Ibnzmonkey Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 Hello everyone, I found out about ARC through the Austin Fish Nerds Facebook page. I thought I would join since this seems like such a great community. I've been working on a 125g build since January. I'm going to catch you guys up to where I am now with a qfew quick photos. I am trying to do as much DIY as I can on this build to keep costs down.I started off with the stand, It's a standard 72 x 18 x 21 tank. The stand measures 35" tall and has 4 butterfly style doors. Here is the internal framing. Skinning with 3/4" Measuring for doors BOOM! Doors.. Then paint! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted April 29, 2013 Author Share Posted April 29, 2013 After I completed the stand I started working on my sump. It's a simple single baffle berlin style low flow system. Sump and ATO system installed and plumbed. After several hours of pain and suffering I finally got this this up two flights of stairs by myself. Modded some WP-40's for variable speed and installed them in my cabinet. Successful water test completed today.. That's about it so far on where I'm at. I have 3 120w fixtures on the way here from ebay that I took a gamble with. They seem to get great reviews on the RC forum so hopefully I made a good buy. I'll be doing a DIY on my LED fixture rack as soon as I get the goods from Fedex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 Looks nice. Look forward to seeing your build. I'm guessing this is not your first build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted April 29, 2013 Author Share Posted April 29, 2013 Looks nice. Look forward to seeing your build. I'm guessing this is not your first build. I had a 40B before this but it wasnt very DIY intensive. I store bought mostly everything. This time around I'm doing things a little differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 Cool. I meant "build" as in successfully hold water and living things in a box. Not nessecarilly the DIY part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted April 29, 2013 Author Share Posted April 29, 2013 Cool. I meant "build" as in successfully hold water and living things in a box. Not nessecarilly the DIY part. Oh, no. It's not my first build in that sense of the word. I had South American Cichlids before. Heres what my 40B looked like before I ended up selling it. The only things I need to finish this current build is just 200lbs of base rock and just enough sand to cover about 1.5" of the floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 Awesome build! Welcome to the club! How are the wp40s working out on the tank? Did you hook those into dimmer switches to be able to control the output? -Ty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 Very nice craftsmanship with stand/cabinet. What do you invision for inhabitants of your lagoon? Patrick PS: I just saw your user name on another thread about macro. I will use the other thread to discuss your options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted April 29, 2013 Author Share Posted April 29, 2013 Very nice craftsmanship with stand/cabinet. What do you invision for inhabitants of your lagoon? Patrick PS: I just saw your user name on another thread about macro. I will use the other thread to discuss your options. I'll discuss macro in the other thread. As far as critters are concerned? I'm not sure. I want a peaceful community system with lots of diversity. I'll be running a heavy clean up crew just like I did with my 40B. That tank essentially took care of itself. I may look into using salt water mollies as a shoaling fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Capt. Obvious Posted April 29, 2013 Share Posted April 29, 2013 I am super jealous of all the space you have in that stand...I am having to get creative just to jam everything I "need" into 3 pieces of furniture Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted April 30, 2013 Author Share Posted April 30, 2013 I ran into some hilarious issues today. It seems as though the silicone I used to secure my baffle in my sump is almost a year past it's "use by" date. Which sucks because I bought it almost 3 weeks ago. You got me good Home Depot! I was wondering why it was still sort of spongy after a few days of cure time...Anyways, some time during the night the baffle gave way and dislodged itself from the silicone. Same thing with my overflow wall.. I guess next time I'll check the date before I buy. Looks like I have some razor blading to do this weekend. No bueno. I am super jealous of all the space you have in that stand...I am having to get creative just to jam everything I "need" into 3 pieces of furniture Thanks. I hated the fact that my last stand was barely large enough to fit my sump. The ATO was outside the tank in an ottoman and looked kind of out of place. When I built this stand I was determined to make it to where I have enough space for the bare essentials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted May 3, 2013 Author Share Posted May 3, 2013 Lights just came in today!Now I have to build a fixture for them to mount over my reef. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 cool lights. i don't remember if you said, are you also building a canopy for them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted May 3, 2013 Author Share Posted May 3, 2013 cool lights. i don't remember if you said, are you also building a canopy for them? I like open top tanks. But if I can't come up with a good solution I might just have to build a canopy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 cool lights. i don't remember if you said, are you also building a canopy for them? I like open top tanks. But if I can't come up with a good solution I might just have to build a canopy. plenty of people around here have used some sort of bent aluminum tube stands for lights. it looks more like what was on your 40g pictured above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibnzmonkey Posted May 7, 2013 Author Share Posted May 7, 2013 This week I'm going to be building a linking system to hold the lights at a pre-determined distance from each other. I am most likely going to end up hanging them, however, I would like it to be a single solid fixture instead of 3 individual pendants. I'll post up CAD drawing this week when I lay it all out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Welcome Very nice build so far. Your work looks very clean. On the silicone, take that stuff back to HD. They will exchange it. Tell them the product failed due to the exp date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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