got ethical husbandry?

The 225 Gal Monster

Is there some window of correctness for glass? 1800 lbs of water at 225 gallons 24" deep....so glass is 20% at 360 lbs? I mean the area of glass isn't all that different for most common cube and peninsula configs. So glass thickness is prob the biggest component....and that should mainly be a function of gallonage as well (or depth for sure).

At what gallonage do cranes and lifts get involved? 1000 gallons? So like 10000 lbs of load on the floor...wow. so 'bigger' does get impractically expensive, at least on my budget, probably well under 1000 gallons.
 
Got a little more work done today. My return is going to be 1.5in and then T's out to both sides and then splits to 4 1in returns.

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Ran into a snag when placing my skimmer. It won't fit with the sump in its current position. Looks like I'll have to redo the plumbing a bit and put the sump all the way to the front right of the stand which sucks because then all the space behind the sump becomes unusable (about 5 in of space all the way across the cabinet.)
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In this pic below the top of the collection cup is already touching the top of the stand....
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Nice return work
Ty. It Definitely took some time and not everything is glued into place yet either. I screwed up a few pieces a couple weeks ago and wasn't able to clock them properly before the pvc cement set. This lead to a lot of cursing and giving up on doing the plumbing until now.

I moved the sump to the front right which gives enough room for a skimmer in the 2nd chamber. And more importantly, room for a bigger skimmer for future upgrades. First chamber will be a huge fuge.

But now this means some of the plumbing will need to be redone. Luckily I've only glued a few pipes/fitting together and the modification for moving the sump shouldn't take much work.

I decided a usable skimmer chamber is better than having some storage room under the tank.

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Got my drain plumbing all cemented together. My return nozzles come in tomorrow so I can test fit and make sure I have enough clearance to easily screw them in/out as needed then I'll finish up the rest of the return plumbing. I've positioned unions so everything can come apart and only the bulk head pieces in the overflow boxes of the tank would have to be re-made if/when this tank gets moved/passed on. The left gate valve is positioned that way so once that union is undone, you can loosen the bulkhead and rotate it so that piece can be pulled up out of the sump and clear the framing above it. I was originally going to angle it forward like the other one for easy access until I realize there was no way it would fit when installing/uninstalling unless I notched the framing in the stand.

If work doesn't kick my butt this week I should finally be ready for water within the next few days!
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Got my drain plumbing all cemented together. My return nozzles come in tomorrow so I can test fit and make sure I have enough clearance to easily screw them in/out as needed then I'll finish up the rest of the return plumbing. I've positioned unions so everything can come apart and only the bulk head pieces in the overflow boxes of the tank would have to be re-made if/when this tank gets moved/passed on. The left gate valve is positioned that way so once that union is undone, you can loosen the bulkhead and rotate it so that piece can be pulled up out of the sump and clear the framing above it. I was originally going to angle it forward like the other one for easy access until I realize there was no way it would fit when installing/uninstalling unless I notched the framing in the stand.

If work doesn't kick my butt this week I should finally be ready for water within the next few days!
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I would have placed the gate valves to go over the sump. If there is a way to reposition them, I would do so. But from the looks of it, they’re already glued in place. Those tend to leak after a while from my experience. The only gate valves that I’ve used that I never had a leak from are the spears with the round wheel and the union on the gate. Just my opinion from previous experience, also better than having to make the change after it’s filled with water
 
I would have placed the gate valves to go over the sump. If there is a way to reposition them, I would do so. But from the looks of it, they’re already glued in place. Those tend to leak after a while from my experience. The only gate valves that I’ve used that I never had a leak from are the spears with the round wheel and the union on the gate. Just my opinion from previous experience, also better than having to make the change after it’s filled with water
With the unions it's not too much work to replace them when that time comes. That was planned and once they do go bad I will be switching to spears gate valves. It just wasn't in the budget this go around.
 
Finally done with the plumbing! Had to shave down the bottom of my 1in Female Pipe thread outlets and also shave the corners of the male pipe fitting to get it all to fit together. Definitely working with tight clearances to be able to run 1in return outlets.
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