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My 1400 litre project!


jasonnz

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Congrat and welcome to the big tank lover thing Jasonnz :thup:

Why?? and what up with these wooden stand bro?? to me you have spent twice the $$ over a 50mmx50mm Glav pipes...

if you go with the metal stand, you wouldnt have to worries about bracing/rotten, and to achieve wooden grain looked you can alway screw wood panel/Meltecapanel to metal stand bro.. :thup:

Poly sheet? i would grab 4 panels ready to silcone surrounding for good heat insulation to help the vol of heated water..

I didnt do my so no oportunity do it anymore.. :facepalm:

Im guessing you got Greg to driledl a couple of holes in tank for future sumping??

If i get oprotunity to do my tank again i would chosen side overflow instead of bottom overflow drilled.. :smln:

with the size of tank it would be better to sump it..It ok to do tiny fish with fx5 i think, but one of those day if you decide to change your mind into monster fish keeping, then a fx5 wouldnt handle heavy stock.. :happy2:

My tank is 900mm height, I attached a bamboo stick to my gravel syhpon when i clean my tank :happy2:

Good on You Jasonnz, enjoy your hard working tank, Its feel great to own a big tank.. :happy1:

No - i did look into building a metal stand - but it's not something I could of done myself. I thought I would have a go with wood. It's all treated timber and I hope that it's not going to rot or cause any issues.

With regards to budget - sure I could have saved half the dollars - but I'm not too fussed to be honest. It was a very nice weekend learning alot about wood and spending some time doing it myself.

What do you mean poly sheets ? You mean inside the cabinet or under the tank?

Nope - no holes in the tank _ I have asked Greg to give me specific openings in the lid's and nothing else. I think I have a plan for sumping later should I want to do that. For now - I am going to run the one FX5 I think. I have absolutely zero interest in big giant fish. So I am sure I will be OK. If not - I will go in a different direction - I'm pretty relaxed about the filtering at this stage.

Gravel cleaning will be interesting - I have a plan to :o:o:o :nilly: :nilly: :o:o

Thanks for your input - can I have a link to your tank setup?

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Just curious but did you consider metal framing ... the stuff they advertise on TV for housing. Or that not strong enough?

I did get a few quotes for metal stands - but build times seemed to be so far in the distance ... also i got the itch to do it myself.

Nothing like a weekend building (but no .. I have not seen the metal framing your referring too .. I don't watch tv.)

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Went along to the Auckland Fishkeepers Association club meeting tonight - was a good discussion about all things fishkeeping.

We discussed alot about different tank setups sumps, filters, lighting and even my tank stand.

I think I am going to head down the road of LED's for the tank lighting now.

Filters - I am definitely going to start with my FX5 and probably just add another if it is so required. I'm not going to put a sump in just yet ... although I can really where it would be handy.

Anyways - finished handles on the stand tonight - I am going to give it all a quick sand tomorrow and one last coat of paint and put it into place.

Very excited about the arrival of my tank on Thursday night .. I will post pics then.

For now ... :bounce: :bounce: :cofn: :bounce: :bounce:

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they'd better be built like Arnie if you've only got 4! My 1400L took 6 people to lift and that was made from 12mm glass (and probably had less glass than yours as it wasn't as tall), and only needed to be carried about 6 metres from the back of the van, through a double doorway and onto the 450mm high stand.

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sorry to bring up bracing again as i know u are probly sick of hearing bout it but u should screw the ply braces off at certain centres for it to be propperly effective. from each corner u should come in 50mm then another 50mm in then another 50mm in and at 150mm centres from that around the edge of the brace no closer than 20mm from the edge. more screws in the wrong place doesnt help. the building inspecters can be very strict about this when building houses.

look forward to seeing completed pics

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At the office we have 15 people - and big double doors. So no issue there.

At the loading end - we only need to lift one end at a time - to get it into the van.

We are all 100KG ish men with a bit of muscle on us .. so I think we will be fine.

Bracing ..Yes - I read a bunch of guides and measured the locations of the screws I put into the bracing backsheets .. at an average of 4 or 5 suggested measurements.

Don't be worried about bringing it up - I would rather someone say something - than be asking why someone didnt - :happy1: :happy2: :happy1: :happy1: :happy2:

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no - end horizontal brace is out by 2mm at one end.

So will neet to pack it. It's only a very small section that is slightly lower than it should be. It means you can get a metal ruler into the gap - which means that when filled with water - the tank would have to bend itself down onto the brace - which is bad.

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Its surprising how something that looks so level can actually be a few mm out when something dead level gets placed on it! Thats a great spot for the tank too, are you going to leave it viewable from both sides? It would look really good like that with a hood of LED or MH suspended from the ceiling.

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How about the liquid nails levelling idea:

you put a big fat bead of liquid nails around the top of your frame.

You then lay the ply&poly on top and immidiately put the tank on as well..

This way the ply will be perfectly level (or at least as level as the bottom of the tank is)

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Yup - the tank will stay there and will be visible from both sides - that was the whole idea. It's for the enjoyment of the 8 of us who are stuck in the office every day. The other team is just a few metres away in another part of the office - so they will be able to enjoy it as well.

Yes - we are working on some lighting options at the moment. Still undecided on a hood or having something suspended.

Yes - we have a combination of wooden wedges and liquid nails. This will pack it nice and tight.

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So now comes the fun part - filling it up for the first time!!

Just my 2c on filtration:

For a tank like that in an office I would use two Eheim 2080. They are rated for 1200L each and would be soooo quiet and would only need a clean every 3 months or even longer. Especially if you go with light stocking.

Buy them from Germany for around NZD 460 each incl. shipping - DONE! (buy media here)

You could always add a DIY surface skimmer to one of them :wink:

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Yup - the tank will stay there and will be visible from both sides - that was the whole idea. It's for the enjoyment of the 8 of us who are stuck in the office every day. The other team is just a few metres away in another part of the office - so they will be able to enjoy it as well.

Wish I could have a tank like that in my "office"!! How are you going to have the hoses? Having a hole drilled in the base and a tower up the centre so you could have no hoses hanging over the edge would have been nice, but would have added a whole lot of complexity. I guess if you hve them all at one end wouldn't look too bad.

+1 for Hovmollers suggestion of the Eheims, the FX5 is a good unit but the 2080 is even better!!

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