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360 Gal DIY Reef Tank


acropoorer

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I'm building a new 360 gal tank to replace my 180. Thought I would post some pictures of my progress and a description of what I'm building for people that may find interest. The tank is 42"X72"X30", 3/4" glass, Starphire on three sides with a 1" pvc bottom, rimless (had to be rimless after suffering 4 years with the oceanic center brace). Two waterfall exteral overflows (Soon to be done cleaning overflow slots of algae).

The stand is laminated 3/4" plywood and will be oak covered with euro style cabinetry. The hood is 3/4" oak plywood and will house 3 luminarc reflectors with 400 watt MH, 6-6' t12 vho actinic and 4-2' t12 vho actinic.

The glass came from Glass Cages and the pvc & acrylic from Regal Plastics. Special thanks to Don Duncan and Micheal Davis for helping me Glue up the glass.

The base without the final top sheet of plywood. Note the glue lam structure in pic two - use strips of plywood screwed and glued. This was used instead of solid lumber as it is stronger, lighter and more stable.

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View of corner glue lams

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Base with routed pvc bottom and box overflows. Note that the overflow boxes are angled as the tank backs up to a curved wall.

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The waterfall overflow cuts in back glass. About 15" X 1" each. Drill holes at each end and two saw cuts.

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Set in place and taped for silicon -- dry run before glueing

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Glued up. Note the two nylon ropes to "clamp" glass. These need to be tight (used double loop for leverage).

Note the masking tape which is used for fingered silicon seal which leaves uniform edge -- remove while wet.

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Silicon on the overflows. Note that black film was applied first and the boxes are glued in two spots - a joint around the overflow slot and to the pvc bottom. Looking in from the front only the black film is visible -- totally clean look!

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The hood, 3/4" plywood with an angle to reduce the bulk

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The tank after 48hr water check with hood in place to check fit (still needs to be cut to size).

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The Pukani dry rock on 38"x68" piece of plywood (240 lbs). Very light weight rock, almost to much for the tank.

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All for now. Still a lot of work to do, months...

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Wow, a huge project! Looks like you guys are no strangers to good workmanship though, nice clean edges and a really well thought out design. Can't wait to see it stocked, but I can understand that's still quite a ways out :)

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Hey Dale,

Cindy here, WOW!! you sure weren't kidding about going larger. You've been busy.....can't wait to see the progress. Hey, those 2 guys look familiar....Oh yeah!! Don and Michael, that's where they've been hanging around all this time.....they look too happy, better put them to work :).

-Cindy-

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In one of the books I have, it says expect between $35 to $50 per gallon for a saltwater tank. Right now, that's roughly $12,600 to $18,000. Maybe couple more grand for the sump?

Fear and awe. It's mixed emotions. I'm complex like that.

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In one of the books I have, it says expect between $35 to $50 per gallon for a saltwater tank. Right now, that's roughly $12,600 to $18,000. Maybe couple more grand for the sump?

Fear and awe. It's mixed emotions. I'm complex like that.

Don't believe everything you read. I will have under $3800 in the tank, stand and hood (including hardwood and 8 solid oak doors -- I do 1st quality cabinet work). I have $600 in a used 1HP chiller/heater and panworld chiller pump (hooking this in closed loop). Sumps can be cheap if you don't get fancy, I'm using a 110gal livestock tub that I picked up for $50 and my 50 gal oceanic sump from my original setup. I admit the rock was a little pricey (3.50 lb with shipping from bulk reef supply}. Most everything else is reuse from my old tank except for the t12 bulbs and 2 icecaps to drive the extra lights (~$450). Oh yea, I expect to have about $100 in the overhead pulley system for the hood and another $100-$200 in plumbing and maybe $150 in cooling fans. Remember, this is DIY. No way my wife would let me spend $12K on a tank.

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It wasn't talking about the tank cost, specifically, it was referring to all said and done--stocked and all (and on a new setup).  I didn't believe it, to be honest, but with my 34g Solana, I'm near $2K... well over $50/gallon.  (Including lights, chemicals, accessories, rock, sand, salt, livestock, blah, blah, blah.)  That's fantastic that it is a lot of re-use!  That'll definitely mitigate it.

I pointed out the potential cost because I didn't fully grok how expensive the hobby is until I saw all the bits and pieces adding up... rather quickly, mind you.  So fast, in fact, that I stopped itemizing all my purchases.  At this point, I would rather not know. 

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I liked reading about this but one thing worried me. I noticed your overflows are on the outside of the tank, all good, however you say that you put a film tint on before adhering the overflows with silicone? Would that not lead me to believe that you do not have a good seal between the tank and the overflows? What happens when the tint begins to degrade and lets go of the tank? It just worries me that without a bulkhead between them, that water can find its way between the film and the overflows, or worse yet, a slight bump could pull the overflows and tint from the main tank. It sounds as though all of the strength relies upon the adhesive of the tint.

Cheers for not "overbuilding" your stand. It looks massive enough, yet most would have started threads about using 4x4's and 2x8's on 6" centers.

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I liked reading about this but one thing worried me. I noticed your overflows are on the outside of the tank, all good, however you say that you put a film tint on before adhering the overflows with silicone? Would that not lead me to believe that you do not have a good seal between the tank and the overflows? What happens when the tint begins to degrade and lets go of the tank? It just worries me that without a bulkhead between them, that water can find its way between the film and the overflows, or worse yet, a slight bump could pull the overflows and tint from the main tank. It sounds as though all of the strength relies upon the adhesive of the tint.

Cheers for not "overbuilding" your stand. It looks massive enough, yet most would have started threads about using 4x4's and 2x8's on 6" centers.

Mike,

The film is cut back 1/2" around the overflow and caulked with black caulk. The silicon to plastic is the concern -- there are tricks for that.

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this is a build thread.where you start a detailed thread about the process of putting together your tank.in your case it is actually PUTTING TOGETHER YOUR TANK.lol.i always say when i start something new i am going to log it and make a "build thread" on here about it,but i never do.

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I saw this tank the other night and I must say it is the nicest most thought out tank I have ever seen,storebought or otherwise.Dale has mad skills. Now if I could just convince him to build me one too :)

You know I have offered to help you and I've already started thinking about how we would do it. Think about how great those chalices will look through starphire.

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Very impressive! I have plans in the works a DIY 240g in-wall tank. A friend and I are working on some new and interesting ways to build a tank that I will wait until we are doing it to describe. I always love seeing people DIY. I think it makes this incredible hobby even more interesting.

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Great build.

Quick question. It would appear that you are building just like AGE does(PVC bottom) and some of the mystery is how they get the glass to seal to the PVC. So, how did you do it?

This is a long answer and a secret of those that know. So, I will say that I used silicone and 1" pvc plus a secret ingredient. The pvc is thick for a reason other than it is needed to carry the weight -- think of a channel in a channel -- vertical and horizontal. I used the channel in a channel concept and I am convinced AGE does as well. I already purchased my glass and pvc when I happened to meet the owner of saphire aquatics in Houston and was talking to him about the tank I was building and he shared the other key adhesion secret with me and I don't think he would want me to publish it on the web. So if someone is seriously interested on building a glass to pvc tank I would share the secret off line so that they could have a successful build -- just don't want to publish it. There are also some secrets to avoiding bubbles in the seal that I can share that I couldn't use on my tank (My seams didn't come out as pretty as I'd have liked)

I don't believe the brand of silicone is critcal, but I bought mine from glass cages and the brand is Dow Corning 732 multi purpose sealant.

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