DIY - Projects & Ideas • My Odyssey- Building a 100G Tank into my Living Room Wall

[cantrell00]

You know, I have been able to find 1.5 inch black pvc, actually I think its a differnt kind of pipe, but it fits the fittings, but I have never seen 3/4 in black locally, either at Home Depot or Lowes. Have you found it anywhere? I would not mind black nozzles at all, I just can't find them.

I have never found them locally. HD, Lowe's, etc..

jehmco.com & glass-holes.com have them.

[PfunMo]

I have never seen PVC in black other than specialty items. The black I see at home centers is ABS, not PVC. The reason it comes in larger sizes is because it is not considered drinking water safe. That leaves it to be drain pipes which are mostly larger. There are many plastic items in black but not the ones we are talking about for tank use.

[quentin8]

Any progress? Hows the vibration issue going?

[vann59]

You know, I have been able to find 1.5 inch black pvc, actually I think its a differnt kind of pipe, but it fits the fittings, but I have never seen 3/4 in black locally, either at Home Depot or Lowes. Have you found it anywhere? I would not mind black nozzles at all, I just can't find them.

Today I bought a couple cheap neoprene mouse pads per Pfunmo's suggestion, I am going to try tossing one under the pump and will cut the other one into isolation pads, like motor mounts, for the PVC to wood contact points. I am also going to buy a tile sponge form Home Depot tonight, they are very dense and not super porous, I hope that the mouse pad or the sponge will make a good permanent base for the pump, the folded padding is too hard to keep in place.

I will run some silicone bumps to isolate the jets from the tank bottom when I drain it to paint or replace the jets with black pipe.

I haven't had to look for the black, so it probably is a specialty item.

The neoprene pad sounds like a good idea, and easy enough. If it's not enough, you could probably glue in another layer or two and silence it, because neoprene is a good vibration damper.

[CITADELGRAD87]

Vibration issues are conquered for now. I still need to add some neoprene mouse pad between the pvc and the frame, but the combination of a neoprene pad and a dense grout sponge from the home depot all but silenced the vibration. Now there is a faint machine noise, but no hum.

I also painted the back black to prevent any light from creeeping in at the sides and seams of the background. The background is STELLAR, I already had to let a buddy touch it to prove it isn't a bunch of real rocks. There we're, however, very thin seems, probably from my install, but I want to do this right, and didn't want to take any chances with a sliver of light. Probably moot when the aquaticlife unit is on, but I am a belt and suspenders guy, especially with a built in like this. It looks neater now that you can't see the silicone ribbons I used to fix the background.

I also sprayed the jets with the same krylon for plastic paint. Its sitting in the garage curing. Whenever I convince myself its cured, I will reinstall the jets and durso, and it will be ready for sand, black tahitian moon sand for this tank, a change from the sandblasting tan sand in my other tank.

I just need to glue the connectors for the soft tubing, and add the hose clamps, and the tank is done and ready to fishless cycle. I also need to make up some acrylic panels to cover the main tank and install the heater and controller, and the lights, hopefully this week.

I trimmed out the frame around the tank, and primed it all, it looks pretty cool, but I taped the glass and left the tape for the finish coat of paint, so no pictures for tonights update. I hope to paint the whole wall and the tv built in tomorrow night, then, at least from the family room, the project is done. Then I just need to finish up the door

Christmas lights took up most of the weekend, but Saturday I cleaned up the garage as best I could. All the stuff that came with this tank, the stand, the protein skimmer, that euro fil sump, and probably the mag 12 are going on cl this week to defray some of the project costs.

More soon, thanks for following, and cool pictures at the next update.

[inurocker]

Glad to hear the foam sponge and neoprene got you quieten down. Give your jets a soak in some hot water and you should be good to go. Don't you hate it when life interferes with your fish hobby.

[CITADELGRAD87]

Inurocker, yes, mundane things have greatly delayed the completion of this project.

Well, I've said it before, but I think we are on the home stretch, here's an appropriate movie still I snapped Sunday night:



Last night, I finished painting in the family room side of things, other than any touch ups (I hate painting at night but always seem to do it that way), I just need to hook up the stereo and HALF of the project is finished, here's what it looked like last night and a couple this morning:







My wife decided to darken the center portion of the fireplace wall, I think it nicely calls attention to the fireplace without screaming.

Here are the jets mid painting:



I thought I took some shots of the newly black tank back, but I don't see any, I will snap some tonight when I pull the newspaper masking off. I also need to clean up the trim edges with a razor where the paint crept under the tape, tuoch up type work.

Then, it's on to finishing the door/room interior. I beleive I can start cycling this weekend. I need to sort out mounting the light as well.

Keep your fingers crossed.

[inurocker]

Everything is looking really nice. I'm kind of jealous. I don't have that kind of space anymore after the kids moved out we down sized to a smaller home left my big tank in the old house. It'll all come together soon then you will be looking for another project to get in to. Can't be as bad as Major Kong (Slim Pickens) riding the H-bomb in. I love that bit funny stuff.

[CITADELGRAD87]

Thanks, I appreciate it. It does seem to be home stretch at this point. Today I picked up the mounting system for the lights, I was going to try to make my own, but with the metric sizing, and the need for eye bolts, it was actually cheaper to just grab the company version. I can't wait to hang the lights, but I do need a way to make the height adjustible.


I am thinking about mounting the system to a 2x4, then have the 2x4 adjustible via a couple pulleys so I can raise the whole deal when I need to. Sort of pirating part of clekchao's system for my own evil purposes.

[Steve C]

With Thanksgiving & now Christmas stuff going on over the past few weeks I haven't had much time to check in on the site lately myself, but it looks like you've got quite a bit done since the last time I saw it a few weeks ago. Looking good.

Also the wife has a good eye for colors, I think the darker center section does a nice job of highlighting the fireplace without calling too much attention to it

[Bradyk]

Any updates???

[CITADELGRAD87]

Thanks, Steve, Hi Brady, as a matter of fact, yes, I did work a bit this weekend. I reinstalled the newly gloss black jets and Durso, and then dumped about 85 lbs of Tahitian Black Moon sand, my fist not buff colored sand substrate.

After that, I was on a roll, I put the final finishing touches on the plumbing, specifically, I glued the threaded hose end connectors to the pump and the line, so everything is glued up and watertight now.

I also suspended the light fixture, it's a 60 inch Aquaticlife 4 bulb T5HO with moon LEDs, the freshwater one. It came with 2 6500 or so white bulbs, and a couple that glow blue, they do not have a number printed on them, just a finky name that I cannot recall, but they are the stock bulbs, and 4 pretty bright LEDs. The system has a single timer, you just set the time and it is pre pregrammed to cycle through the variations of white and blue on for high noon, blue is am and pm, and the LEDS come on at night. It's pretty cool, I can play with the program, but I am letting the factory program run for now. It's nice to still be able to see the fish even though the main lights are not on. Here's a married man's testimonial as to how cool this light is: my wife STILL has not asked how much it cost, but has complimented the look several times.

The Aquaticlife mounting system is pretty cool, I found that has a very functional locking mechanism, meaning that I can raise and lower the whole light, or just half of it, at will, very easy to work and it seems pretty sturdy and strong.

Then I had my wife help me from the dry front, distribute the moon sand. I did not rinse the first bag, but I did rinse the next 3, simply by sticking a hose into the bag and letting water run out for a couple seconds. The water was a bit cloudy for the first day, and is still not super clear, but it looks good to me for now.

I also hooked up the finnex 300w Titanium heater and controller, I checked teh water at 55 degrees about 5 last night when I filled it, now it's over 80 and climbing, not bad, I undersized the heater and was worried it would take forever to warm it up. Not so!

Then it was finally time to throw the switch and start the pump for real, nol more test run, I am nearly ready to cycle. SO I threw the switch, and was greeted with the unmistakable sound of water, LOTS of water, hitting the concrete floor if the fish room. Not a leak, a torrent. WHAT!>!>! So I turned it back off, nd much to my relief, there was no plumbing problem, there was simply operator error. I had left the 1" drain line valve open, so the 1" line was tossing 2400 GPH on my floor. I managed to smuggle 4 large garage towels INTO the fish room, but getting them out was out of the question, I had to get a trash bag to save the floor. Luckily, I was able to get the dirty wet mess out into the garage.

So it's been running for about 30 hours now, it is VERY quiet with the new mouse pad/sponge isolator, and the temp is climbing nicely.

The only thing I did not get done this weekend was get rocks, the local rock yard is closed on weekends, which seems goofy to me. I did do some more work on the hidden door, I am really happy with how that is coming out, but no pictures yet.

Here are the photos of the lighting and newly added sand

Here's a shot of the controller



Here's the FULL effect, 2 white and 2 blue bulbs on, high noon



Here's just the blue, still plenty bright, looks differnt to the nekkid eye,



Here's the moon lights





Back shot from inside the fish room



Here's the heater controller,



Well, I am going to hold off cycling until I get some rocks, hopefully this week.

As Porky says, that's all (for now) Folks!

Thanks to everyone for following, weighing in, commenting, suggesting, brain storming, etc.

[Steve C]

I had left the 1" drain line valve open, so the 1" line was tossing 2400 GPH on my floor.

Oh boy! I beat that got your heart rate up in a hurry when you heard the splashing. Glad it was just a simple valve and nothing major.

It's looking really good. I've always been partial to white sand but that black sand does look great with the color of your BG. Real nice look.

I've had my build up on hold for the past couple weeks but looking at yours is making me get the itch to make time to do some more on mine done soon.

[vann59]

Nice job

Are you going to add plants? Have you found rocks to match the BG?

[CITADELGRAD87]

I am going to add both java moss and anubias once I finish the cycle, I don't want to worry about them slowing the cycle or being burned by the ammonia.

I haven't found any rocks yet, the rock place was closed this weekend, but beleive it or not, I decided to go with a random colored background so that I would not have to match the rocks too carefully, I think that a large cross section of rocks will look like they belong, mostly roundish ones, though.