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440g Custom Starphire Metal-framed Reef Dropoff Tank


fjr_wertheimber

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Hahah when I first started reading this I was like wow, I had the same idea about 6 years ago and make a smaller version because I could not afford to build a large scale one. Best of luck to your tank build its an amazing tank, just have to make sure you can get flow too the drop off.

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It's gonna be a while, olaggie01, because I still have to get the stand made, the glass delivered (and then CNC waterjet cut). What are you upgrading to?

About the same gallonage, but a shallower and longer tank, 60x30x18. I found it in Dallas and am going up tomorrow to pick it up.

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Okay, so just a few updates. I put together a mockup of the new tank will go into, so we can figure out furniture, etc. Also, Wendy wanted a nano tank for some h. barbouri seahorses, so I mocked up a tank for her from the scrap cut to make the L-shaped pieces for the main tank. It will definitely be the stoutest nano EVER, as it's 24"l x 16"h x 12"w, made out of 3/4" low-iron glass. LOL It'll have a sump underneath with a WAY oversized skimmer for the tank size, to accommodate the nastiness that seahorse tanks create.

You'll pardon me if the models aren't exact, but I just wanted to make sure I was giving myself enough room for the Alpha 300 Kone skimmer, for the two HY5000 returns, and also to check the placement of the four Vortech pumps (2x MP40wES, 2x MP60wES). The two 40 gallon tanks up front are going to be quarantine tanks, the water jugs are for top-off water (and will be pulled from with an auto-topoff turning on/off an Aqualifter pump. The large portion of the sump towards the front will be a refugium/frag area. Oh, and I added 2" tabs with holes for attaching the wood facing on the stand.

Anyone see anything I'm missing, something I could improve or you think I should change?

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A few new renders of the fish room, we finally decided on a paint scheme and flooring. The photos are all ones I took on our dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Some of the renders don't have the main tank so you can see the rest of the room better. Gotta love V-ray!

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I love the sketchup work and the rendering. The idea is fantastic as it is very unique and allows for a wide range of creatures... The only thing I might bring up and please don't take this as a criticism, is the tanks orientation in the room. I would venture to say the original tank shown in the picture, works best as a peninsula. I would just have a hard time looking at that tank from the sofa... I would feel like I was always looking at the system from the side. 2 ways to correct it for me would be switch the orientation of the shelf/ and or drop the front side of the 1st shelf down. Its hard to describe but you would in essence be making a side shelf and a front shelf. If that is the goal of the entire tank, then my apologies as I just missed it but I thought I would throw it out there. Our tanks are our centerpieces.

Cheers

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I kinda felt the same way. Maybe have the tank where the couch is located and put a few chairs around the tank instead of a sofa? That way you could perhaps tie in the SH tank with the main tank, unless you wanted to keep them seperate.

What about dosing or a CA RX? Biopellets? BRS reactors? Make sure you can fit all the "extras" in the sump

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We thought about doing it as a peninsula in the room, but decided instead to do it as a peninsula to the house if you will, so that the long view is immediately in sight anytime you enter or go down that hallway (and with three kids, that's often). Also, it acts as a wall to separate our little "no kids, quiet area" from the rest of the house. I don't want the seahorses plumbed in with the rest of the system because their tank will run cooler than the reef tank. Oh, and trust. me when I say there's MORE than enough room for a Ca reactor, etc. in that sump. I just didn't feel like modeling one. LOL

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I just checked out your rederings, very cool. Are you the one drawing it? What program do you use (looks like proE). I use rhino for 3d drawing for work but I'm not that good, I have a friend that uses proE and he is awesome. Its nice to be able to use drawing programs to sketch up things in scale, lets you know what you have before you get it.

In the drawings it seems that you are missing a few things, maybe they just aren't drawn in yet.

Where is your pump? I see that you have a couple of submersible pumps drawn in the sump but those won't be enough for a tank that size, I first tried a 1/3 hp marlin by reeflo and had to upgrade to 1/2 hp baraccuda by reeflo. I really like the reeflo brand and we actually sell the for the hydroponics industry. Made in the USA, almost silent, and really energy efficient. If you use a submersible pump it will heat the water which would be a problem since you aren't planning to run any chiller, which I'm not sure you can even do even if using LED's. You might ask DonD, he only has LED's and still uses a chiller, although it doesn't run much I still think that he needs it. Also what happens if you a/c goes out in the middle of summer? At least with a chiller you have a back up plan to keep the tank from overheating, maybe you should consider at least a small chiller for insurance. Without it you are completely dependent on your home a/c system to keep your tank alive when its over 100 degrees for 90 days. Even if the a/c is new it doesn't mean that you can completely trust it. The tank will warm up almost as fast as your house if that happens.

I wanted to point out to you too that LED's do make heat, just not has much UV heat as MH. How many watts of LED are you using? There are BTU calculators online that convert watts to BTU so you will know how many BTU's you will be creating with them. Also the pump will heat up your tank....pump uses watts so it creates BTU's. External pumps are better at not transferring heat in to the water but they will still heat the air inside the stand which then the heat is absorbed in to the water through the sump. Water is great at absorbing heat. If you run a UV constantly it will heat the water too, watts equals BTU for them too, You will need a ventilation system in the canopy even for LED's, not sure if you figured that in or not. If not then the heat will be absorbed in to the water.

You will also need a water distribution manifold too and a proper manifold takes up room. You will have to split flow to several things and it has to be done right in order to have even distribution and flow.

Are you running a UV? On a tank that size I would highly recommend even if only using it when necessary, the amount of livestock that you will have will be very valuable and the UV can save it if you have a disease outbreak. A large enough unit will take up some room underneath your tank.

The skimmer that you have drawn doesn't seem near big enough and personally I wouldn run an external skimmer for many reasons. For a skimmer big enough for that tank it would take up lots of room inside the sump and it harder to keep it clean inside and out. Also most skimmers big enough for 400 gallon tanks typically don't have built in pumps and must be ran off a water distribution manifold that I mentioned before. My skimmer needs 600-800 GPH to operate properly and I have flow meters ran inline (which I also recommend for UV and skimmer) which also takes up some room underneath the tank. If you do run it inside the sump the pump for the skimmer is going to heat the water, a 600 GPH pump uses lots of watts and creates BTU that would be absorbed directly in to the water.

I don't see any controllers and plug strips underneath, this takes up lots of room. I'm assuming thaty you would be using an apex type controller and controlled powerstrips. I ended up using 4 strips and the controller, you will need a clear spot away from water to mount these.

I don't see a calcium reactor under there, this also requires a place for the controller to be mounted, a tank, regulator, and a place for the reactor. The smaller the tank the more you have to change it out. It would need to be supplied with water from the distribution manifold that I mentioned above.

I assume one of those tanks underneath is for a fuge, it will need an overflow, a supply from the distribution manifold, and lighting. All of that takes up room and the light will also make heat inside the stand.

You mentioned one of them being a frag tank (I think that you did). Also needs an overflow to the sump and supply from the distribution manifold. Also needs lighting that will create heat inside the stand, again watts = BTU, this heat can be absorbed in the water.

Just a bit of advice when it comes to the tank stand. Since you are putting lighting inside the stand you will want to make your doors so that light doesn't escape out of them when the stand is all closed up. When I first built the doors blue light streamed out of every crack, looked bad. I had to make some adjustments to get it to stop.

BTW you might want to install lighting underneath the stand to turn on and off when you are working under there, very handy to have.

I mentioned before that I thought you wouldn't have enough room for everything, I still feel like you don't just from my own experience. You MIGHT have enough room if you were to delete the 2 smaller tanks. Again to do it right you need a place for the pump, manifold, skimmer, UV, calcium reactor, tank, regulator, controllers, and power strips.

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Ok, one last thing to mention. You will want to run 2 dedicated electric circuits just for the aquarium. One might be enough but you will don't want to be borderline. You will want a dedicated circuit so that nothing else can trip the breaker for the tank which can be a problem if you aren't around. I actually installed a breaker box specifically for my tank and I even ran my chiller off its own dedicated circuit to be safe. Sometimes new electricity is hard to run on exterior wall, not sure if that will be an issue for you or not, just something to consider.

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Will your ATO reservoir be in your garage and are you just running a 1/4" tube to a float in the sump? If not you would have to make some room for the reservoir underneath the stand. Mine uses about 5 gallons per day but but that's with the MH, most likely LEDs would be less. I use a 25 gallon ATO reservoir mounted about 6' off the ground in in the equipment room, gravity fed to a float valve in the sump. Simple and reliable vs top off pumps

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To answer Hydro Innovations questions:

I did all the drawings on SketchUp 8, then rendered in V-ray. I'm running two pumps, Water Blaster 5000s. I'm not a huge fan of massive turnover on the return, prefer to let my in-tank pumps/powerheads handle the water movement in the display, to allow more contact time with the fuge/skimmer in the sump. I'm well aware of heat exchange as well as the efficacy of evaporative cooling, and intend to try evaporative cooling if need be, and if it doesn't meet the tanks needs, then I'll plumb a chiller inline. I'm not currently planning on running a UV, most hobbyists who run UVs run ones too vastly undersized to actually make a difference (not NEARLY enough contact time to actually make a dent on the flora and fauna you're trying to kill). If you get a chance, check out three of the most recent papers from the Georgia Aquarium, from Penn State, and from the NOAA on the efficacy of UV sterilization on closed circuit hydro environments, you'll be surprised at the incredibly low efficacy of those systems.

The powerstrips from the Apex will be mounted on the underside of the marine-grade ply, so any condensation drips away from the plugs, rather than into them. I'll be using 2 5 gallon jugs for auto-topoff, powered by an Aqualifter. I wish I could mount a 25 gallon tank above the tank for gravity fed topoff, but I just don't have the space for it. As for electricity, I already have a dedicated circuit run to that room. Wish I could run an additional circuit, but the house is a rental. They're fine with us painting and putting in the hardwood, but not too keen on additional electrical circuits.

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Well I at least warned you about the pumps, I think that you are going to find out that turnover won't be your issue...it will be filling your tank fast enough. If you don't have enough water flowing in to the tank then your tank will not fill up enough, you will see the water line....I hope that makes sense. That is why I had to upgrade, the water was trickling over the overflow and you could see the water line below the trim across the top of the entire tank. Now that the flow is high enough you can't see the water line.

For the UV sterilizer I agree that if not used properly they do not work....just like many other pieces of equipment. I can tell you with 100% certainty that mine works properly and that I would never run my tank without it, no matter what a research paper says. I use a commercial grade 5 gpm sterilizer that I run at 4 gpm (240 gph) for extra contact time. It controls algae and ich in my tank, if I turn it off my glass is covered in algae in less than 24hrs. I hope that you reconsider unless you are going to have a coral tank and cheap hardy fish. I have first hand experience with this and have seen it work, I have seen it save fish (ask Don D about his). This isn't something that I'm just guessing about.

I'm afraid that you are going to need more power than that. I need (2) 500 watt heaters to keep my tank warm in the winter time with keeping my office at 72 degrees...I tried to only use one and it wasn't enough. 1000 watts of heater by itself uses 10 amps. Your pump(s) will pull another 5 amps if they are big enough for the tank. This isn't considering any lighting, powerheads, or anything else for that matter. Typically you want to stay at 80% of your breaker rating if you didn't know, hopefully the circuit that you can use is 20 amps and has 12/2 wiring. If its a 15 amp with 14/2 you will be in trouble for sure.

How are you cooling off tank stand? Will you have some vent fans under there blowing the heat out? Probably should for the summer time, even if you use LED's it will get hot under there.

BTW I use a Deltec TC2560 skimmer for my tank and it seems to work just fine for 400 gallons. Its actually pretty small for a tank that size (as far as footprint goes) but since its got twin chambers it works. This skimmmer would not even fit in my sump and its the smallest footprint I could find. Costs about $2k which is about what you will have to spend for a skimmer for that size tank. Its made to be used external and must connected to a distribution manifold, best to have a flow meter inline to dial in the flow exactly for maximum efficiency.

I hope you plan to live there for a while, your tank will be a nightmare to move. Do you know how much it will weigh? My tank by itself weighs 1,100 lbs dry, I had to rent 3 cabniet jacks just to lift it on top of the stand. Honestly I'm not sure how I will ever move it again, just the thought of moving it now makes me sick!

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Oh you mentioned hardwoods! I hope those aren't going where the tank is, you will surely ruin them no matter how careful you are, please trust me on this. I have a pan built in the bottom of my stand to catch spills, maybe you should consider that too. I'm very careful and have still flooded my tank stand more times than I can remember. Its water changes that will get you.

You mentioned keeping your water for water changes in your garage. Be careful with this in the summer time. By the time the RO/DI makes enough water to do the change it will be warm/hot. If that water is 90-100 degrees and you put it in the tank it will surely raise your water temperature up too high. Of course you want your water change water the same temp as the tank. Keeping it outside (in the garage) with no chiller running will make this impossible. Also you won't want to add your salt until right before you use it. If the water is warm it will promote algae and bacteria to grow in it, if its freshwater and you add salt it will kill everything in the water. But after the salt is mixed in and the water is still warm bacteria that can effect your tank will start to culture. I hope that makes sense.

Oh BTW my sump is 75 gallons and is ran at about 50%, when the tank pump shuts off it comes within 2" of overflowing it. Thought that might help with your sump design.

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•HY5000W – 9″ x 4.5″ x 7.75″ 60watts 97% efficiency Max Flow=1300gph Max Head=11ft

I checked out your pumps, 2 will not be enough, I'm 110% sure. You would need 4 of them to be in the ballpark, I honestly don't think that 4 would be enough, not enough head pressure.

Are you running a calcium reactor? Where are you putting it? Are you putting your top off reservoirs inside the stand too? Maybe you could build a cabinet beside the tank that matched the tank to store some things in.

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I have been following along since the beginning. This is an awesome idea and I really like the look of the drop off tank.

I hate to be Debbie downer, but I agree a lot with where hydro is going. Unless this is your house, or the owner is a family member who guarantees you can rent the house forever, I would think long and hard about setting up a tank of this scale. To do it right, I would also want to have a dedicated fish room to house all the equipment and quarantine/hospital tanks, etc... I just cant imagine the investment of time and money that it would take to get this going if I ever thought I might have to move it.

I would also say Hydro knows what he is talking about. He has been through a very similar build as you know. As I said, awesome idea, I would just be hesitant to do it right now.

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•HY5000W – 9″ x 4.5″ x 7.75″ 60watts 97% efficiency Max Flow=1300gph Max Head=11ft

I checked out your pumps, 2 will not be enough, I'm 110% sure. You would need 4 of them to be in the ballpark, I honestly don't think that 4 would be enough, not enough head pressure.

Are you running a calcium reactor? Where are you putting it? Are you putting your top off reservoirs inside the stand too? Maybe you could build a cabinet beside the tank that matched the tank to store some things in.

This guy sizes pumps and water flow systems all day and in his sleep. I'd trust him and atleast listen to his input, if for no other part of the build than the water movement he knows his ****! Your going to be the only person most excited about this build, then it will be all of ARC because we all want to see this beast come to life! All of us just want to help you out and don't want to see you have problems.

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Just got to meet A.J. and enjoyed talking tank with him. What a great guy! Don't know what his build will actually be in the end but I have every confidence that its going to be well thought out and wicked cool. Build on A.J....build on!

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Just got to meet A.J. and enjoyed talking tank with him. What a great guy! Don't know what his build will actually be in the end but I have every confidence that its going to be well thought out and wicked cool. Build on A.J....build on!

I've never met AJ but I'm sure that he can get this build done too. Obviously a smart guy who has already has most of this complicated build figured out. There is no book written for building a tank that size and it takes help from people who have already done it. I just hope that he doesn't dismiss my first hand experience for something that he has read somewhere else by someone that no one knows, I think that is what Jason and Bio were saying. The only reason I have spent time writing here is that I'm simply trying to help him not make any mistakes. Mistakes are costly on a tank that size trust me! I'll use the pump for example.....its actually a perfect example. I bought a reeflo marlin for $350 and spent the time installing it.....well it wasn't enough. I had to turn around take it out and spend another $500 on a new pump to get the tank to fill up. That mistake cost me a couple hours of my time and $350, I still have the marlin sitting on a shelf in my warehouse.This wasn't the only mistake that I made that cost me money. I lost well over $1k when I had to change my lighting fixtures because my original idea didn't work, I wish someone had known it wouldn't work and warned me!

I made the mistake of thinking that (5) mp 40's would be enough water flow for my tank, well it wasn't even close. I had to spend another $1,200 on 2 wave boxes to get the water moving in the entire tank, this money was not in my original budget. Even if I didn't want a wave in my tank it would have taken at least (3) more vortechs to have enough flow. This is a good example of advice that AJ is not taking. Right now in his design he doesn't have enough flow in to the tank or inside the tank, this will cost him lots of money when he has to replace his pumps and buy more vortechs or wave boxes.

The power requirements of his tank is another example. It may have been a surprise to AJ for example that in the winter he would need 10 amps worth of heat to keep the tank warm in the winter, I didn't know until I built my tank. I thought for sure that (1) 500 watt heater would be enough but it wasn't, I was surprised. Problem is that it isn't as simple as just buying an extra heater, especially when you are short on power. This means that you will have to have 1 apex powerstrip just powering the heaters and must be added to the equipement list. Also when you have heaters on, powerheads on, lighting on, adequate sized pump on he is well over the power of one dedicated circuit even if its a 20 amp breaker. Now you have to get more power, that has to be figured in and I know wasn't expected and is a major problem if he isn't able to run another circuit.

Even if AJ takes my advice on some of these things I mentioned he will still make some mistakes, there are no blueprints for what he is doing and that's just the way it goes. You simply can't avoid it on such a custom project no matter how smart you are and how much research you do. Hopefully for AJ money is no object and changes/mistakes won't be as painful as it was for us. If everything goes just right this project is going to cost somewhere between $35-40k. The problem is that once you are commited there is no turning back! Once I realized that I needed another $1,200 in wave boxes for example it was too late, at that point I couldn't decide not to. The tank requires what it requires, you simply can't cut corners.

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Okay, first off, I'm not dismissing anyone's experience out of hand. Hydro Innovations "pump issues", for example, aren't related to his pump size IMHO, as much as it is the height of his overflows as related to the height of his desired water level vs. the amount of return speed-related water height over the overflow. By ensuring the level of my overflows is at minimum the desired height of my water level, if I desired I could put a single pump at 100gph and still accomplish the desired effect, that is, that the return pump takes water from the sump and flows it to the display tank, while allowing tank water to flow down the overflow and into the sump all the while maintaining the minimum water level in the main tank that I desire. I think that too often we, as reefers, make decisions based on "well, this isn't working how I want it to, so it's wrong and must be fixed by throwing money/additional equipment/etc. at it to fix it", when if the design had been properly vetted and planned prior to execution (which is why I opened up the design to discussion here in the first place) the issue at hand could have been mitigated, avoided, or fixed prior to the actual implementation.

One point brought up in this thread (and I thank you guys for that) that I have addressed is the power needs of the tank. In looking at the wiring in the house, that room is currently wired on it's own with two 20 amp circuits with 12/3, which means that wire has the safe capacity that I can actually run two additional 20 amp circuits (for a total of 4 20 amp circuits) off those runs without having to pull addition runs of fresh wire from the main circuit breaker. So, having verified that, I'm going to have some electricians come out this weekend give me some quotes so we can have that addressed ASAP prior to painting the walls. Oh, and as far as power needs for the heaters, I'd highly recommend Hydro, that you look into using two Socket Expansion 120V rather than another power bar, and that you split your heating needs over two heaters plugged into each SE120V rather than just one. That way if one sticks open, if you size them right, you're not going to fry all your fish by relying on a single piece of equipment capable of heating the entire tank, and by having each on a separate circuit and not relying on a Power Bar 4 or 8 to supply all your high amperage needs.

I completely understand and appreciate Hydro Innovations efforts to help me "not make any mistakes", but in that vein I think that he has assumed that issues dealt with in his build are implicit in all larger builds, and that's where I disagree. In the statement "when the tank pump shuts off it comes within 2" of overflowing it" it shows that an implication of having such large turnover related to the speed over your tank circulation to/from the sump is causing a large amount of water to be in effect juggled between the actual physical level of the overflow and within the return pipes to the extent that it almost overwhelms the capacity of the sump when it is allowed to drain back into the sump. Once again, by designing the tank with an overflow height that minimizes that requirement, by lowering the turnover rate of the return pumps, one can reduce/mitigate and/or remove a large majority of that water that is constantly in a state of stasis, if you will, neither truly in the level of the designed size of the tank, nor in the designed usable capacity of the sump.

As far as "it will ruin your hardwood", considering the flooring we'll be using is a hardwood laminate, pressure treated and sealed and warranted for 20 years in wet/damp bathroom/kitchen environments, I'm not even remotely concerned. There will be a cutout for the tank itself, so the tank stand will be resting directly on the concrete slab, and there will be a PVC tray beneath the sump, QT tanks, and top off jugs, so I'm not overly concerned about spills, either.

As for issues of flow, when Hydro Innovations says "this is a good example of advice AJ is not taking", what are you basing your assumption that the advice merits taking and is worth castigation for not taking it? Have you done a liquid flow analysis on the tank design, taking into account the effect of fluid dynamics over irregular surfaces, and laminar flow within constrained space using incompressible flows? Or are you basing it on "I didn't work on my tank, so it won't work on his"? How did you have your Vortech's aligned on your tank, did you do the usual "put 'em on the back wall and expect them to make magic throughout the tank when they bounced off the front glass", or did you put them on the long ends of that exceedingly long tank and then were amazed that those MP40s didn't create a massive wave over that long distance? There's a reason why the tank flow design criteria calls for 2 MP60s on the long axis of the shallower portion of the tank: the laminar flow created by the broader stream and increased overall water movement, especially as it flows over/around small rock formations on the way to the dropoff will create more random flow in the upper portion of the tank. The undertow of the the two MP40s on the lower portion will serve to pull up detritus and foreign matter and keep it suspended in the water column rather than allowing it to settle, as well as allowing a lower flow, less turbulent environment similar to that of a sheltered overhang along a natural reef. And, if I find that I'm not happy with the flow in the tank (as laminar flow analysis is only so accurate when considering natural growths of semi-random formation) it's quite a simple matter to add additional Vortechs and/or other devices as need be until I'm happy with the water movement I'm getting. I'm not married to any one design, I'm very much of the mind that "design to the best of your ability using the best information available, test the setup, and adjust/replace/enhance as needed" whether I'm taking server design, sniper rifle design, or fish tank design (yes, all three of which I've worked on before).

So, thank you again, everyone (especially Hydro Innovations) for all the pointers, suggestion, and recommendations. I'm looking forward to watching the build develop (albeit far to slowly for my taste up to this point, mainly do to time constraints from, well, life... LOL), and will definitely take the group along for the journey!

Edited by fjr_wertheimber
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Just got to meet A.J. and enjoyed talking tank with him. What a great guy! Don't know what his build will actually be in the end but I have every confidence that its going to be well thought out and wicked cool. Build on A.J....build on!

Thanks, man! Had a great time, absolutely gorgeous setup you've got there! I'll definitely have to bring Wendy over to check it out some time. Maybe next time I come over I'll bring some cigars... :)

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