with my stairs yrs back when i had to punch a hole from the garage, through the stairs. Found a small space which i could use for storing things but have yet done anything with.

It's cool you could route the watering like that. I am too looking to make the RO/DI filtering process easier by hooking the water line and waste line directly into the house plumbing. Seems I may have a viable option shortly.

 

[jmt1030]

Sorry for the lack of updates! We've been working on other stuff around the house and the tank had taken a back seat. But here's an update!

So, before I was going to go with a fully custom acrylic sump, but due to time and budget constrainsts, I decided to just take a 75g tank and put some baffles in it and use it as a sump. This is a much cheaper alternative, and I would still get everything I wanted. I looked around pretty much everywhere for a tank and found this one on 5miles for $60:

The tank was pretty dirty and it was actually leaking. So went to town on the silicone to clean it up and put a fresh bead on it.

Had a local glass place make me some 1/4" cuts. Got all the baffles done for $43!

Got started putting in the baffles

Finished! No leaks!

And how it sits now. Main tank will be put on the stand this upcoming weekend and plumbing will begin!

Countersunk the screws that will hold the top plywood

Didn't want to screw into the metal stand, so we made some cleats that will hold the top plywood and now allow it to move. Although, with just the weight of the tank, that baby isn't going anywhere.

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