150DD w/Sheet PVC foundation Build: photo heavy beware

[BigKahuna]

I've made some posts about different parts of my 150DD build here and there but I figured I would consolidate some of them into one build thread. The sheet PVC is being used under the sand to support PVC pipes w/in the rock-work giving more dramatic angles and overhands w/o fear of toppling over. I have an old 75AGA that will be broken down when the livestock is transferred over to this new tank.

The main equipment is as follows:

150DD Marineland Starfire front glass
Monterey Red Oak Stand
2xRadions
Apex Neptune
MP40 pump, one to start off and another later.

http://homepage.mac.com/jerrycube/jerrycubepix/150DD.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/jerrycube/jerrycubepix/150DD.jpg

I first decided to build a simple "tub" inside the stand out of shower pan liner by clamping the edges with wood and folding them over:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7027/6555781313_c0bc6b8051_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7142/6555786821_bd157a887c_b.jpg

It came out pretty good and should soften some vibrations to boot:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6555782651_ae4f649af1_b.jpg

Next up was the black vinyl for the back:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6576079509_fa7e08eee7_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7146/6576080671_284e476164_b.jpg

I got 98% of the bubbles out and only left a few in the overflow area which won't be seen. That said I was VERY disappointed how it turned out as it was all white and splotchy looking from the front as a result of soap residue which was recommended as a good way to apply it. I was going to rip it off and get a new piece but letting it sit there for a few days apparently let the residue evaporate/dissipate and now it looks jet black and about as good as paint IMHO:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7146/6576080209_f8a18d2630_b.jpg

[BigKahuna]

Next up: I have to build the post on the back to mount the swingarm light assembly:

I currently have the pair of Rads over another tank which will be broken down in the near future but I decided to get them over the new tank temporarily to see how they light it up. I was concerned about lighting the 36x36 tank and wanted flexibility to move the lights at will so I decided to use a multi LCD swingarm by securing them to a post to the back of the stand. I used some stainless rivets to secure projector extension brackets to the standard VESA plate and they turned out to be the perfect size for the Radion hole spacing. It isn't the most elegant looking thing but I like the look and it came out pretty nice IMHO, not to mention I can move them around to suit my aquascape. Following are some photos:

Back post
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/6648939751_d25ae05a3e_z.jpg

Brackets
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/6729563795_4148eda570_z.jpg

Stainless rivets for strength and they look nice to boot on my PS template.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7010/6729565387_2e2dd612ab_z.jpg

Over the tank
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6729563273_3fd36a8cb7_z.jpg

Couple of closer looks:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7169/6729564387_6e74c15871_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7035/6729564897_5caecdc841_z.jpg

Fired up and in position they look super bright and overlap a decent amount from the 9 inches they are over where I project the water level to be. The overlap should help the PAR down lower.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7146/6729565671_c3931901da_z.jpg

Closer look at the spread:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7026/6729564647_71fc2845e4_z.jpg

With the right unit off the spread of one alone looks pretty impressive so the two together should do nicely as a PAR multiplier and give decent coverage IMHO:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7028/6729564135_48ab5df8cf_z.jpg

I'm pretty happy with the way it all came out.

[BigKahuna]

Next up and the most work was the sheet PVC foundation:

I got a good deal on a piece of 3/4" sheet PVC that I want to use as a base to attach some PVC rod/pipe to make some more vertically interesting rockscape for my 150DD build. One thing that concerned me was I didn't realize initially how heavy this thing was going to be, probably 40+ lbs for a 33"x33" square.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6819122054_af785cb89a_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/6965246353_5750440458_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6819124420_ec183ec0d2_z.jpg

The edges of the PVC seemed to rest on the silicone a bit. Being a large flat surface with 90˚ cuts and large straight edges I was concerned it might act like a giant scrapper and peel back the silicone if it shifted. It wasn't like the PVC sheet was coming in contact with the bead in the very interface between the glass panels but only that thin layer about 1/2" out. I took advice from fellow reefers and cut back the bottom edges at an angle and cut the corners off a little to prevent anything sharp edged to come in contact with the silicone.

Here is the bottom edge finished:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/6827608202_1ab6cf4440_z.jpg

Here is the way it will sit in the tank with the relief cut making it impossible to touch the silicone:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6827609488_e1e1d90917_z.jpg

[BigKahuna]

After some drilling the rock with masonry bits and making holes in the PVC with Forstner bits I glued some PVC pipes into place and got to work;

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7055/7114341529_cb4fdb1733_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/7114341147_4631e16fc8_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7186/7114341971_724ccda660_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8148/7114341701_76197023a1_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8158/7114342383_3ae34f05ee_c.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5031/7114342167_fb203a40a1_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7254/6968264650_6b85f52e32_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7225/6968262804_ceaf9a83a1_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/6968264494_384176c7e5_c.jpg

[BigKahuna]

You can see the step by step here and note only two rocks will be contacting the bottom and they sit right on the PVC so nothing will get under them, I have a small Hammer and a largish Acan that will sit on the bottom but that's about it…

http://homepage.mac.com/jerrycube/jerrycubepix/RocksSmall.gif

Some more shots:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7089/6991046682_7ab575c89d_b.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8146/7137131087_b9ab8e701f_b.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8012/7137131303_acf670ba22_b.jpg
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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7046/6991047550_1100334323_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7267/6991048016_df54819ff3_b.jpg

[Lpabsolute]

Great Tank size....i'm tagging along for the ride.

[BigKahuna]

Just wanted to mention that all the rock work photos are with two 36w par38 LED's I've been temporary using as work lights to gauge how it will look but they have poor spread compared to the Radions which were put back over my 75 until this new setup is done. I got the tank and stand on sale for a great price so decided to grab it and take my time getting it all set up, which has taken months of on and off work ;)

I agree Lpabsolute the size and dimensions are very nice to work with and allow for some nice depth. Btw nice um err... marine life in your avatar ;)

[BigKahuna]

Oops double post...

[r-balljunkie]

man, the animated GIF was too cool. nice looking build.

c

[89Foxbody]

Looks great so far. Looking forward to seeing more.

[BigKahuna]

Just some updates:

I tweaked the rockscape a bit by rotating the large plate coral skeleton on the left to the left side instead of near the back and rotated the whole thing more toward the center of the tank to make looking at the two big arms better from the front. This rock-on-a-stick method makes it much easier to tweak the rockwork ;) Finally I got the water and sand in:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5458/7185263754_ea46cdc7b2_c.jpg

I went with Tropic Eden Tonga Reeflakes, so far I have only 30lbs in the tank, I bought two 30lbs. bags though, but might only use the one as it looks like it has decent coverage with only the 30:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5449/7185307472_318e99bcd9_c.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7185306812_50d07aa3b2_c.jpg

I love the grain size not being too big or too small and am super impressed that with just a little rinse they barely clouded the tank and a while later it looks like this:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7211/7185264148_c75b4f7f83_c.jpg

A shot from down below in the stand you can see the Reefflakes nicely packed up against the sheet PVC:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7088/7185263176_a6991711eb_c.jpg

The cutout I made for the overflow in the sheet PVC actually makes a nice overflow cover, all I need is to rout the edge to make it sit flush in the top and sand/polish the front, I even like the gray color;)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7237/7185306362_eda268fd88_c.jpg

[BigKahuna]

Update:
First some gratuitous photos ;)
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5334/7181434945_e07d5b235a_c.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7366661062_6e565d6caf_c.jpg

I got the sump/refuge all worked out. I had a Proflex Model 2 sump on my old 75 and loved how quiet it was. I even had built an add-on refuge that received water from my manifold, which you can see below that also was carried over into the new tank, and had a bulkhead that drained back into the Proflex. The problem with the add-on refuge was it was tallish at 18 inches which in the new stand wouldn't gove very much clearance to mount a light and it was smallish at only about 7.5 gallons.

A great local reefer was selling a really nice frag tank that was scratched up on the front real cheap which was perfect for my under tank application:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7245/7366659150_fbfcbb5783_c.jpg

The height is only about 10" which was great for me but this presented a problem with getting the water back into the sump which at its lowest point is about 14". After asking around here on RC I got some advice to use a Uniseal which was simple and easy to use by drilling a hole in the Proflex and mounting it back to back with the rear 1" PVC drain that comes right off the back of the frag tank. I did need to raise the frag tank up about 3.5" so it's top is fractionally higher than the sump so in a power outage the frag tank wouldn't overflow. What I did was to use some left-over 3/4" sheet pvc to build a little stand:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5464/7366658080_c239556812_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8164/7181433347_5b4603492b_c.jpg

Here you can see the sump back-to-back with the frag tank followed by a blurry photo of the uniseal on the sump interfacing with the bulkhead on the frag tank:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7181533087_e386c2fd69_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7231/7366658700_5106a785e7_c.jpg

Some more of the sump and refuge:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7181429141_19193e09dc_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7077/7366656386_ef9457daa9_c.jpg

[BigKahuna]

Cont'd…

Also here is the carryover manifold which will supply the main return to the Sea Swirl, BP reactor, GFO reactor and the flow to the refuge:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8145/7181434209_9c2cb5790f_c.jpg

Here is the sump with easy access to the skimmer:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7089/7181430971_cc32e69d82_c.jpg

I also retrofitted the sump with uniseals on the drain line and added one for the Herbie style emergency drain:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7079/7366655544_7eac8a5d3a_c.jpg

I placed the gate valve knob out back of the stand so I can adjust it w/o removing the side panel of the stand to make it super convenient, you can see the knob sticking out a bit from a top-down shot:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7366657034_25cdeb2e48_c.jpg

I found that the AGA overflow kit actually make a nice adjustable Herbie standpipe with intake guard if you toss the durso elbow and just mount it straight up:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8018/7181432157_7437346938_c.jpg

Finally the Sea Swirl was mounted on the back corner of the tank:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7366657672_e0ae9db991_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7366661968_e878cef680_c.jpg

It does a nice job sweeping to cover most of the tank. I think with the MP40wES on the back and the SS it might be enough as I get a fantastic gyre flow around the rockwork with these two devices alone:

[fish4red]

Wow, Looks Great!

[BigKahuna]

Thanks, I just need to work on getting the Apex and other various electrics in some kind of protected box and plumb up the reactors. I might hold off on the BP reactor until the tank is a little mature but I'll get the GFO reactor up today probably because the tank being just over 6 weeks old is going through its algae phases etc.

[d2mini]

Cool rockscaping and another innovative way to mount the radions. Great ideas!

[BigKahuna]

Thanks d2, that's high praise coming from someone like you especially with your beautiful cube build and the current one. It's funny but you inspired me to come up with the swing-arm solution for the Radions because I really really didn't want to end up buying three of them but the 36" cube is an oddball shape to light properly as you well know. I figured I wanted something that looked good, to me at least, but allowed me to play with the positioning and height. It worked out really well because with my rockwork just moving the lights an inch or so one way or the other makes a big difference in what gets lit and what remains in the shadows. So THANK YOU for inspiring me to go in the direction I ended up going! :idea:

[BigKahuna]

The original host of the animated gif of the step-by-step rock assembly is gone but I can't edit the old post so for anyone interested here it is again:

http://i1065.photobucket.com/albums/u393/jerrycube/Rock800x600.gif

[BigKahuna]

Just an update:

Well I thought I would make my male Squarespot Anthias happy by getting him another female to make it a proper threesome but that backfired when he chased her right out of the tank and onto the floor and apparently decided to follow her transformation into carpet jerky. I've never had a jumper before, but all my tanks prior have had canopies. I decided to go with some BRS clear netting and their DIY kit for the screens but this presented me with a problem with cuttouts on the back for the Seaswirl and I wanted some kind of overflow cover to keep the spray to a minimum. Here's what I did:

I took a thin piece of .100 sheet acrylic and dremeled out a form that went around the SS and extended over the overflow:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8026/7540847090_e019a6d528_c.jpg

Then I super-glued on some black eggcrate as a backer which had the added advantage of making the whole thing stiffer and less prone to bending, which thin acrylic has a tendency to do:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7540811312_f6fe0db03a_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7540810124_04f1af7b18_c.jpg

I left a little lip of acrylic sticking out to help support the screen frame and to have an area that the frame can slot up against so there isn't a gap for a sneaky fish to exploit.

I'm pretty happy with the way screen turned out:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7130/7537543738_ce2fc8fe56_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8157/7537541178_34c235cba4_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8290/7540810732_4e7c15ba1f_c.jpg

I like the clean look and am glad I made the acrylic/eggcrate backer so I could keep the screen a simple rectangle. Even though it may break up the clean look I might add a little handle to make it easier to grab.

[Electrobes]

What a fantastic build so far, thanks for sharing! :) Man I love the 150DD, should I ever decide to upgrade, I may have to tag it in!

[irvp13]

Man, It looks really neat!!
Great build, congrats.

[rovster]

I'm assuming you used plain PVC cement to attach the acrylic to the base. Did you use anthing to secure the rocks like epoxy or mortar? Do you have a more detailed thread on the rockscape. I LOVE it! Nice build so far!

[BigKahuna]

I'm assuming you used plain PVC cement to attach the acrylic to the base. Did you use anthing to secure the rocks like epoxy or mortar? Do you have a more detailed thread on the rockscape. I LOVE it! Nice build so far!

Sorry I never replied, I must have missed the message notification;

I used PVC cement but all the rods are PVC pipe with PVC rod cemented inside for more rigidity except for a few arms where I wanted thinner so I went with fiberglass rod and used some epoxy to hold them down. Most of the rocks are just stacked on the rods as you can see in the animated gif but a few I put epoxy on, pressed together, then pulled them apart to dry to make a lock and key type junction so they only could fit together one way and not shift.

For more info on how it all goes together you can see it in this photo;

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7254/6968264650_6b85f52e32_c.jpg

The small rock on the upper right has a fiberglass rod epoxyed to a hole drilled into it and the larger rock below it has a hole drilled down its entire length that fits over the angled piece of PVC pipe on the main structure on the left. Once that rock on the lower right is in place on that PVC pipe the smaller rock's fiberglass rod slides down the hole in the rock and into the hidden PVC pipe within. When I epoxyed the fiberglass rod onto that small rock I jammed it into place while still soft then carefully removed it to harden. This makes a nice tight connection w/o having to permanently attach the rocks and I can in fact take the pieces off and glue frags outside the water if I want. I think if I have to I might do so with the small one but it's nice to know it can come apart without wrecking the whole thing. This is a bonus but I really did it this way so I could build the entire thing outside the tank on the floor and then reassemble it in the tank with as little trouble as possible. It also allowed me to rotate the entire main structure easily as once it was in the tank I decided I wanted it rotated counter clockwise to angle the main arms more into the center of the tank.

[C1169866]

I missed the brand hanging kit you used for your LED's. In the middle of a 110x build and stumbled across yours. Gonna borrow a few ideas from you! Love the look of your setup- clean. I plan to cut holes out of my hood and mount my radions over them. If you don't mind, please let me know what or where you got your mounts. Thanks!

[BigKahuna]

I made the mounts out of an LCD VESA swingarm so I could adjust them easily. I made a separate build thread for the mounts:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2120959

[Red_Ant]

Great looking tank. Definitely an inspiration for my 36x36x24 cube.

[C1169866]

Thank you for the link! I'm thinking of using the 4-arm model and using the bottom two to attach a reef shelf and the top two for my Radions. The idea being my "shelf" will be adjustable and suspended completely off the bottom of the tank (cannot find any examples of my idea anywhere..) Some concerns though, will it support 60lbs of rock? And would you think this model has the reach necessary to center my lights over my 18"x48" tank?

[marklugo23]

Any more updates.