DarkDevil Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Hi everyone, I am really excited to participate this event. This will be my first time to this kind of contest. My arms, leg and back are still sore from building the tank, sump, and stand in 4 days. Although it's not fully complete, I took some pics just to get me qualify to enter. I still have a lot of do like plumbing, lighting, and I still need to build the skimmer. The basic theme for my tank is a shallow square tank so I can appreciate the marine life from a bird's eye view, not the usual side view. I am going to stock mainly clams(flame on), probably with some Zoas and SPS as a complement. I can't wait to put water in and start it up, hope everybody will have a good time and good luck yall!!! Spec: Tank Size: 17"x17"x8.75" (10.95 Gal) Sump: 17"x11"x12.25" (9.92 Gal) Lighting: 250W 20k MH Flow: Mag 3 (350gph) with HydroFlo Tank mates: Mainly clams, maybe zoas and SPSs Entry Photo: Display tank base dimension: Display tank height dimension: Sump base dimension: Sump height dimension: I designed my tank on Solidworks: Some more pics. Main tank building pic: Sump building pic: Stand: Prelim test fitting of everything together. main tank is fully hand polished, sump will just left to be, as long as it doesn't leak, I am happy. See the bottle? cheap and effective way to fix my muscle sore More to come, enjoy! Link to comment
WarEagleNR88 Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Nice work! I agree! This is by far the most custom tank of them all at the time of this posting. We'll have to see if Calvin can get a picture with a drink in it before the end of the day. Really good work on the CAD as well. I'll be interested to see the development of it. I really like the fact that it will be square and shallow and that you'll have a good lighting setup over the tank. You better get some good pics! And did you seriously drink all that LIIT after finishing? How were you able to take the pictures? Link to comment
Rene Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Wow, that is some nice work on that tank and stand. I'm curious to see what a top-down aquascape will look like. Most corals look better viewed top-down anyway IMO, so it could be pretty neat. Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 20, 2006 Author Share Posted October 20, 2006 Thank you for all the kind words. I did finished the plumbing late last night and I also put water in, till this morning, not a single drip yet. I also fire up the pump this morning to see if everything is in my calculation, turns out decent, but still have a couple places that I need to fine tune. I already have the aquascaping all thought out, now I just need to see if I can get the things I need to proceed with my idea. Also, the next step would be building the MH pendent and also the skimmer. Probably by the end of tonight or tomorrow, I should have salt water in. Will update again, until then. p.s. I didn't drink that much of LIIT just last night, but a LOT to celebrate the completion of my creation Link to comment
Tony Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 I love this tank so you better make it good!! Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 21, 2006 Author Share Posted October 21, 2006 A minor update, some pics with water in, please ignore the messy background. Front view of the tank: Back view of the tank: Simple plumbing, one down, one up: Sump in action: Close up on the surface of the main tank: If everything is doing fine for tonight, I will move it into the house tomorrow. Enjoy! Link to comment
travisurfer Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 WOW! that is awesome work Link to comment
civicsit Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 That tank is just awsome. I think I just got my inspiration for my next tank I build! Good luck with the tank! Link to comment
Dane Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 This tank looks awesome. Great design. Keep it up and I look forward to watching it progress. Link to comment
tinyreef Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 now that there is ooooone purty tank! yowza! super suuweeeet imho! Link to comment
FUGU!!! Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 I cannot wate to see whats next! Me and my buddies are planing to biuld a similar seamles clam bed with a custom light setup.Should be a fun prodject. Link to comment
sandlot13 Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 wow, i really like this tank...... its simple, yet striking at the same time Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 24, 2006 Author Share Posted October 24, 2006 Thank you everyone, hope everyone like it and enjoy it as much as I do. Keep the comments coming, I don't mind if it's good or bad, we all learn from it. I have finished the canopy and all the wirings to the MH, now I have to somehow figure out how to stuff an actinic and moonlight in there. Also all the live rocks are in place, shook up a huge sandstorm last night so I didn't take any pics. Will update again with pics tonight. Stay tuned. Link to comment
Charlie97L Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 Great stuff man!! l love the frameless look, that's how mine is... but you really went all out and plumbed through the bottom. nice work. ) Link to comment
Kamla Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 Nice.. look great.... But arnt you worried that the check value might fail... Knocking on wood Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 Yes, if the check valve fail somehow, I will have a happy molding carpet. Although if any other important component fail, like overflow, baffle, piping, I will get the same result also. I will check for all the possible failure everyday, thanks for pointing that out. So here are some update pics, hope you guys enjoy. And keep your comments coming. Here is a pic when I first move the tank in place, and just finish putting the sand in. Here is a pic showing my newly made canopy and the freshly setup tank. Below are 2 different angles of the tank. Left side of the rock work for now. Right side of the rock work. And the last top view. The tank is going into cycling mode, will start adding cleaning crew soon. Any comments are welcome and hope you enjoy pics. Link to comment
WarEagleNR88 Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 Cool stucco background! I think it looks good. I was expecting it to be a three--well four counting from above--sided tank. But it's your reef and you should do what you feel is best. And that's really nice the way you have the LR going around the hydroflo output. Can you get some video of it running once you get it going? It'll be like a merry-go-round for your snails if they can get on it. I'm interesting to see how that setup works with it rotating horizontally. What type of pump are you using again? Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 well, my first idea was that I can look at it from all sides, but I just can't find a place in the house that I can put it. Even for a 3-sided look, I just don't know where to put it to look decent, for the house I mean. so I just stuff it in the living room corner. that seems to have the least impact with other things. oh well... actually I have taken a short video, let me upload it to photobucket tonight. a horizontally placed hydro flo is shooting water at an angle of 50-60 degree give or take, I was expecting more like 30-40 degree. but oh well, this works pretty good anyways, all 4 sides get the flow that it needed, so it's all good. I am using a Mag 3 as return. Link to comment
yoshiod9 Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 looks great! you bought some zoas or something from me awhile back, right? very sweet setup-- how much did the acrylic set you back (if you don't mind my asking)? i know that it is really expensive through TAP but i just found a website that sells sheets for pretty cheap (http://freckleface.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/acrylicsheet.html). no matter-- the tanks is awesome... i'd love to build my own 60-90 gallon cube and this definitely has me thinking about doing so. goodluck! -danny Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 yoshiod9: yes I got some zoa from you beforethe blue with red skirt are doing very good, but the alien eye isn't. It never grow, but it didn't die either, oh well. The acrylic cost around $70 for the main tank and $40 for the sump. I got them from TAPS, I know they are hella expensive, but my table saw isn't perfectly setup yet, so I rather have someone else cut it for me, at least I know they are true and square. www.lairdplastics.com have a factory locally and they have decent price on acrylic sheets, but they only do 4x8 sheet, as I said, I can't cut perfect square at the moment, so I rather not risk it. if you are doing 60-90 gal, you need almost a sheet anyways, so check it out. As promised, here are couple movies showing how the tank work enjoy! From top: From side: A short one for the sump: Now I need to work on my skimmer, I am lazy and tired, I will probably use an old seaclone and mod it to make it work, but we'll see how it goes. Link to comment
GrandeGixxer Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 What are the chances of you do a set of plans for the tank? I have always wanted to do a top view tank, and your is perfect! What is the approx gallons for the display tank and the combined volume? The only thing that I could critique on the tank is the the outlet in the middle moves the surface a little too much to get a good view. All in all, great job! I can't wait to see it when it is finished. Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 The main tank is about 11G and the sump is around 9G, so the total volume is around 20G or so, but the real water volume is probably 15G. I will see if I can draw up the plan for the whole system. And I totally agree that the output move the surface too much, if you want to look at it, you gonna turn off the pump. As I said in the earlier posts, I didn't expect hydro-flo would shoot water out almost straight up to the surface. Anyways, so I am trying to figure out a way to make a viewing plane to put on top so u can view it all the time. Thanks for the comments, I have put couple new friends in there, I will update the pics soon. Link to comment
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