New Tank

[Redfish]

My first love when it comes to corals are Chalice's ,,, I know they don't sway in the current like soft corals, they don't grow tall and grow fancy shapes like SPS corals do. What they do is just lie there like a bunch of pancakes in your tank, but the colors these corals have are just endless, and I guess, that is what I love about them.

To my regret,, I just can't seem to be able to get the few Chalices I have in the 150g SPS tank to thrive in those tank conditions. Not willing to give up on keeping these corals, I talked to Gerwin and we have a new tank ordered This was going to be a Chalice only tank, the more I thought about it though, these plans have changed a bit. I am also going to include Acans in this tank. From what I have read, these two corals seem to be able to survive in the same tank conditions very well.

So onto the tank, my plans changed several times during my research for the new tank. My first plan was to buy a 40g breeder from "The Store" and use a HOB Skimmer or Filter ,,, the more I thought about this, the more I didn't like this plan. I just didn't want to see a HOB Skimmer or Filter on the back panel of the glass. I want this tank to have nice looking lines, clean, no equipment hanging off of the back of it.

My second plan was to install a overflow box into the 40g Breeder, drill the bottom of the 40g Breeder with a return line & a overflow line to the sump area, where a sump tank would be located. It was at this point, I was informed that you can't drill the bottom glass on a 40g Breeder Back to burning a few more brain cell's and coming up with another plan.

I was informed that although, you can't drill the bottom of a 40 Breeder, you can drill the back panel of a 40g Breeder New plan: drill two holes into this back panel glass, one hole for the return line and one for the drain line to the sump area. This seemed like a good plan and one I was going to go with ,,, until I thought about it a bit more. This is where the clean lines of the tank I was wanting came into the picture again ,,, pipes hanging out the back glass panel ,,, just didn't do it for me ,,, this plan was out.

This is where the idea of buying a store bought, already built, inexpensive 40g Breeder tank came to an end, it just wasn't happening, no ideas left The only option left was to order a tank,,, so onto researching this new option. With the 40g Breeders 18 inch's in tank height, its the perfect tank for a Chalice tank, you don't need a tall tank, the extra height in tall tanks are just wasted space in a Chalice tank. Gerwin said he would call his tank maker to see what they could do for us in making this tank happen.

So, it appears that the tank makers glass panels come in 24 inch tall panels, a tank with the same foot print as a 40g Breeder but with 24 inch tall sides is now a 70g tank, not a 40g tank, plus it would have the wasted space that I didn't need in the tank. Wasted space translates into more saltwater in the tank and more $$$ to operate, when it comes to making new saltwater for water changes. If I wanted them to cut the sides down to the 18 inch height of a 40g Breeder, you guessed it, I would have to pay more I told Gerwin I would pay the difference, cut the side down and order the tank.

So, what we ended up with is a rimless 40g Breeder tank with a right hand corner overflow box. I don't know if I messed up or not ordering the corner overflow box or not, only time will tell. I figure the corner overflow will allow me to have a more open center of the tank in which to place corals, not have to work around a center placed overflow box.

[Redfish]

I never claimed to have the best carpentry skills ,,, even when I have a pic to go by I can still mess things up,, go figure lol This is a link to the Reef Central plans I am using to build my stand:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1169964

I messed up in two places ,, The green boards ,,, some how, I cut those to short. I am out of 2 x 4s I can pick 2 more 8 footers and re cut those 4 boards or I can use two 8ft. 2 x 6s that I have and save a few $$$. Guess I should just buy the 2 x 4 and do it right. I have to go to Lowe's anyway for the plywood.

The second mistake ,,, don't know what I was thinking here ,, guess I just had tunnel vision, didn't realize I was messing up till I had everything together except for the green boards. The stand was supposed to be ,,, minus the plywood top ,,, 33 inches tall. I made the pinkish colored boards 33 inches long. Add that to the top and bottom framing, the stand is 37 inch's tall Its not a big deal, as I will be able to see the corals in the tank a lot easier.

I am hoping , with good weather this week end, with a Monday holiday to have the stand frame done. I don't have a date as to when the tank will be in, am sure it will be several weeks, I just want to have the stand framing done when it gets here.

[Redfish]

I can't seem to post pics of the stand progress When I grab the link from Photo Bucket to post in Just Fish ,, it says something like ,,, can't determine the size of the pic, so it won't let me post it here. I am no putor expert ,, I have no clue about what to do about that ,,, sorry As I get more pics of the progress, I will grab the link from another forum I am in and post that link here, thats about the best I can do.

[Doug]

Images need to be a max 1024 pixels the largest dimension. Try using the [rimg] tags instead to see if it will work.

[Redfish]

Well that didn't work, back to the drawing board

[Redfish]

Well ,,, I got the stand almost finished today, not skinned, just framed. Pretty much all I have left to do is cut out the holes for the return & overflow pipe's and to cut out a hole in the plywood cover back to run my power strip cord thru. So what did I end up doing wrong, and the lesson's to be learned by someone like me, with very little carpentry skills, who is aspiring to build their own tank stand? A few things

First up: Hope I can say this so you will understand My stand has a plywood top, sized to fit the top of my stand frame. I made the frame then made the top and screwed it down. Then I cut the plywood back to fit the frame on the back of the stand and screwed it down. My error, I should have cut the top another 5/8 wider, that way the top would fit over the top of the plywood screwed onto the back of the stand. As it is now, there is a drop between the back of the plywood top of the stand to the top of the plywood on the back of the stand. Not really a big deal, would have looked a bit nicer if I would have added that 5/8 in width to the plywood top.

Next up: The flooring for the sump tank inside the stand, I did a alright job with this, at least with my skills, but its far from being right. At least the sump tank will hide my mistake Cutting the flooring out around all of those 2x4s is a pain, you have to cut all four corners before you can fit the board under the stand to see if you got it right. I got three of the corners to come out pretty good, at least acceptable to me. The fourth corner, lets just say, I somehow messed that up pretty good, nothing I can't live with, but this stand isn't anywhere close to being water tight even if you had 5 tubes of calk If I were to make another stand tomorrow, I would get a cheap piece of plywood, make a pattern first, then transfer the pattern to the nice plywood.

The last thing, may get long, just bear with me, there is a funny pay off at the end: We have a dog pen for our dog, it really is pretty nice, never really used it though. Bought it when our dog was small, I didn't want the puppy tearing up the wife's house when we went to work, built the pen to put the dog in. Never used the pen, people were going around our area at that time stealing dogs, so we kept our puppy in the house. It has a slab, shingled roof and a professional grade dog pen around the slab, its nice. You can some what see it in my first pic of my tank stand boards layed out getting painted. I had decided to build my stand in the pen, just in case it rained.

So what could go wrong with this plan LOL So I had all my boards layed out & I was putting a coat or two of paint on them before I went to work and they would have all day to dry. As I build the stand I was touching up the boards with paint as I scratched them up. I would come home from work and there would be these little black dots on them. I was thinking bug poop or bird poop, it was like little black marks you would make with a black grease pencil. You rub it with your finger, it wouldn't come off, you would just smear it. To get it off, I would have to take a piece of sand paper and sand the paint off the board and repaint it.

So I am at the end of the day today, looking at the stand, feeling pretty proud of the job I had done ,,,, splat, one of those black spots had just appeared on my tank stand top, I am like what the %$#@% is going on ,,, it was at this point I figured it out ,,, carpenter bumble bees had made nest in the 2x4s supporting the roof of the dog pen, the off spring of the bees were up in the hole, pooping onto my tank stand