ArtFully Acrylic (Adam B)

Sometimes customers want to be involved in their build and add their personal touch...here's Derrick (Mr. Rock) adding a splash of white to the top and bottom ply. Should go well with his choice of color for the stand.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I love the dimensions all together! My build table is almost exactly the same height as the stand and with the length the height is PERFECT for easy maintenance. In fact, this was Derricks main want in this build...not having to go shoulder deep to clean . Here's a pic of the delivered "raw" stand. I will be finishing the stand in Blue. It will match the acrylic panels that will later wrap the stand. And here is the bottom going on the tank! Tank is almost done! All that's left for the tank once the bottom cures is flush routing top and bottom edges then build/install external overflow. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow, well...Christie and Chris...you have been absent througout the football season on WAMAS mostly...but you HAVE NOT been absent in your tank husbandry!!! Job very well done!! To all those that don't know...Chris is a Husbandry Icon. With Sun Corals, a very large Elegance, and many more with mouths to feed...Chris feeds EVERY single mouth individually most of the time. I have seen growth in their tank that you simply don't see on such a largely accelerated scale regularly...and this is coming from the Co-Owner of a Coral/Fish Store... . PS...we miss you guys in the store!! Ssssooooo much has changed since you guys last came in! I know the football season is BUSY for ya'll, but it's over now...well, at least for your team it is =P...so you should visit soon!

And here is the top welded on and now curing... This is one of the hardest parts to setup on a tank this size. Error ratio is expounded with the length. Great acrylic seams are dependent on being accurate in the drop gap to within greater than 1/128th of an inch. You can't measure that with the human eye and a tape measure. You need certain trade secrets for that lol. This isn't high end wood furniture craftsmanship accuracy requirements...it's that times two ...it's ArtFully done. Thanks to Steve for staying late to help me run the top seam. 20ft of weld needing to be complete and adjusted properly in less than a minute ALWAYS requires more than one person . On top of that, and Steve refusing to be idle handed, as I worked the machining of the eurobrace, he took it upon himself to take some awesome video and action shots of our process. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's a video of us machining the euro brace top for this bad boy! This is the second of the 4 holes on the top of the tank. http://youtu.be/ktcS7aiAX2s

You are correct on the open channel Alan. One inch for primary would speed up the flow, but I don't think it will be enough to compensate for the 20' run.

By being a counterexample AND trudging forward to success you have liberated yourself well Alan =). LOL on the wraparound tank Alan! This is already a great sized tank! That wraparound would just be insane. Motti, with the new more detailed drawings I see quite clearly your intentions. This won't work for you. Do you have any drawings yet showing the new proposed location on the modified sump you asked me about? I suppose keeping it here will help all that many more people in the future so may as well make it educational to all . From the proposed drawings, you will have way to much horizontal run on this. I had a customer who setup their bean wrong by flipping the sump around backwards from the intended design (I did the whole build...Tank/Sump/Stand/Canopy) and it presented issues with the siphon priming. In this case, the tank was 6ft long with overflow on one end (like yours). Per the intended design the drains were to come into the sump directly under the overflow basically. However, the customer turned the sump around the other way and ran the drains across to the other end...less than 6 feet...with only a slight decline in plumbing over that run. The siphon didn't work correctly at all. The cause in their case was luckily only that the drain pipes went too far under the water surface when entering the sump (so as you mention in your case, you don't want to do this...The Primary and Secondary Drains should end ideally 1-2 inches under the sump's normal operating water level. For emergency, I like to set it up above the water to give an audible notification of an issue if presented, but that's my preference). By shortening these we were able to resolve the issue. However, I attribute the success to a high powered return pump. The pump was sufficiently sized to negate the horizontal run...so they weren't forced to turn the sump back around to the originally designed direction. In your case, this run is just too long in my opinion. I see two "safe" options to eliminate the need to test the theory in your situation. One, let's see where your adjusted sump size proposed location is and how you would run the plumbing. Two, you could make this a non-siphon system with two primary's and one emergency over the current proposed length. Using the 1 1/2" PVC you should still see more than sufficient turnover to keep up with your spec'd return pump...though it will have more noise. However, I don't think you will hear much of it from the tank side of the wall.

Alan, you are correct that the U and long almost horizontal runs won't work. Motti and I started discussing it shortly after I saw those first pics. The sump location is being moved, and changed in size as a result, to eliminate these problems. But I also wanted to say thank you for such a detailed reply. Many of those issues were known in my head and a few weren't even considered so you have quite an expansive range of thought there . Made my head spin lol, but awesome info for everyone to see and use in future consideration =)

Motti, full siphon systems such as the Bean Animal, as being used in your build, are not particularly fond of long horizontal runs so you may want to keep that in mind. That being said, I'm still a bit confused by the pic as to the location of the tank, it's orientation, and how long the runs of pipe are that you will be running with the sump being positioned on the other side of the room.

Baaaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaaa!!! Love those "action" shots from cutting the overflow weir on the tank's back panel. I really dislike that part of machining for external overflows =P, but love the rest . Guess I will jump on the bandwagon for the ride too.....lol.

Just saw the thread Motti! Looking forward to building the tank soon! Moving up in queue! I definitely approve of the stand build . Even though you used 2x4's exclusively you went super robust with the horizontal stringers in the top frame...AND two layers of 3/4" ply for the top. That will be well more than sufficient for the tank so good job!! Also love all of the pocket screw joinery used exclusively. Many may miss this, but I certainly didn't. Well Done!!

If I know Tom, his will look even better =). And, from what I can see...Tom's tank looks sooooooo much more clean and crisp in design so should be a shoo-win!!!....Then again, I am a little biased ROFL

See link for full details!! http://wamas.org/forums/topic/61700-construction-sale-50-off-fish-and-buy-2-get-1-free-frags/

Wow Chris! That tank has come a long way! I still had your last picture from many months ago as a background on one of my desktops. Now seeing it again it looks even more amazing =). I would have never thought that tank was gonna end up looking like that the day you picked it up! Top Notch! For those asking...the tank is 36x24x12 if I do recall correctly. The Bonsai tree is artificial, but a cool and unique add-on. I didn't even know it had a waterfall....BONUS!!

Har har

ROFLMAO!! Hey, I want those back!!! I usually charge an extra $5 for each one . Then again....maybe it's Brutus hair haha. You are such a tease though. I see we have a full operational sump now....where are the pics of the whole system running ? Did you have any difficulty tuning in the main siphon yourself?

Dangit, my computer was signed in under Steve's account. I posted this, not Steve. Though, not a big deal...people confuse us and our handles all the time lol.

LOL Pillows. What are those? This load though was heavy enough with sufficient surface tension for my rhino lined bed to not need any tie down whatsoever actually Oh god, uggh, no. Nothing going in yet and tap water....funny...it was certainly a fleeting thought while filling The pics are all on Tom's shoulder's now. It was a fun fun build. Almost sad to see it gone from the shop....almost. ROFL...You beat me to it. As I was reading your first offering post I thought...hmm...Sublime just wants to go see it lol. Awesome of you to offer up the water. Tom's been on his 11gal so long he wasn't ready for a tank to roll in needing the 45ish gallons this guy would need.

She's half wet now!!

Oh my goodness, what could that possibly be in the back of the ArtFully Acrylic truck? Yep, this tank and I are on our way to TPallas' house for delivery. Updates to follow; stay tuned!

Hey, aren't you familiar with the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare? This tank could have TOTM written all over it soon enough. I think it's the first ever dry tank that should win , but Tom can make it a true winner once he works his husbandry magic! Steve's just jealous Tom lol. He loves this part of the hobby. He's been on this boat 2....or 3.....or 8 times already and is probably dreaming up his own dropoff now. If only he can figure out how to get the idea past the wife.....ROFL.

Here it is.....without further delay...The final complete pics of the DRY tank for TPallas. Next future pics will be wet and/or with rockwork depending on when they are taken. I look forward to getting this tank wet and testing the plumbing and sump setup!

Thanks Alan. The water level in the sump is 9". The primary and secondary drains are set at 8" so are only under the water by an inch at best. If they need further adjustment when I test it I will do so, but they should dial in fine at that level =).

Ouch Steve. Nope, the build is technically finished once I put up the pics of the light pole tonight. However, Tom has decided he wanted us to handle the rockscape on the vertical wall and bottom. That will be done before the tank is delivered.

Thanks. One of them will run outside of full siphon most of the time. The hole and air hose aren't pictured yet, but will be installed on the secondary drain pipe.