Alex’s IM 150 EXT

[Kensington Reefer]

We are a great club!
That’s some fine reef real estate: great tank dimensions
Looking forward to your progress
Best fishes

 

[Alexander1312]

I installed the light mount - pending one Reefi Uno Pro 2.0 light, which will move over from the other tank—and we are still working on a solution to fortify the floor, which is currently holding up any major progress on this tank because I did not give this sufficient consideration upfront (lessons learned for 'next time').

 

[Kensington Reefer]

@Alexander1312
What are the dimensions of the tank?

 

[Alexander1312]

@Alexander1312
What are the dimensions of the tank?

DIMS: 47.3 x 35.4 x 19.7

 

[Kensington Reefer]

DIMS: 47.3 x 35.4 x 19.7

Wow, great footprint

 

[Darkxerox]

Wow, great footprint

Wait till you see what these two little lights put out in PAR and spectrum over that area. Can't wait to see it in action @Alexander1312 !

 

[ShaunFresh]

Im excited to see the growth of this tank. Thank you for updating this tank journey.

 

[SupraSaltyReefer]

Shouldn't be too difficult. Your tank is only 48”x36” so the weight will be distributed across 3 joist. An Aquarium is considered a dead load so over time the floor may sag. The wall you have your tank against may be a load bearing wall as well. I recall you have a big joist running across your ceiling so there may be a support beams and cement blocks right below your tank. Only way to know is to crawl down there. Maybe you can talk your son into it. lol

If you want peace of mind you should get a 60” 4x4” beam, 2x jack posts and 2x concrete pier block with wood caps and install it like the picture Casey posted above.

I know a guy who recently had to have his crawl space supported, if you want I can ask him for the company that did the work. I think any competent handyman would be able to do this job though. Or maybe @robert4025 might have better insight since he has done many big tank installs.

 

[Alexander1312]

Shouldn't be too difficult. Your tank is only 48”x36” so the weight will be distributed across 3 joist. An Aquarium is considered a dead load so over time the floor may sag. The wall you have your tank against may be a load bearing wall as well. I recall you have a big joist running across your ceiling so there may be a support beams and cement blocks right below your tank. Only way to know is to crawl down there. Maybe you can talk your son into it. lol

If you want peace of mind you should get a 60” 4x4” beam, 2x jack posts and 2x concrete pier block with wood caps and install it like the picture Casey posted above.

I know a guy who recently had to have his crawl space supported, if you want I can ask him for the company that did the work. I think any competent handyman would be able to do this job though. Or maybe @robert4025 might have better insight since he has done many big tank installs.

Great guidance as always, TJ. I had someone here earlier, and someone else will be coming later to check this out. From the first visit, I learned that the joists are perpendicular to the direction of the tank (they went down and checked it out) and that the wall is a load bearing wall. I assume this is good news. The bad news was the astronomical costs they were quoting so this is not an option. But they did confirm the approach you were suggesting, so at least there is agreement on this. The folks who came by did not believe that I would be able to do it (nor do I, haha). However, if the second person quotes similar amounts, I might still try doing this on the weekend. Until then, I am still open to any referral.

 

[Coral reefer]

If you have a load bearing wall and perpendicular joists I wouldn’t actually worry about it or do anything I don’t think

 

[Alexander1312]

So I was in the crawl space after the second handyman quoted four times the astronomical amount the first one quoted. It does look down there how both said it would look, and the proposal from @CaseyP and @SupraSaltyReefer could work down there:

The hallway walls left and right on the picture seem to be load-bearing.

Two pictures of the left wall (left on the picture above where the aquarium will be next to

One picture of the right wall (as per the picture away from the aquarium

 

[CaseyP]

I'd consider that a best case scenario where both walls are load bearing, and the span isn't too long, looks about 8ft across. Adding additional support at this point will give you peace of mind and prevent slow future sagging or floor bouncing. Tank won't crash through the floor or anything catastrophic.

 

[SupraSaltyReefer]

I think you are good to go. If both walls are load bearing and your walkway is only about 8-10ft. Do a water test and fill up your tank and run it for a week. Use a leveler and see if there is a big difference between empty tank vs full tank.

Side note, how is that light rail secured to the tank's eurobrace? The legs looks a bit narrow. I'd be afraid of it tipping over.

 

[Alexander1312]

I think you are good to go. If both walls are load bearing and your walkway is only about 8-10ft. Do a water test and fill up your tank and run it for a week. Use a leveler and see if there is a big difference between empty tank vs full tank.

Side note, how is that light rail secured to the tank's eurobrace? The legs looks a bit narrow. I'd be afraid of it tipping over.

Thank you. So, today was the day to install the suggested solution. I bought the two jacks, the 5-foot wood piece, 4 x 4, and two concrete feet with wood caps. It wasn't easy to get to the area due to various pipes on the way, which reduced the headspace to 8-10 inches (from 19 total) and required the concrete feet to lift above those pipes while lying on the floor. A nice test of resilience .

However, the bad news is that while all was finally set, the two 1 feet jacks were too high when sitting on the concrete feet. So we could not finish the job. The good news was, however, that another concrete wall was running perpendicular to the other walls roughly through the middle of the tank. So, even with the correct size jacks, I could not have the wood piece below the tank because this perpendicular wall would block it. I assume this concludes this little DIY session, which was fun, to say the least (…).

Regarding, the light rail: Yes, I have not been super happy with it. It would tip over if you push against the light on top, not if you hit the stand below, though (it would just slide away). So I have discussed this with Daniel, the owner of ReefiLabs, and he will build/3d print much wider feet now, hopefully solving the problem (as per the picture). And he will only charge for shipping, even though I offered to pay for these. I can only say the very best about him.

 

[Alexander1312]

I can finally fill up the tank tomorrow to test for leakage.

However, I saw yesterday the following recommendation for IM tanks to add a pond liner below the sump, which I plan to add today before filling the tank tomorrow.

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[Darkxerox]

The pond liner is a pretty good idea and might have the added benefit of absorbing some vibrations and noise from the pumps.

 

[Alexander1312]

Added the pond liner under the sump and filled the tank with tap water.

As with many things in this hobby, not a straightforward exercise if you have not done it before.

The tank was super loud with the pump / IM mighty jet XL on due to the splashing water noise both from the external overflow (more like an annoying suction noise) and the drain area.

So I learned by trial and error that closing the gate valve and reducing the pump speed impacts the water level in the overflow - closing the valve raises, and increasing the sump speed also raises the water level, and vice versa.

After a while, I was able to find the sweet spot where the water level sits in the middle just below the secondary drain. Fun stuff and very obvious if you know what you are doing. I did not obviously.

The second noisy area was the drain area in the sump where the water level was too low. I wanted to keep the water level between 8-9 inch which is the recommended height for the skimmer I purchased, but apparently too low to keep the sump quiet. Looks like I will need to elevate the skimmer. If any recommendations what to use for this, would be great to hear.

 

[Coral reefer]

You may be able to put a pipe in the siphon drain so it is submerged in the sump and a pipe in the other drain so it’s just above the water level in the sump

 

[Kensington Reefer]

You can make a platform to raise the skimmer
I use plastic baskets
Upside down

 

[Alexander1312]

Some updates

- Added approximately 4/5 of a Tropic Marin Pro bucket, surprisingly bringing the salinity to 36. So, I assume the total water volume is around 170 gallons; I am unsure if there is a good way to estimate that. I brought it down to 35. I bought this from @nlopedota, and it was great meeting Nick on the weekend. He has a great store in Rhonert Park that is well worth checking out.

- Added 160 lbs of Special Grade Ocean Direct sand. It seems like the BRS sand calculator was pretty correct in giving me a 2-inch sandbed (not fully aligned on the picture). I bought this from Aquarium depot in Sacramento. A very impressive store, but this was more a one off event since I was in the area.

- I added one piece of rock from my tank and some corals, following the @under_water_ninja method. I will add more corals, and I am still waiting for 40 lbs of live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater. I have approximately 100 lbs of dry rock from caribsea and real reef, but I have no idea what aquascape I should build with this.