AlanM

Post up a grody bucket picture like Paul's if you get some.

Might check out posts from Dave W http://wamas.org/forums/user/2632558-dave-w/ and send him a PM. He collects mud and copepods in the bay and is setting up a really large tank, as I recall.

By the way, I solved my heater amperage on the UPS problem too. I'm controlling the solid state relay with the Apex and using the load side of it to switch on power to the hot side of the pictured outlets which have my heaters plugged into them. I have it on a triac port on the EB8 at the moment and will keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't latch on because it is a very low current use. I'll probably take the ATO off port 8 and put it on a regular timer and put the solid state relay on that one instead to make sure it switches off.

The sisters were the easy part. The hard part was the plywood, actually. I was kind of shocked. I put 12 foot 2x8's up there after pulling the wires back, hammered them into place, clamped them while I drove in a few lag bolts and called it done. My helper (pictured) does earthquake proofing research at NIST, and my father-in-law is an architect. Both explained to me that the reason that joists in the middle of the span feel springy is that they bend. In order for them to bend, the bottom of the joist has to stretch a little bit. It just has to in order to bend because now it's travelling a curved path, not a straight line. If you glue and screw plywood to the bottom then it can't stretch and thus can't bend. Supposedly the glue does more than the screws. I got the 8X strong glue from Lowes, just picked the most expensive tubes ($7 each). It was super hard to push out of the caulk gun. Very very viscous. And it cures like silicone, so they recommend you spray the two surfaces with water first before gluing them together. I could have used plywood planks to make kind of I-beams, but I already had a 4x6 scrap of plywood left, and this way the joists can't rack either, and the bottoms can't stretch. It is a 12 foot span, and I did it in the center 6 feet of it where the bending moment is the greatest. If this doesn't stiffen it I already warned my wife that I will put a column in the middle of the basement underneath. To my surprise she was fine with it.

Reinforced the floor. Sistered in two joists from sill plate to beam. Glued and screwed 3/4 plywood sheet 4 X 6 in center of joists under the springy part. Now waiting 24 hours or so to jump on it.

He'd told me he was going to go with some structures from Cerameco http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/blog/CeramEco-Vida-Rock/ I'm considering it too for at least some of it. Built-in frag plug holders...

Thanks for the offer, but I will get it done this weekend. I'd be too tempted to buy one of your nice corals as soon as the salt mix hits the water and would kill it.

Better get that overflow box on the back.

Wow, Richard, you come over today and help me bash some joists under my floor, and I will be there buying your stuff faster. Haha

I figured out what I'm going to do to keep the heaters controlled by the EB8 while keeping the Watts on the UPS below the max. I already had a Crydom A1225 solid state relay in my parts bin from my other hobby (espresso machines). It takes 120VAC as a control input and can switch up to 25A of 120V AC. I only have around 4A of heaters, so I will plug them into the wall directly with the SSR on the hot wire and will plug the control side of the SSR into the EB8 which won't see the current anymore, but will control them just fine.

I think you will win if we are racing. My floor is dead level, but super springy, so I am adding joists after emptying mine. Yours is a bit off level, but solid, so youre shimming.

To update on my weatherstripping attempt, I decided to do silicone for the over baffles and the weatherstripping for the "under" baffles which don't actually hold any pressure, they just direct the water. That seems to be holding really well.

Anyone know a good lumber store, hopefully out here up 270, that would carry 1-3/4" x 7-1/4" x 12' LVL trusses? I'm concerned that if I ask them for it at Lowes they'll look at me funny. I think after googling for a bit and talking to my architect father in law, two of those would fix me right up. Online Menards has them for around $50 each, so it would be a fairly cheap way to do it too, but we don't have those around here.

UPS supplies power when the wall power goes out. The UPS is plugged into the GFI at the wall and so is the 12v for the Apex main unit and the EB8 is the sole thing plugged into the UPS. If something trips the GFI at the wall or if we lose wall power the Apex main unit senses the loss of 12v power and goes into power failure mode which turns off everything but the Tunze powerheads and itself. I am risking that it was the powerheads that caused the trip, but I am ok with that risk.

Does anyone see skimmer weirdness after putting their greasy hands in the tank? I know Paul B doesn't. If he doesnt see rainbows on top of the water after feeding he adds more fish oil to his worms.

I actually think it doesnt look half bad.

Thanks for the comments about the son. He's a goof and also super excited about the big tank getting full. Really wants to see fish in it. One other complication that I only noticed after firing everything up is that I have 500W of heater plus 220W of LEDs, plus 100W of return pump. All of it is on the EB8. That's fine for the EB8 because it's well within the load limit, but it's also all on the UPS output because I have the EB8 plugged into a UPS. Now I don't intend to run it all if the power is out and it's being supplied by battery. I'll only run the powerheads in that case, but it's really convenient to just have the whole strip plugged into the UPS. Unfortunately, the UPS maxes out at 600W of power and makes a terrible shrieking noise if you go over that. Looks like I have to figure something else out to do. I could buy another EB8 or 4 and put the higher wattage stuff on there, I guess. Any other suggestions for what else I could do?

Ok. I do have easy access from underneath. They are in the finished part of the basement, but it is just drop ceiling. I know, basically, how the support joists give stiffness by resisting stretching on the bottom of the joists in the center of the span. I am considering sistering the two joists under the tank with 2x8s from sill plate to the center steel beam (13 feet). I would cover the new ones with glue on the top and side, hammer them into place nextto the existing joists, and then screw them. Then I would make the whole thing a box joint by gluing and screwing a 4x6 piece of 3/4 plywood to the bottoms of the joists. I feel that doing both of those things should give a pile of stiffness to the joists. Any structural engineers here agree? Heh. Think it would add enough stiffness if I skipped the sistering and just did the plywood panel? Any value in the extra expense of putting LVL beams in there to sister those joists instead of 2x8 pine?

Painted it black with many many coats of I think Rustoleum Premium or something like that. Spraypaint. Powerheads are Tunze 6095s.

I'm filling it!! I have a blowhole 1450 on the floor downstairs and am pushing it to about 5 foot high upstairs. Filled about 4 inches in 1.1 minutes so that's 13.8 gallons in my 75 gallon tank or almost exactly 750 gallons per hour which is what I was shooting for and exactly what the 1450 is rated for with that much head. But now I can bounce on the floor in front of it and see how much the water moves. I need to do some reinforcement, not because I think it will fall through, but to remove bounce. Would appreciate advice on that. I have 2x8 members underneath parallel to the long axis of the tank. It sits on 2 of them.

They're really strong. You're right, that it's cantilevered out, but the verticals will pull the toggle bolts out of the wall way way before the cast aluminum L brackets will start to bend or turn loose. They're held on with Stainless steel hex head bolts and nuts that fit into the tracks of the aluminum. 87 3W led's total. in each of three groups I have: 10 Royal blue Cree 1000mA 5 Neutral White Cree 1000mA 2 405nm violet Exotic brand 750mA 2 430nm violet Exotic brand 750mA 4 Cool blue Cree 750mA 3 660nm deep red Exotic brand 750mA 3 cyan Exotic brand 750mA I don't think the 80/20 comes in stainless. It does come in much larger profiles. 1.5 inch is the most common, actually.

It seems to work fine just going to the two pins on the d120 and only dimming to 170mA. I haven't been able to do the tests with the opamp that Tom suggested, but I would like to before the fragfest. Just don't know when to get the time. Also, I'd eventually like to make a jumper cable to just go between the dimmer board and the driver so no wires need to be clipped.

It's bird netting, yes. People just like the look of the clear because it's about invisible. I bet if you asked nicely (and opened your wallet, hehe) you could get Adam to make you an acrylic frame with a curved acrylic front to fit your bowfront with a channel in it to hold a spline. I'm not totally sure it's possible to cut a spline channel into a curved piece of acrylic, but if he has a CNC it should be.

I made it out of 1inch 80/20. Black would be even nicer looking, so I may switch to that at some point. Here's an example of the material. It is easily gettabble from the manufacturer on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/80-20-Inc-1-x-1-T-Slot-Aluminum-Extrusion-10-Series-1010-x-24-Black-/400528103829?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d4155d995 It's two 5" pieces attached to the wall with toggle bolts through holes I drilled through the center of the extrusion. Then an L bracket that's actually the wrong size. It's for the 1.5" track instead of the 1" track. I need to get a different one. Then two pieces of 18" sitting on top of it. You're right that the light can slide forward and back on the horizontals, and the horizontals can be moved up and down in the track, even though I put the horizontals on top of the verticals so they don't go up and down, they can go the other way. The connection bolts and L brackets are really strong and 4 toggle bolts in the drywall should be way more than enough to hold it in place with no flex at all. Edit: by the way, the top of the Makersled heatsink has tracks for 1/4-20 bolts and nuts, so it can even slide from side to side.

Got my lights hung. Some cabinets are going to go around it, so it won't be so exposed. I still have some wire management to do. Came out nice, though. It's hung with 80/20. Fired up at 25% on all colors: