In-Wall 125 Gallon Build

[MoparFan]

Hello fellow reefers!

This is my first post on the site and I am a reef/saltwater newbie. I have been a frequent visitor to the forums and have gained alot of knowledge along the way. I thought it was time I posted something so it might help someone else out.

I am a fresh water convert. We moved into our new house a few years back. I had to tear down my 125 gallon for the move and decided I would set up saltwater when we got to the new place...well life got in the way. The tank has been sitting empty in our living room for quite some time and my wife was, subtly, asking about what I was going to do with it. I always wanted a wall tank so I went for it.

The tank will be going into a wall that is between my home office and the living room. The office is not huge, but has enogh room to house the tank, stand, and sump with all the goodies.

Here is the sketchup model of the office side of the tank.



Here is the living room side.



I will post some more photos on the progress in a bit. This has been a project over the last month. I have it about half way there.

[MoparFan]

I wish I had taken more pictures along the way, but here is what I have. I will be taking more along the next stages.

Here is the beginning of demo. I measured and marked it out on the wall and started cutting away the drywall. I wanted to see what I was dealing with before making any other changes.




I had to re-route some romex up in the attic before demo-ing the studs.



I was fairly certain that the wall was a non-load bearing wall. I, however, wanted to play it safe. I decided to install a header beam, I constructed out of 2 2x12s and 1/2 ply sandwhiched between. Here is the framing complete.



Next step was the build the stand. I wanted something over engineered to support the tank without the center verticle support. I wanted easy access to install or remove the sump and equipment. There will be 3/4 ply on the top of the stand and will extend 3.5 in over the stub wall. This should give plenty of strength and keep the stand solid to the wall.

[MoparFan]

I decided to make a couple of additions, while I had the wall open.
I added a seperate circuit for the tank itself. This way I can have a GFCI breaker and circuit that is just for carrying the load of the tank related pumps and such.



I then decided to get crazy. I had always thought of having the salt water mixing station out in the garage in brute cans. I wanted a way to get DI and mixed salt water into the tank room. I also wanted a drain so that I could do automatic water changes. Long gone are the days of the python and 50 ft of hose.

The blue pex will be heading up and over to the garage and the red will be going to the drain.



New, moisture resistant, drywall is up and the opening has been trimmed open again. Stand is back in place. Even had some Star Trek nerdyness show up in the pic.