Oh...Just Another 150 Build Project (Pic Intense! Take a Look!)

[Kaiser Tang]

Long story short, the housing on my RO/DI system cracked and flooded my living room. The carpet has to be replaced which means that my 92 corner that is sitting on top of the carpet has got to be moved. So, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity and insurance money to upgrade. My goal, build a new stand and canopy, buy a new 150 XH, move the contents of my current tank to the new, tear down and move out the old tank, and install new carpet. (I know, run-on sentence.) The wife is breathing down my neck to get this done so that she can get the new carpet. All this in three weeks! Here's my journal:

Here's a pick of my current tank. There's was about 4" of water in the living room. I had to call out a restoration company to extract the water and dry everything out. In the pic, there's a fan drying out the base of my tank stand.



We decided to move the entertainment center out and put the new tank in it's place. It's really the perfect spot. The Marineland 150 extra high fits perfectly in the spot. This time I'll sit the stand directly on the foundation and carpet around it.

The first order of business is to put in additional outlets.



The wife is also taking advantage of the opportunity and redecorating. I'm actually doing all of the work. She just decides what she wants and supervises.





The outlets up top will be for all of lighting and power heads/wavemaking devices. The outlets below will be for the skimmer, pumps, heater, etc. There is a GFCI below that controls the outlets up top. Also, the outlets on the right are on one breaker and the outlets on the left are on a different breaker. Just trying to distribute the electrical load. The plate in the middle covers a hole that goes through the wall and outside to my chiller. I've put waterproof boxes on the lower outlets since they will be exposed to possible sump splashing and moisture.

[NanoGurl]

Love the color of your walls! Sorry to hear about the flood.. great excuse for a new tank though!

[drummereef]

Originally posted by Kaiser Tang
She just decides what she wants and supervises.

Ain't that the truth, brother. Love the location of the tank. Perfect little nook for the fishies.

[Mojo Jojo]

Extra high huh? Cant wait to see light this baby will have

[Kaiser Tang]

Extra High meaing 30". I'll be using (2) 400w MH and around 400wof VHO. (I may back off on the VHO. I'll just have to see how it looks.) I'm also going to run a chiller to keep everything cool. Just a little spike in the electricty bill. LOL

[Kaiser Tang]

Here are a couple of pics of the stand under construction. Here's what I started with.





I'm using 4x4s and 2x4s for the frame. Over kill for sure! I will sleep good at night knowing that my stand won't collapse.



The stand is bolted and glued together.





I'm using red oak, and red oak plywood for the outershell.







Too bad it's going to be painted black. That's what the wife wants. I pick red oak really for the hardness. I plan on this stand and tank being around for a long time. I don't want it dented and beat up looking after two years.

[isistius]

great start. keep em coming!!

[frederickk]

I like the look. Nice job

[JeffersonReef]

Looks great so far! I am planning my upgrade... and I like where your going with the stand! keep it coming!

-Tony

[Kaiser Tang]

I managed to my tank stand pained and my sump put together over the weekend. I'll post pics of the stand tomorrow. Here are a couple pics of the sump. I'm using an AGA 55.



This is a pic the two pipes comming form the display. I'll put a foam sleeve over the part of the pipes with the slits. I've found that this method does a great job of cutting noise, bubbles, and debris.



This is a pic of the media box. I can put a bag of carbon or purigen, or other filtration media here.



A labeled diagram of the layout.

[Kaiser Tang]

Sorry for all of the typos. I should spell check!

[Kaiser Tang]

More pics to add today. I got the stand painted over the weekend. I'm lovin' the black.






I've been doing a lot of work preparing the site. Here, I've got the carpet removed and filled in some holes where I pulled up the carpet tack strips.



I got the tube put in the wall running outside where the chiller will be. I'll run two 3/4" tubing through the PVC pipe to and from the chiller.





Here's where the chiller will be. I've got to level the ground off and install the power outlet. I bought a rubbermaid outdoor storage box to put the chiller in. I'll start on that part next week.





Here's a pic of the electrical wire comming from the attic. I'll run conduit down the wall and install a waterproof electrical box.

[Hop]

Very nice. Have you been planning this for a while or was this a "hey this will go there" type of build?

I really like it!

[Kaiser Tang]

I've always wanted to upgrade, but never could convince the wife. "Why do you need a bigger tank" I'm sure every reefer has received that question from their significant other. Actually no, this was not planned. I had a beautiful corer tank in the perfect corner of the living room. There there was the broken pipe and the flood. I have to move the tank to get new carpet. So, I was left with the option of trying to move my current tank and put down carpet and then move it back or upgrade and just relocate. We wanted the tank in the living room (where we always are). The spot where the entertainment center was perfect. We just put the entertainment center on another wall.

Long answer to a short question. Basically I'm doing all of this in a 3-4 week time frame. Although, I've always made mental plans to move and upgrade. I've got to get the move done soon. The wife is breathing down my neck for new carpet

[tprize]

Dumb question, but how are you going to fit that sump under that stand?

[Kaiser Tang]

Actually a good question. When you build your own stand you can do things that you normally can't do with a premanufactured stand. The tank is 48" long. The sump is 48" long. I didn't want to chance having problems not having a center support on my stand. So the only way I can get my sump in there is through the bottom of the stand. I did the same thing with my 92 gal. corner tank. There was no way I could utilize the space with a rectangular tank, so , bought the 54 gal corner and put it in through the bottom.

[Kaiser Tang]

Here's a pic of the canopy frame. Hopefully I'll have this part done by the end of the week.

[dblase]

sweet!

[Kaiser Tang]

Right now my current tank with one 250 watt MH is running at about 83 degrees. That's with the house temperature at 74 degrees. On my 150, I'll have (2) 400 watt MH and some extra pumps. And I would like to push the house temp up to about 76 to 77 degrees this summer. Basically I had to invest in a chiller. I bought a 1/3 hp Current Prime chiller. There's no room inside and I did not want any additional noise, so I put the chiller outside. Here is my build.

I bought the Rubbermaid Medium Deck Box to house the chiller. After cutting the hole in the wall (which is easier said than done due to the fact that my outer wall is brick) I was ready to level off some ground.

Here's a pic of the bottom of the deck box. I poured a little concrete pad underneath. The box is secured by (2) 16" bolts anchored in concrete. I did this just to protect my investment from the random vandal.





Here's the side of the deck box where I'm getting ready to cut a hole to add a vent. There will be a vent on each side to allow for cool air to enter and hot exhaust air to exit.







I bolted the vent on a sealed it with a little liquid nail.



Here's a pic of the tubes coming into the house from the chiller outside. The top tube is the tube going to the chiller and bottom tube is the tube coming back. There are two cords that are running through the wall as well. The cord on the right is the power cord that goes to the chiller and the cord on the left is the power cord that goes to the UV sterilizer (on Prime Modular chillers you can add a UV sterilizer to the chiller) and to the ventilation fan.





Here's a pic of inside the deck box. You can see that I added a ventilation fan to help draw in and push air. It is plugged into the chiller power cord so that it only comes on when the chiller is on. I wrapped the cold water line in insulation to make the system more efficient. Although the chiller is plugged into a GFCI inside, I installed an inline GFCI. That way if the chiller caused a trip then it will only shut off the chiller and not everything else that is plugged into the indoor GFCI.



And an external view of the final product. Again, you can see that the water line is wrapped in insulation.

[jwinn]

Nice project so far did the same thing with 4x4's I'll try to load some pictures for reference

[jwinn]

Nice project so far did the same thing with 4x4's I'll try to load some pictures for reference mine was all inside though

[Mojo Jojo]

Very clean man ... so is the fan always on or does it turn on when the chiller does too

[Kaiser Tang]

The fan is only comes on whe the chiller does. Last night we had our first real good rain and my box passed the test. Bone dry. I was worried that the fan might draw in water too. But, there were no problems.

[Kaiser Tang]

This forum moves so fast, you never get any front page time!

[rachelcb80]

You are doing a fantastic job! Really nice work on everything. I just got my tank last fall so it's a little soon to ask for an upgrade but maybe my husband could be inspired by this thread a little ways down the road.

Good luck with the rest of your project!