High Tide Aquatics

Help Mike move a tank, weekend of Feb 15-16

Big thanks to all for helping me move the tank, hopefully watching me drill to holes and the pizza was enough entertainment. But this club is nothing without the people like you guys who are around to help when needed!

Now hopefully I'll be able to get the tank up and running soon, at least so I can cycle it.

RBTAs and aiptasia for anyone who wants now :D
 
Any time Mike. Nice to see some familiar faces and meet a few new people too. Can’t wait to see this tank up and running.
 
Yeah was nice to see people I haven't seen in.. well since last frag swap or so, and some others as well.

Did have one problem though... the overflow. The spacing of of the holes is fine, it's just the center brace is thicker than I thought. So I ever need to drill new holes the short side, or cut about a 1/2" piece 3 inches wide off the inside skimmer box, and then hopefully it's not too high in the tank. I need to do some thinking about this though. I completely forgot about the bracing when I was drilling holes, and earlier I assumed it was that same thin piece of plastic they tend to use on all their tanks. Oh well, it's not like I was going to fill it with water today :D
 
Well if the skimmer box is too high I could with a jig increase the width, although the inside of the skimmer box has sloped paths that go below the slots, supposedly to make things quieter, although removing the teeth completely might end up allowing more flow too. Either way, chopped 3 inches of teeth out, and it fits in smoothly, I'll clean it up later, and we'll see where I'm at as far as other tank stuff.

The idea of using the 4 holes in the existing drain as a closed loop is intriguing, and I did run through it as an idea, but I'm not quite sure that I'm comfortable with that idea. I'll probably just slap a piece of acrylic with silicone, then I can slope the edges and make it not stick out so much..
 
Well we were too busy working to take pictures! Although someone said something about taking a video of me drilling through the tank... to see if it was tempered, luckily it wasn't.

Here's a few I was going to post in my build thread though.

Took this quick pic of the tank afterwards before I started cleaning up
xqs0xvQ.jpg


Here's my overflow I got, the reason I wanted the tank drilled
bLcoDyr.jpg


A tad bummed I needed to notch out a few inches in the overflow, but it fits now and I don't have to drill another side of the tank. I do regret not drilling the "short" side of the tank, but whatever it's done now no regre.. wait I just said ... n/m
xg5T6IK.jpg


And this is why I went with the overflow, less than 2 inches of tank space taken, and the outside box has 3 drains so I can do a Bean if necessary, the "cornerflo technology" takes up a crap ton of space, makes viewing from the side kind of meh because you can see into the overflow, and each corner only has 2 1" drains, of which the piping they give is for 1 drain and 1 return, no emergency drain, nothing. so yeah no. When I get time I'll razor blade these guys out and plug the holes.
14N4Kct.jpg
 
No prob, and yeah love the almost cube feel to it, reminds me of my 180 I had that was 4x3x2 best tank I ever had, but it was acrylic and a case of the lazies let it go downhill.

Decided I wanted to remove the old overflows, they came off super simple, tank looks like a whole new tank now without those ugly monstrosities in the corners (sorry Mario)
RdnikVt.jpg


And the side view looks nice now! Well after I find a new razor to scrape at it, the one I have only has one good side, don't want to risk scratching the tank before water gets in it :D
HJh2d9C.jpg
 
Nah that would require me to drill through the top of my stand, and if I'm going to do that I might as well just set up for a closed loop (although 4-1inch holes is hardly doing much, and I really have no desire to further drill holes into this tank).

My thought process with a piece of black acrylic so it kind of blends in, sand the edges smooth so there's no abrupt corners, then use some E6000 to hold it all into place. Was going to swing by tapplastics to get a sheet today, but I spent too much time tinkering with the overflow to make sure it sits correctly, which it now does,all because the crap those Marineland guys barely put any effort into slapping on those plastic trim pieces, one part is nice and flush with the glass, a lot of it though is big enough to almost get a pinky finger in there.
 
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