175g Bow-Front + many beers and tears (many pics)

SynDen

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#41
I have one, but it is not bow front specific. Anyone know if said curved cleaner exists?
Ya I use a tunze on my bowfront too. Cant do up and down with it on the curve, but it works just fine side to side
 

scmountain

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#43
So we finished all 3 coats, plus 110 grit sanding, followed by top coat, and a light 220 grit sanding.

Sealed the joints where the new wall meets the old wall with DAP extreme flex, so no cracking of the paint will occur and then spent an absurd amount of time picking out "the right" color. I mean there were hours of photoshopping different colors and textures... better A or B? A or C? What about Z......

Caught the boss in action...


next was the accent lighting
We opted for 3" led slim can lights. offset closer to the "wall" for dramatic effect, wired to a dimmer switch. ($24 each)



Looking awesome while the paint is drying. need to cover the wood access panels, not sure what design/finish we will go with yet, some type of textured wood.



we had a big shipment of PVC parts show up from Supplyhouse.com, the price difference was so drastic in comparison to the big box stores. (a 1" union was 6$ cheaper than at HD/Lowe's, not knocking the stores but if you can plan ahead on your plumbing you can save big bucks)
$66 total for what will be used for my manifold and my saltwater mixing station!


Next Steps:
build the SW mixing station and manifold
route RODI line and start making water
acquire an absurd amount of rock/live rock to start cycling
 

scmountain

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#46
Looking awesome.

Random question. How easy would it be to change out the tank for upgrade /downgrade?


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In theory, easy. disconnect plumbing, slide it straight out the front.
any 72" tank can slide in and out, biggest constraint for upgrading would be height.
 

scmountain

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#49
with the wall painted and touched up, we mounted the dimmer switch for the accent lights. Also decided to put a "cleaner shrimp" to clean the inside of the tank again from any construction debris and mess. :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:


For now we wrapped the access panels in a faux wood until we know what material/look we want.
Also the boss finally got to plan/ finish the room. Very excited how it looks, but sitting next to that empty blue giant is painful to my soul.
 

SynDen

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#50
That looks awesome man, although no need for the tv when you got that thing in the room lol. Can't wait to see it filled
 

scmountain

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#51
That looks awesome man, although no need for the tv when you got that thing in the room lol. Can't wait to see it filled
My idea of my own massaging lazy boy directly in the middle of the room facing the tank was veto'd....
But we really wanted the L couch so one could face the tank directly, and the black chair swivels.
I also wired up 2 relays so that with the flip of a switch the surround sound rotates 90 degrees from TV being front, then to tank being front... but that is for a later post
 

scmountain

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#52
have been very slowly working on cleaning/ curing the dead rock we picked up. The task of building structure when half of our rock is live in water and the other half is dry. anyone have tips for how to go about this task?

got extra help with the planning process


Also feel like we hit the jack pot today on Craigslist!
for a Neptune Apex, all probes (minus a broken PH), power bar, Lunar module, 2 lunar LEDS, and an Apex DOS... $450!
It wasn't really in our budget, but a deal that good couldn't be passed up. and I hope huge Karma goes to the guy who hooked us up!
 

Andrew_bram

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#53
Order some garf grunge and add it to the tank it will add some biodiversity. It's like 5 bucks a pound but have always been happy with the result.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

scmountain

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#56
As most saw from my other thread, had a much longer battle setting up the RODI unit than we anticipated.
Originally paid $75 for the unit
my own DIY "water-saver"($13) (I highly recommend everyone do this it is so cheap and easy. part link)
brand new RO membranes ($20 ea)
DIY 2nd DI resin chamber ($16) ( Part link )
parts and hose ($7)
Total $151


The final product
 
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