BPB’s 150

[Bpb]

So this will probably go down as the longest build thread timeline from origin to fill day, but why not. Figured I’d go ahead and secure the lot, as it were. A little history of this build.

 

Most of you are familiar with my 90 gallon build. The tank has been through its ups and downs and it is by no means actually finished. As luck would have it, roughly a year or so before our tentative move out timeline my tank finally is REALLY hitting its stride and I’m generally very happy with growth and color I’m getting. But man oh man I am feeling cramped with that tank. It’s just a little too small.

 

Budget being what it is I’m just not in the market for a big tank, money or time wise. I had set 180 gallons as my absolute maximum tank I would attempt, and even that is a little big.

 

I’ve taken a friend up on a generous offer on a very gently used 150 gallon tank and stand. We unfortunately won’t be moving for another year or more, and I can’t see any good reason to break down my humming along 90 gallon and set up a big heavy tank, just to take it back down in a year. But, didn’t want to pass up on a tank with these dimensions at this price. So it will hang out in the garage and I’ll slowly clean it up and do some work on the stand since I’ve got plenty of time. Here are the stats

 

SCA 150 gallon rimless eurobraced low iron glass 60”x24”x24”

 

Custom stand 60”x24”x48”

 

SCA glass 6 chamber sump

 

Red pvc and schedule 80 fittings

 

All other equipment from my 90 gallon will convey

 

That’s all for now. I’ll update more shortly with some pictures

 

 

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[victoly]

DId you just announce your engagement at my wedding ? how dare you sir. 

[Bpb]

DId you just announce your engagement at my wedding ? how dare you sir. 

Ha ha!!!! It does feel a little like that. Friendly competition. Who can take longer to get their build up and running


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[Bpb]

Couple SUPER rough pics of what I’m working with. Here is the stand as I received it





It’s a very tall stand at 44” I believe, which means I’ll want to keep the aquascape on the low side of things to avoid looking up and under my sticks too much. I’d probably like the aesthetic of a shorter stand to look down into the tank more than straight on, but not so much so that I want to disassemble the frame and cut the legs shorter.

It is your standard “rocketengineer” frame using 2x6 for the top portion to eliminate the need for center supports, though I’ll likely add them on the rear to help with lateral stability of the stand

The panels are tongue and groove pine that are removable on the front and both sides which I LOVE. No hinges, and easy access all over the sump. The color matches most the furniture in my house but I have already removed most the panels and began sanding them down for a refinish in a very different direction. I’ve seen a lot of attempts online to do this style finish and most look embarrassingly bad. Hopefully I can be one of the good ones.

I’ll be siliconing the bottom joints in the stand and coating it with white appliance epoxy to prevent any moisture from soaking into the wood whatsoever. I’ll be able to keep the inside sprayed clean with water to avoid dust, salt creep, and mildew from compromising the integrity of the wood.







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[victoly]

14 hours ago, Bpb said:

 

Ha ha!!!! It does feel a little like that. Friendly competition. Who can take longer to get their build up and running


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I am 100% sure I will beat you on the slowness of my build. 

[Bpb]

Challenge accepted. I’ll do super frequent updates that way it seems like it’s moving along but nothing will really actually be happening

 

Question. As long as the tank is staying on a flat level surface is there any risk to it sitting in the garage for a year or more? Is that enough time to dry rot the silicone? Should I use the tank as my rodi waste water container that way it doesn’t dry out too much? I worry NOT setting it up and having it sit in the elements will ruin it

 

 

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[ShawnM]

Doubt it would ruin it in that time frame. Is it brand new or used?  If new no of used possibly due to not know the conditions it has been before I have used tanks I. The past after they were sitting outside for years with no problems but it also depends on the materials used and the craftsmanship so without know every little detail impossible to know for sure but I would say you would be safe

[Bpb]

Doubt it would ruin it in that time frame. Is it brand new or used?  If new no of used possibly due to not know the conditions it has been before I have used tanks I. The past after they were sitting outside for years with no problems but it also depends on the materials used and the craftsmanship so without know every little detail impossible to know for sure but I would say you would be safe

Tank is used but less than 1 year old from brand new. Only moving occurred from packing crate to original owners stand, then from that stand to my car/house where it sits inside the garage


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[Reburn]

You should be fine.  Finally upgrading good to see.

[12_egg_omelette]

@Bpb is that Seans old tank?

[Bpb]

17 hours ago, 12_egg_omelette said:

@Bpb is that Seans old tank?

That it is.  Would have replied earlier but for some reason tapatalk wont let me log into the forum.   Been a slow process getting the stand sanded down.    

[Bpb]

Well.....tried sliding the sump off the dolly it was on and it took a tumble onto the concrete.  It’s toast.    

 

Question.   What are everyone’s thoughts on using my 75 gallon acrylic tank as a sump?   It was a planted fw tank so I did dose it with CSM+B which contains a fair amount of copper.    Does copper ionically bind to acrylic and leech back out?   Is it worth risking?

[Reburn]

Acrylic is inert.  Should be fine. Run some cubrisorb and poly filter in the sump.  If it doesn't change color, you good.

[Bpb]

Working on some rock scape. Making it a point to not just slap a pile together. I’m working very hard to achieve a few goals.

Maximum lateral and transverse mounting space.

Minimal vertical walls

Things for fish to hide under

Maximal water flow

This is the start of the left and dominant part of the rock stack. I’ll have a smaller stack on the right eventually and hopefully the sticks will kind of grow together in that empty space


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[jolt]

I like your list of "design principles", its to the point, and on point.  I also like your first example

[Bpb]

I like your list of "design principles", its to the point, and on point.  I also like your first example

Thanks man. I’ve been googling aquascapes for months getting ideas and kind of hybridizing several I’ve liked. While I realize the goal is to have the corals do the talking, the tank will likely look pretty bare for the first year or so, so id like for it to look somewhat pleasing to the eye in the mean time.

Doing my aquascape in this manner presents a handful of challenges. The first and most obvious will be curing it beforehand. I want the entire rock work to fit into the tank as no more than 2-3 pieces. Meaning the large stack will be big. Probably 24-36” long, 12-18” tall, and likely weigh 40-50 pounds. It’ll be a challenge to cure it and transport it quickly. That amount of water will be too heavy for me to move alone, so I’ll probably have to do the wet towel method and dose the heck out of some vodka and prodibio on the first day to lessen the mini cycle that will result.

I’ll probably have some marine pure curing with it as well, and that will convey too which will be easier to transport under water. I intend to fully stock it with fish on the first day of setup. I may even borrow another rodi unit or two so I can produce enough water to fill the tank quickly. I’m hoping for a lengthy move in period but planning for a weekend. Bearing in mind I’ll be moving my entire family as well. And doing the bulk of the heavy moving and coordinating alone.




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[jolt]

Sounds challenging to say the least!

[diesel3443]

Following. Can’t wait to see what you do with it bro. Glad it went to a happy home!


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[Bpb]

Been a long long time since this has had an update. I’m sure since I almost forgot about it, everyone else absolutely forgot about it.

So I’ll be brutally honest. I’ve had this tank in my possession for a while now. The plan was always to wait and set it up when we move. Who knows when that’ll be. And I’m tired of it going to waste. But the move was mostly an excuse to wait. I’m mostly terrified of crashing the tank in a move. I know it’s possible to grow acros in a young tank. It’s just wildly difficult. But. I’ve decided to go ahead and attempt a switch. My biggest challenge is that I wish I could start with all brand new rock. My present rocks are loaded with liver sponges, discosoma shrooms, and aiptasia. I also know that the maturity those rocks possess may be the only key to success.

My tentative plan is to start cycling the new display rock ASAP using an overdose of prodibio, as well as some ammonia and vodka to get them super loaded with bacteria. I’ll continue to dose those 3 as well as a cube of mysis every couple weeks to really get a heavy population of bacteria going.

In the meantime be super aggressive at aiptasia and mushroom removal while completing some changes made to the stand. The stand Sean (@diesel3443) provided with the tank was workable but I wanted to change some things. Make it shorter, install some false sides to hold out facing electronics and wires to keep them totally out of sight and away from moisture. Work on the stand is coming along



Still need to build a light canopy.

Plan is to use starboard as a barebottom and maybe even set a layer on top of the stand as a waterproof buffer. Once the stand is complete I’ll sand the frame down and hit it with 4 coats of white appliance epoxy.

I also need to finish work on the rock scape as I haven’t messed with it since my last post on it


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[diesel3443]

Hell yea brother!


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[Bpb]

3L of siporax added to the sump of the 90 gallon. I feel like I should get about double going. Can’t decide if I should get more siporax, pond matrix, a brightwell brick, or the maxspect balls. I imagine they’ll all be about the same effectiveness. Wanting to really
Get a ton of bacteria built up since I’ll be eliminating the sandbed and the mud fuge from the equation


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[jolt]

I've heard good things about the siporax

[Bpb]

I still exist!    Life being what it is and uncertainty of our home situation has made for slow progress on this build thread, but slow doesn’t mean stopped.   Things I’ve done in the past year or so:

complete the aqua scape.   It took a while but I came up with something I’m very happy with that fits my criteria using zip ties, cement, and a mixture of Tonga shelf, pukani, Fiji, and caribsea shapes rock.   I took a few pictures of the finished product.     I built the scape on top of the stand so I could get an idea of how it would look at real time operating level.  Pictures may be hard to make sense of, but I mainly am including them so I can recall them quickly and have build instructions for when the tank gets filled.   They’ve been curing in the garage for some odd 6-8 months now.   Plenty of flow room and open sand.    Can easily clean behind the rocks as needed
 

next comes the stand.   I had every intention of recycling the old panels that it came with but the more I brainstormed the easier it would have been to just buy new boards and make them how I needed them immediately.   

I coated the frame with 3 coats of smooth sanded Kilz, and 3 coats of gloss white Krylon Fusion

Front cabinet doors will open using soft close hinges, and side cabinet doors will open by sliding forward on the tongue and groove.    Canopy doors will open via sliding in front and on sides.     Insides of every panel were coated with the same 3 coats of kilz but rather than krylon fusion o used Rustoleum gloss white appliance epoxy enamel.    Offers a nice hard plastic like finish that is easy to clean and very durable/water resistant.     Outsides I was going to do a faux finish barn wood type look, but as that kind of began intimidating me as I’ve never done it before, I decided to keep it simple and do a dark espresso type stain and matte poly clear coat.     

it’s really been mostly the sanding that has taken the bulk of the time.   I wanted absolute zero planer grooves.  I spent an hour or two here and there as I could steal away over the last year or so just listening to music and sanding.    Starting with 60 grit and working my way down to 220 grit every available step of the way.   It’s got a smoother feel than even most of the commercially built stuff in the house.   Very satisfied.    After that it has been back and forth paint and stain touch ups as the paint and stain will bleed small imperfections onto the other sides.    Just about finished and ready for clear coat.   Then installation onto the frame of the stand and canopy

the tank is still where I set it almost 2 years ago 

that is all for now

Edited April 25, 2020 by Bpb

[victoly]

if it doesnt get done during the pandemic it aint neva gonna get done. lets goooooooo. 

[Bpb]

15 hours ago, victoly said:

if it doesnt get done during the pandemic it aint neva gonna get done. lets goooooooo. 

Fortunately for me I’m still working lots of hours.    No staying at home for me.