redtop03's 360g plywood adventure

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

well I've been a member here for a while just kinda lurking around,I must say,this is a great forum.....I've finally found time to post my build here...this is what I have so far...my tank is built from plywood,it's about 360g (96Lx36Wx24Tall) my sump is also plywood,about 65g and I have a 20g used for a fuge for my chaeto....I have 2 aquamedic t1000 protein skimmers which I need to upgrade,I have a little giant return pump with a SCWD....I'm still working on getting a closed loop going to replace my powerheads for a less cluttered look in the tank,but right now,for circulation,I use 2 MJ 1200 with the sureflow upgrade kit and a polario 22ml......I have a reeflo hammerhead pump for my closed loop and am saving for an oceans motion wave maker.....my lights are 2 sets of the Odyssea MH/PC combos,I have replaced 2 of the ballasts with lumatek e-ballasts and 2 of the MH bulbs with phoenix 14k.....the front half of the PC bulbs have been replaced with the ULV actinics too...

my coral consist of mostly easy to keep stuff right now as I'm new to the reefing world and want to gain experience before getting any high end and harder to keep coral.....

my fish are:

blue hippo tang
yellow tang
naso tang
pair of perculas
psychedelic dragonet
royal gramma
PJ cardinal
flame angel
2 clown gobys
6 line wrasse

my other critters are:

assortment of mushrooms
zoas
colt coral
2 orange cap monti
purple cap monti
2 green bubble tip anemone
coco worm
coral band shrimp
3 skunk cleaner shrimp
several peppermint shrimp
several snails
sally litefoot crab
several emerald crabs
several sand sifter stars
several brittle stars
cabbage leather
and probably some other stuff that I forgot I had

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

now for some pics...these are where I started my build

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

and after the fiberglass....

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

this is after the sweetwater epoxy painting.....

bige11 · Nov 10, 2009

So the fiberglass is just a thin film? Wow, building your own tank takes guts......

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

building the top cross bracing.....

LegoZ81 · Nov 10, 2009

very nice.

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

bige11 said:
So the fiberglass is just a thin film? Wow, building your own tank takes guts......

yes,the fiberglass is actually several thin layers,it is a thin coating of epoxy then the fiberglass matt material,then several more layers of the epoxy,the bottom has more layers than the sides and back but it is fairly thick all over.....it takes more that guts,the sweetwater epoxy probably burns up brain cells too :lol:

thanks for looking

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

LegoZ81 said:
very nice.

thank you,I've got a bunch more pic to come....please stay tuned :lol:

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

ok here are some pics of the sump...

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

my stand....

I went back and redid the top and made it stronger,I doubled the 2x6 around the top and moved the cross pieces from 16" centers to 12" and doubled some of the uprights

Paul_N · Nov 10, 2009

Nice tank. Excellent work!

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

and now back to the tank......prepping for the glass......

the glass install......

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

the water test....nerve wrecking experience

I made such a mess with the silicon that I had to scrape the front frame and redo it.....I wanted something that would look good with oak,so a trip to wally world and found some brown texture paint and coated the frame with......

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

Paul_PSU said:
Nice tank. Excellent work!

thank you

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

now the move to in the house.....

I forgot the state the dimensions......96"Lx36"Wx24"tall....it was a truck bed full

and now in the house.....

my daughter had to be the first critter in it :lol:

BluegrassReef · Nov 10, 2009

redtop03 said:
thank you

Geez willie...are you on every site known to man....:haha:

redtop03 · Nov 10, 2009

I busted 1 of my fuge tanks while moving this monster into place and had to get the sand and a few rocks back in water quickly....thankfully the tank was only a 30g and I saved about half the water,still 15g of water is a big mess on the floor.....

I moved everything from my 120g and my 150g into this tank.....