200G Forever And A Day Build Thread
- Thread starter Walter White
- Start date
A few small updates but hey at least its progress.
The floor joists under the tank run the wrong way for what would be ideal so just to be safe I dug a 2'x4' 1' deep hole under the tank and filled with cement followed by plastic plywood then pressure treated 2"x12"s and installed floor jacks which I have be cranking up 1/4 turn a week f or about a month until the soil under the platform settled.
Way over kill but at least now there is no question that the tank is properly supported.
The floor joists under the tank run the wrong way for what would be ideal so just to be safe I dug a 2'x4' 1' deep hole under the tank and filled with cement followed by plastic plywood then pressure treated 2"x12"s and installed floor jacks which I have be cranking up 1/4 turn a week f or about a month until the soil under the platform settled.
Way over kill but at least now there is no question that the tank is properly supported.
full basement underneath, sigh
With the tank all leveled up and ready for water it was time to leak test the tank. I wasn't worried about any leaks but the tank has been sitting in my garage for 4 friggin years so the reality of it is I just really wanted to see some water in it but I'm happy to report no leaks as well. lol
I ordered some Tonga kaelini from Aquatic Art so once that arrives Ill be able to aquascape and finally get this thing cycling.
I ordered some Tonga kaelini from Aquatic Art so once that arrives Ill be able to aquascape and finally get this thing cycling.
Crazy how did I not see this before?
I did finally find live rock that has the look and quality I was looking for. I ordered 150lbs of live fiji tukani for a smoking good wholesale price. The bad part was it got held up in port for 6 weeks then sat on a fedex truck right here in Colorado for a week. The worst part was the bouncing around on the truck all that time pulverized at least 1/3rd of it into unusable rubble. What was left had a lot of die off but still looked really good aesthetically.
aztecdreams (Rick) was nice enough to let me borrow his 150g stock trough to cure it in. The stuff coming off the rock is pretty nasty and the water is pretty yellow but its coming along nicley. I picked up a couple other nice pieces of fiji tukani that Cris had at AA so I think that combined with what I had collected last summer will be enough for a really nice aquascape.
Some nasty skimmate coming from the rock. Thing is like a foam cannon.
On another side note, I got real tired of dealing with chloramine and other crap in the municipal water so I decided for the health of my family, the tanks and cost saving on carbon filters, ro membranes and DI cartridges it was worth it to put in a filtration system to end all filtration. This bad boy combines standard sodium ion exchange with a super bad@$$ self charging self purging catalytic carbon filter good for ~1.7 million gallons. I can darn near just use my tap water now for water changes. Of course ill still continue using a 5 stage RODI but im converting the one I have to a 300gpd unit running at ultra high efficiency. I'm able to push my product to waste ration to 1:.75 and my filters should last a looooong time.
I did finally find live rock that has the look and quality I was looking for. I ordered 150lbs of live fiji tukani for a smoking good wholesale price. The bad part was it got held up in port for 6 weeks then sat on a fedex truck right here in Colorado for a week. The worst part was the bouncing around on the truck all that time pulverized at least 1/3rd of it into unusable rubble. What was left had a lot of die off but still looked really good aesthetically.
aztecdreams (Rick) was nice enough to let me borrow his 150g stock trough to cure it in. The stuff coming off the rock is pretty nasty and the water is pretty yellow but its coming along nicley. I picked up a couple other nice pieces of fiji tukani that Cris had at AA so I think that combined with what I had collected last summer will be enough for a really nice aquascape.
Some nasty skimmate coming from the rock. Thing is like a foam cannon.
On another side note, I got real tired of dealing with chloramine and other crap in the municipal water so I decided for the health of my family, the tanks and cost saving on carbon filters, ro membranes and DI cartridges it was worth it to put in a filtration system to end all filtration. This bad boy combines standard sodium ion exchange with a super bad@$$ self charging self purging catalytic carbon filter good for ~1.7 million gallons. I can darn near just use my tap water now for water changes. Of course ill still continue using a 5 stage RODI but im converting the one I have to a 300gpd unit running at ultra high efficiency. I'm able to push my product to waste ration to 1:.75 and my filters should last a looooong time.
