Full Siphon Standpipe

Today I assembled the full siphon standpipe. As you can see from yesterdays pictures I did not have the union or ball valves as part of the dry fit. All the fitting on this channel are now cemented into place.  I think I'm only going to use union valves for the open channel and emergency standpipes in order to breakdown for cleaning. I cannot think of any reason why I would need ball valves on these channels. Probably next week sometime I will finish the overflow plumbing. 

Drilling.

Today I drilled the tank and cut and dry fit most of the plumbing. Also painted the back of the tank, pics of that will be up tomorrow. Drilling of the bulkhead holes went pretty painlessly. The first hole was the easiest and fasted by far. By the third hole the bit was getting a little worn down so it took slightly longer.  

Got the tank put on the stand to see how it reacted with weight. Empty it did well, but when it was about half full I gave it a little rock and became concerned about its stability. I added the 4 virticle supports that I left out last night which helped to make it truly rock solid. While the tank finished filling i cut and placed the inner floor of the stand and put the 30 Gal. sump in to see what kind of room i would be working with under there. All and all I'm pretty happy with how everything has turned out so far. Thank god for Google SketchUp. Here's how it looks so far.

Tank and Stand Framework (pic heavy)

Spent the night watching the Home Run Derby and building the stand framework in the garage. Here is how it turned out, sans a few vertical supports to cut down on weight.  This thing is stable as brick poop house.  Tomorrow I will get the tank on the stand, clean it, and fill to check for leaks and double check that the stand framework is structurally sound. Also, pic of the tank that i have yet to post.  Formatting turned out funny.

  

So I've decided that during the downtime between actual work on my setup I'm going to post anything reef related that I find interesting or useful.  Cool pictures, interesting articles, DIY projects. With this post I'll start out showing what I would like my next project to be once i get the 90 gallon setup.

Frag tanks are used to propagate corals in a tank that is separate from the display and sump.  What I'm thinking of doing is using the 10 gallon I have, and if there is room, put it next to my sump under the display tank and plumb it directly into the sump rather than having it's own filtration system since it is so small and my sump is designed to carry a much higher bio-load than what my DT produces.  I probably wont use it immediately because I plan on starting with fish only in my DT and adding corals later, but I might as well build in the capability now. Also, I can always turn it into a dedicated fuge and have the return section in my sump be much larger in the meantime.  Here are a few of the better pics i found online. 

 

Here is the final product, save for of course live sand, live rock, fish and corals. Below are a few pictures of my inspiration for the stand design.  What I have in sketch up is a very rough draft of how I will do the skinning and molding.

This is the original frame design.  After getting some feed back on a forum i have made some alterations.  According to one user this frame design could hold up a fucking house.  Work will start on this after i buy the aquarium and can get exact measurements.

This is the Sump/ Refugium design. Included are the protein skimmer and return pump.  Left most section will be the refugium.

Frame, sump, display tank.  At the top of the the DT is the overflow chamber and visible in back is the BeanAnimal overflow design.  I haven't done a complete rendering of the plumbing because it is very difficult to manipulate PVC fittings in sketchup, but trust me there will be plenty of pictures as I assemble it.

Well, after almost 2 years of research and planning I am finally going to start this thing and have decided to record the process in what is my first (and probably only) blog ever. This is mostly for myself but those of you interested are free to view and comment.  Ill start with a few 3D renderings done using Google SketchUp.  This will be a pic heavy blog and at times slow developing because I will be building as I acquire the necessary equipment and most of what it needed it very expensive. For those of you following along, enjoy!