GoToSleep's 700g Build Thread (& complete remodel)

If only there was a smiley face raising his hand...

 

grinthumbs:

 

...if only there was a smiley face giving the finger

jk;D

 

There is

 

I just read this whole thread, and WOW... what an inspiration! Thanks for sharing, and I can't wait to see what it looks like with livestock.

 

I spent all day yesterday refining some plumbing issues on the system. I already had my skimmer cup plumbed into a drain but I wanted to put a ball valve in line so that I could have some idea of how much the skimmer was producing. For anyone who's wondered how to get a valve in line on the drain of an alpha cone skimmmer, here you go...









The grey rod coming in from 3:00 is just pointing to where the vinyl drain line enters the hard PVC drain line. I haven't actually started running the skimmer yet since the tank is still cycling and there aren't any fish in there.

 

The tank wasn't noisy but is wasn't silent either. My old drains were pulling some water in through the 1/2" vent hole in the top of the ell. This was contributing to some gurgling noises and there was also wome noise related to the water falling about 6 inches in the overflows. The pictures show the top of my old drain on the right and my new drain on the left. I also raised there level so that the water only falls about 3".





The tank is much quiter now (almost silent).

 

I just spent 2 hours reading your thread and I'm exhausted. I just recently moved up from a 120g to a 210g and that was a lot of work but after reading this I'm embarrassed to even bring it up.:-[ Are you kidding me! 1700 lbs of tank! Your talking serious weight! God bless you man that's all I can say about that. This has been an incredible thread. You have a storehouse of knowledge in plumbing and electricity to do all this. Just amazing.

I went through the live sand routine and patience is absolutely needed and you did it right by putting the rock in first. I'm just a little worried as many others were about those tanks in the room but I hope your guy is right about it able to hold that weight.

You've got good ideas for starting fish. I would put 2 cleaner shrimp and 2 Blood Red shrimp to handle eating the ich and parasites off the fish and scavaging the tank for dead fish and food. They are a God sent to me.

49" high... Oh boy is all I could say. My tank is 29" high and I can't reach the bottom except when I'm getting a water change. I have a guy bring 80 gal of sea water once a month and that drops the water level about 10". You may seriously need a snorkle or at least a mask to do work on the tank. I use my grabber a lot to pick up corals that fall over from a snail and to redistribute the sand as my diamond goby digs it up.

This is the premier thread, congratulations! I can't wait to see the finished product.

 

Drum roll please... Let's see if I can get a YouTube video to post here.

 

Wow, I actually got it to work. Sorry that the video is sideways, PhotoBucket has spoiled me with automatically rotating my still pictures.

Anyway, that's video of my canopy lift in action. The canopy weighs about 100 lbs. The lift is mounted in the drop ceiling above the tank. See earlier in this thread for pics of the installation. The lift has a wireless remote that you can see in my hand at the start of the video. The lift automatically stops at the top and bottom of its range of motion. The only minor quibble that I have is that the lift only moves while the button is depressed and I've gotten used to the power windows on my side of the truck that I can press once and the window will go all the way up or down. You can see the brief pause in the rise of the canopy when I forget and take my finger off the button. THe lift has already paid for itself by saving me headaches as I've needed to work at the back of the tank several times in the past week as I refine my overflow plumbing.