Bloke's 180g - It was bound to happen...

[Bloke]

I got the Ca Reactor in place and running this afternoon:



And there is still more rock inside the 36g and the 90g that I need to get moved, but drilling rock takes some time. There are pieces that I will NOT be drilling that I will use to fill in aeas between the columns. Rather than work until 3 am, I thought I would slow down for the night and post of apicture of the progress:



There have been several broken corals and therefore lots of frags. People buying equipment from the other systems are welcome to frags if interested.

[Bloke]

I finally got all the rock out of the two tanks upstairs. I shortened two of the pillars and topped them off with pieces of coral.
Whew... I think I have been up to my armpit in saltwater for 4 days. I will have to fine tune the aquascaping, but so far this works until I can get the other tanks out of the house. I will want to build up some of the rock behind the pillars a little to get a little more natural looking scape, but for today... I'm done.

[Bloke]

Well, I finally got EVERYTHING and everyone added to the tank. The last thing added was the carpet anemone and the two true percs. I placed the carpet right up front because it has tremendous color and the clowns love the thing. It's almost dirty watching them interact with each other.

So, here we are. About 200+ lbs of established live rock, 70 lbs of base rock, 120 lbs of substrate, ~ 200g of saltwater, and 12 fish (had 13 but the Purple Tang passed on ).



Occupants:
Sohal Tang
Desjardins Tang
Chevron Tang
Regal Tang
Yellow Tang (3)
True Percula (2)
Flame Angel
Bicolor Angel
Coral Beauty

[Bloke]

There's a lot of time and energy sitting within four panes of glass.

Short video:
http://www.youtube.com/v/u1ldwc-vhwQ

[VWD]

looks great Shane, Nice job

[aquawolf]

Congratulations on finally getting everything and everybody into the new system. It looks great, top quality all the way around.

[Bloke]

Well, I got the T5 HO wired and mounted today. I only ran two of the four bulbs due to the demand for real estate on the lighting rack. I did not want to take up space under the MH reflectors. If more blue is needed, I will go with a 12k instead of a 10k bulb.



I also finished plumbing in the skimmer. It will take a few days for it to "kick in" but this is an ETSS 600 XR skimmer and is powered by a Gen-X Mak5 pump. Once it gets broken in, it's going to do a great job. I have a 5g bucket for a skimmate collector.

[Bender 2]

I love the rockwork. You have done a great job of documenting your build. Keep the updates coming.

[Bloke]

Thanks for the compliment.

I think I finally got the Ca Reactor dialed in to stabilize water parameters as well as figured how to get the skimmer to produce muddier skimmate. I think over the course of this week I will be catching at least two of the yellow tangs so if anyone is interested, let me know for they will need a home.

So, here we are:

[aquawolf]

That is beautiful. You did one heck of a job and should be very proud of it.

[Philter1]

Thank you for the post! This is a great build and I've enjoyed watching the progress! (for the short time I've been here)

[Bloke]

Alright, well I went by Star on East Central as well as HD this evening. After looking at all the fancy trim, I went back home and looked at the carpentry throughout the house and I think a lot of fancy stuff would look out of place and I would REALLY like it to look similar to the rest of the house. That of course was the reason for painting the basement the same macadamia color, using the same bullnose corners on the drywall, and paying extra for the knockdown. I've already planned on using the same type of doors as upstairs including the same base trim so it only makes sense to model the tank's trim after the house too.

Therefore, I looked a lot at the fireplace in the living room and decided that I would simply copy it on a slightly modified scale. The fireplace sits directly above the tank and for those who've been to the house, I think it will look more visually appealing when walking from the family room into the living room or the basement to see similar trim.

So, enough confusing rationale... here's a picture of the fireplace. I plan to mess around with Google's sketchup this evening to get something closer to scale for me to look at and will post pictures of the drawing as I complete it. Basically, if you look at the larger square sections of the picture below, imagine those the same width but only 12" tall with the tank sitting between them and the bottom ledge and that's what I had in mind. This middle section would be a liftable door for front access to the tank. Let me know your thoughts:

[Bloke]

Alright, so something along these lines. In the columns and within the center rectangles the carpenter used a sort of door molding to accentuate the recesses as well as the addition of crown molding at the top and under the ledge which I am going to copy, but not going to spend the time to draw.

For the most part, this gives a visual a little closer to scale:

[aquawolf]

I think that is going to look great and it sounds like a good plan to stick with the style of the rest of the house as well.

With everything else you have done I don't expect you to have any problems building this out.

[Bloke]

Here is a picture of things before I started cutting:


In order to mount the columns to the wall, I first secured a few 2x4 nailers to which the columns would later attach:


With the nailers, all I had to do was use a level to make sure the columns were adjusted to the right height and attached them with 2" nails:


After the columns were attached, I cut a 1x4 to run between them at the top. This will also be where the front access panel will attach. I also managed to mount the ledge under the tank along with a 1x3 under it for both support for the occasional leaning as well to act as a nailr for me to later attach a 1x4 and crown molding: