the official 180 build begins !

[gwaco]

thanks for the compliments ! sorry about the size of the last couple of pics , i thought i had resized them .

whisk , no sir ! the sump is officially running the 75 now , but everything has been set-up to plug -n - play the 180 . the a.t.o. is set-up just like it was before using a float switch ( which you can see in the left corner of the sump ) the only difference is that now the hose goes into a 1/2" pipe which you can see in the rear middle of the pic .

viv , the waste bucket was sort of a temporary collection cup for the skimmer , needless to say i revamped the whole drain system today ! its much more user friendly now , i will have to get a pic of it tomarrow , also got the u.v. plumbed today . the last big thing to do on the sump is to get the r.o. hooked up to the a.t.o. , but that will have to wait as its time to start working on the tank ! as a side note , i'm glad to have all this out in the garage as there is nooo way the misses would have stood for the amount of noise ! it sounds like a cross between a wash machine running and throwing in a window shaker a.c. unit for good measure !

[gwaco]

heres the pics i said i would post . this shows the new routing of the skimmer drain . originally it went into the hole you see in the bench top into the waste can , but i didn't like it , and it was going to be a pain . the pipes are kind of contorted as i had glued in the 90 that comes out of the skimmer .

[gwaco]

and here is the new collection can . it doesn't get much simpler to dump it than this ! just disconnect the overflow drain and carry it out the door . the shelf it sits on just lifts off also incase the skimmer needs to come out for maint. .
did start work on the tank today , got the silicone out for resealing . also picked up a 5 gallon container of the casting resin , so i might get the bottom board poured this weekend also . will keep you updated !

[Viv]

Nice setup gwaco! Wish you were a neighbor, you could help redo mine, anyday!

[Leonardo's Reef]

Very Nice setup... That's a lot of skimmate, btw

- Leonardo

[Little Luey]

MMM, iced tea!

[hng]

Awesome work Gwaco, can't wait to see the tank stocked!

[gwaco]

sorry i,ve been away for a few days . thanks for the kind words everyone !
i have been bustin my hump on this tank the last few days so here is an update of where i am . got the tank resealed , had to do it twice since the first time i was not happy . lesson - do small sections at a time ! the first time i had it all taped off and layed the silicone down in the whole thing , well when it came time to pull the tape off most of it had already skinned up so it just pulled chunks of it out ! ONE BIG MESS !
i still haven't water tested it yet but would be surprised if it leaked .
i got the surface skimmer done and the plumbing out the back of the tank . it has been a few days of some ups and downs . anyways on with the pics !!!!
this first pic is of the back . instead of painting it i went with an abs type of material that is textured on one side . i decided to go ahead and use the bulkheads to help secure it to the back and then silconed the perimeter .

[gwaco]

this is the surface skimmer under construction . its a little easier to see it with the paper still on .

[gwaco]

here is the high tek way i bent the ends ! after it was all together i used a router to cut the edges flush .

[gwaco]

heres another view with the paper still on .

[gwaco]

here is the finished part . to set the water level in the tank all you do is loosen up the three wingnuts and slide it up or down . the bulkhead fittings use modified fittings to hold a backing plate on , and the three screws for the wingnuts have been taped and thread so they do not turn with the wingnuts . so the actual skimmer is a seperate component , that attaches to the back up plate .

[gwaco]

another shot . one thing that is not in the photos but was added were some braces for the pieces that go across the tank . if you look at them in the photos you can see them sagging and discolored . i am betting that it was from m.h. lights . anyways i wasn't comfortable with them so i secured them up abit .

[gwaco]

here is a shot of the rear manifold . after experimenting a little with the new sump on the current 75 i discovered that by adding air vents it really quieted down , so with this manifold i decided to up them a bit which is why you see five of them . once the tank is in place all i have to do is attach the two inch pipe and the two sump to tank returns .

[gwaco]

here is the last and what was the only real dissapointment of the weekend . this is a pic of the new polyester casting resin bottom for the tank . i had some stupid idea of adding color to get it to look like coraline but as you can see thats not how it turned out . it took five gallons of it to make it taper from one inch in the back to about a half an inch in the front . this project did not go so smoothly but the pieces will be useable so hopefully the coraline will grow fast ! also this was molded into three sections to make it easy to get it in ( actually one section broke so it is four but it was a near perfect brake ) . once its all in and i am happy with it it will be siliconed in around the edges .
so thats it for now , stand work should start later on this week , i just need a couple of days away from it !