65g frag tank RE-build, 1/1 Update!

[Sherita]

Most of you know that I suffered a catastrophic frag tank crash last week, losing almost all of the corals. Since the tank has been shut down, I decided that now was the time to change up some things about the tank that have been driving me bonkers. The tank is somewhat hazy due to scratches, so I ordered up a novus polishing kit, and will be trying to get the scratches out. The overflow is a not-so-good design, too small for my tastes, and I want dual returns, so I will be cutting the old overflow out with a dremel and building up a new one. The sump is/was too small. That will be changed as well. And the stand..........oh boy. Narrow openings with a center stile in the way of anything you might try to do. Dark, cramped and impossible. Going to try to re-use the stand, by bracing up and removing the center stile, cutting a door opening in the end where the tank overflow is (for access to the plumbing), installing work lights in the stand, and just a general overhaul. If I can't make it work, then a new stand will be built.

I'll snag some pics later today. The tank has been drained and removed from the stand. I'll start cleaning on it today.

[RayAllen]

sounds like quite the project. Heck of a way to turn a negative into a positive. Have fun.

[Flyride95]

Hey I'm sorry to hear about your crash. I can frag some of the corals I got from you at the swap to help you get back up and running. If you don't mind can you tell me what caused it to crash?

[Sherita]

An electrical short in my ato float switch is what caused the crash. Exacerbated by my city adding chloramines to the water without my knowledge, so the corals were already stressed before they were electrocuted.

Not only am I reworking the tank, I've had to modify my rodi to deal with the chloramines. Yay me.

[rrasco]

Would a grounding probe have accommodated the stray voltage?

[Sherita]

Here's what I'm starting with.

17911

And the way too small highly aggravating overflow.

17912

The overflow is going to be cut out and enlarged I'm also going to remove that annoying center brace and eurobrace the tank instead. I've also ordered a micro mesh restoration kit since the tank has some really nasty scratches that need to be removed.

[Sherita]

Today I altered my rodi system to deal with the chloramines. I added another filter housing and changed up my filter configuration. The system is now configured like this:

Sediment filter>catalytic carbon(refillable cartridge, chloramines removal)>5 micron carbon block>5 micron chlorplus carbon block (chloramines removal)>ro membrane>di resin (refillable cartridge).

I will also be changing all filters and carbon every three months just to be safe. It doesn't cost much, so to me it's good insurance.

[Sherita]

Finally making some headway. The center stile was removed from the stand, and the original door opening was widened enough that I can actually get in there and work. The stand was originally stained, but I roughed it up with sandpaper and went flat black. The large door will be magnetic, for ease of access. The interior was painted with oil based flat white, just to brighten things up a little and make it look clean and tidy. The tank still needs an acid wash, it's just dirty.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/stand1.jpg


I got rid of the aggravating, tiny, inaccessible, useless overflow and also sealed the original holes. I put in a larger overflow, and re-drilled, now I have a larger drain and return. The original overflow had two returns, but it was so small that you couldn't get the plumbing into the overflow. I also cut out the center brace from the tank, and I'm going to eurobrace it (next on the list of things to do). The front viewing pane has been refinished using a micromesh kit, it had some horrific scratches in it. I am quite pleased with how it looks now. I'll post up a picture when I get the tank cleaned up.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/Tank1.jpg

And I spent some quality time with my welder today. The light standards that I had were too low, allowing my mh/vho combo to effectively cook corals. I added 16" in length, so now I can adjust my light canopy up or down as needed. I used a piece of 1" inserted in the standard to give myself some extra reinforcement at the welded joint, squared everything up, and turned two pieces of metal into one. Dressed the welds, and put the first coat of flat black on the standards.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/lights1.jpg

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/lights2.jpg

Tomorrow - install the magnets in the door, fabricate the bottom pins for the door, and get the eurobracing in place.

[Sherita]

Made quite a bit of progress towards restarting this tank. The stand and door are done, and the light standards are installed. I spent quite a bit of time polishing out the two viewing surfaces, to get rid of some really nasty scratches. These were bad, and deep. I did a little research, decided on micromesh, and here's how it went :)

First, I used 220grit to remove the scratches, and the used it lightly over the entire surface I was polishing. This gave me an "even" starting point over the entire surface. I used a palm sander for this portion of the program.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/polish1.jpg

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/polish2.jpg

Continuing with the palm sander, I followed up with 400grit and 600grit. Making sure between each step that I was not missing any scratches. All of the sanding was done wet, no dry sanding.

Once I got to 600grit and the surface was uniformly hazy, but with no bad scratches visible, I started with the micromesh. I switched over to my random orbital sander for the rest of the work. The micromesh kit has 9 grits, all with hook and loop backs. 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000, and 12000 grit. The little insert says they can be used dry. Don't try it, the acrylic will quickly clog up your micromesh, and make it totally useless. As your grit gets finer, plan on spending more time with each consecutive step. Don't do this in the house, unless you are single, or want to be single. It's messy, to say the least. Make sure you have plenty of old towels on hand, clean the surface well between grits, so you don't accidentally drag something onto the acrylic, and scratch the snot out of it. A good random orbital sander is a must for the rest of this job.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/polish3.jpg

I could still see a tiny bit of haze after the 12000grit application. So I used a buffing pad and Novus 2 to bring it to a high shine. Novus 2 is nothing more than rubbing compound, as long as you rinse the tank well, it shouldn't cause any problems at all. One thing to note about those buffing pads. They are hook and loop back, just like the micromesh. However, unlike the micromesh, these things stick to the orbital sander pad at what must be a molecular level, forming what seems to be a near unbreakable bond. It was amusing, but it wasn't. It took me a few minutes to negotiate a release. But, they did the job, and did it well.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/polish_final.jpg

That peach colored waffle pad is the buffing pad of which I speak. The sticking power on the backing is nothing short of amazing. No way it would just come off, I could barely peel it off.

And, the tank and stand are back in the house. One step closer to the restart.

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/tank2.jpg

http://coralbeauty.us/65Rebuild/tank3.jpg

Please ignore the wires going everywhere. I haven't even started to sort out the lights or controller. I still have to rework the sump into something useable, and finish up the workspace under the tank. I need to install the work lighting, fuge lighting, and plumb the tank in. But it's close, real close.

[Mr Cob]

Very cool, nice job documenting too.

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[FireWater]

I agree with Rob, great job documenting. Nice work on making it better.

[nwehrman]

Great documentation! Love all the info! Thank You

[Scutterborn]

Tagging along. Cant wait to see this and many of your other projects come to fruition!

[Sherita]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/01/12/a7u9ehab.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/01/12/me3u5ade.jpg

Water, water, water. It's WET!

[reefreak]

What type of lighting sherita it's looking good.

[Sherita]

Jeremy, that tank runs two 110w vho super actinic and two 250w mh @ 20k. Led moonlights.

That pic was shot with just the actinics running.

[Sherita]

And..............

http://coralbeauty.us/nanobio/fragtankdone.jpg

I'm BAAAACK!

This thread is officially done :)

Now, I can start another new build for the tank I bought at MACNA.

[reefreak]

Glad to see this back up Sherita!

[350gt]

Great bounce back

[Sherita]

Thanks guys :)

I've still got to rebuild my corals, since I lost a ton of stuff. If anyone has them, I am looking for Valentines Day Massacre, Sunny D and Darth Mauls. I lost those in the crash :(

[reefreak]

I got a frag sherita I posted in my corals for sale it's 2 heads.