smallreef April 7, 2012 Share April 7, 2012 you could strap him to the hood... then he cant bite anyone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbh April 7, 2012 Share April 7, 2012 I can see it now... Police officer: (sirens & lights going) Pull over sir. Dave: Uh, Officer, Please don't come too close. Officer: What do you have on your roof? Dave: Well, Sir, It is for my 3,000 gallon aquarium then when it gets to big, we will have a BBQ. Officer shakes head and gives a ticket and calls wildlife control for assistance..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w April 8, 2012 Author Share April 8, 2012 I can see it now... Police officer: (sirens & lights going) Pull over sir. Dave: Uh, Officer, Please don't come too close. Officer: What do you have on your roof? Dave: Well, Sir, It is for my 3,000 gallon aquarium then when it gets to big, we will have a BBQ. Officer shakes head and gives a ticket and calls wildlife control for assistance..... The Florida cops just raised an eyebrow and said that it wasn't recommended that I do over 65 with a 14' gator on the hood, but they let me off with a warning. The Georgia and South Carolina patrol officers said it was OK as long as I only stopped or parked in the trucking area of the rest stops, and the North Carolina officer asked if he'd be invited to the barbeque or he'd have to issue me a citation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef April 8, 2012 Share April 8, 2012 WAHOO!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hbh April 29, 2012 Share April 29, 2012 Just do me a favor, keep the Gator OUTSIDE the car! Lol! "Yes, sir, officer, I promise you I will keep it outside the car and yes, meet me in Maryland for the pig and gator BBQ.". Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraffitiSpotCorals June 30, 2012 Share June 30, 2012 So how's it coming? Needing help with anything yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wogga June 30, 2012 Share June 30, 2012 +1 Just saw this. Very interested. Would love to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w July 11, 2012 Author Share July 11, 2012 So how's it coming? Needing help with anything yet? Hey! Thanks for the offer. I've been starting up a business the past few months and it has been taking all my energy and time. I hope to get into the greenhouse again soon and get water in it before cool weather. I will let everyone know when I get to it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wogga July 11, 2012 Share July 11, 2012 Awesome! Looking forward to seeing this beast up and running! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flooddc July 11, 2012 Share July 11, 2012 Holly cow! It's insane! You need to charge entrance fee to see your tank once it's up running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 2, 2012 Author Share September 2, 2012 Holly cow! It's insane! You need to charge entrance fee to see your tank once it's up running. the only entrance fee will be that i will offer a beer for some friendly advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 2, 2012 Author Share September 2, 2012 (edited) Hey folks, after a several month hiatus (if you don't get into the greenhouse very early in the morning, the temps quickly get to 120 or higher) we got in the next logical step on the tank build, which was building a permanent set of steel stairs and a landing. A pic will be forthcoming in the next day or two. Now that the stairs are in, we can crawl into the settlement chamber and fiberglass the top panel onto it. This is easier said than done. Although the settlement chamber is a couple feet wide by 4' high and about 5' long, it is never any fun putting fiberglass cloth into the four top corners over your head and then painting the epoxy resin over all the exposed cloth edges. Invariably some epoxy drips into your hair and about the only way to get it out is to cut your hair. An old or disposable hat will be in order. Come to think of it, when working with fiberglass and resin, pretty much all clothing needs to be disposable. But as some posted pics will show, the tank runs along the perimeter of the sunroom. This is complicated by the fact that one needs to get into the room somehow and the way in is to come down two short sets of stairs. The settlement chamber and connecting tube are both permanently under water because they go under the stairs. So the fiberglass work on these two parts needs to be perfect so we don't see fine sprays of water shooting across the room when we fill the tank up. More to come... Edited September 2, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) Oops, sorry this image came through so small. I will go back and try to figure out how to make it bigger. Anyway it is the stairs from the slider door landing down to the sunroom floor. The grey slotted area in the floor is a drain to which the rest of the floor will slope so I can use a garden hose to clean the floor. Directly under the landing is the sloped settlement chamber, which is about 4' deep. My current thinking on the settlement chamber is to put a couple hundred oysters on an eggcrate structure in there so they can eat whatever plankton gets past the corals. Then the oyster droppings (as well as waterswept poop from the rest of the tank) drop to the bottom of the settlement chamber where a sump pump can turn on for a few seconds or so per half hour and remove all the settled poop from the tank. I'd like to fill these stair treads with granite slabs which is a very slippery surface when wet, so I'm thinking of how to cut the granite for traction or use grout joints between the granite for traction. I may ditch the grantite and put in a tile with embedded carbonate grit which works well when wet. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef September 3, 2012 Share September 3, 2012 hrrrmmm yeah unless you want to take a diamond bit and scribe lines in the granite (will look HORRIBLE when done) there is really nothing I can think of to do.. A clear coating with sand would work but will make it not look like granite.. so whats the point? Id use a tile that does not get slick when wet like a rough slate or something of that nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 hrrrmmm yeah unless you want to take a diamond bit and scribe lines in the granite (will look HORRIBLE when done) there is really nothing I can think of to do.. A clear coating with sand would work but will make it not look like granite.. so whats the point? Id use a tile that does not get slick when wet like a rough slate or something of that nature Actually I like your idea very much. I have a granite saw and the blade is perhaps an eighth inch wide. If I set several scribed lines an inch back from the edge, perhaps I will get traction between that and the front corner of the slab. I could also go for a two tone look, with the last inch of granite at the nose of the steps being one color, then a quarter inch of grout between the nosings and the balance of the slabs (perhaps about 12 inches) being a second color of granite. Traction for a shoe would be the grout joint and three granite edges in the inch of tread closest to the nose of the step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) I was hoping this image would come through larger but see that I'm still making the same mistake. I will keep trying to find out how to copy and past the larger images into my photobucket album and from my gmail account to here. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) OK, so I got this one right. Anyway, this is the lower half of the stairs that drop from the sliding door landing to the floor of the sunroom. From this pic you can see that the settlement chamber is right under the landing and the top isn't on it yet. The top is that loose yellow piece of plywood that is sitting on the steel frame, and needs to be put in place from inside the chamber. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) here's another pic, hope it doesn't make you dizzy. Having removed the plywood, you can see down into the settlement chamber before the lid is fiberglassed in place. Sorry that I didn't clean out several months of dust and other things that dropped in to dirty the bottom. The very light (nearly white) colored area directly under and to the right of my foot is the approx three square foot opening where the open tank flows into the chamber, and the light blue colored hole in the opposite end of the chamber is the same sized opening where the water flows out of the chamber, through to the blue/grey tube and on to the refugium. The orange colored areas are the result of putting opaque orange epoxy over light yellow colored birch plywood. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) another picture, this one is where the connecting tube empties into the refugium right by the paper plate. At this point there is no glass on the front of the refugium and the weld hasn't yet been ground smooth. The stainless angle of this area is the refugium and the water level is the top of the refugium, so I hope you can see that the connecting tube is like a large pipe. It is filled with water and always under about 3 psi of pressure. So if a hole ever occurred in this tube it would drain most of the tank! Thats why we connected it with about 7 layers of thick fiberglass roving to make it stronger than steel. But all the epoxy drippings also made it look messy. Messy or clean, it is very strong because it must hold about 250 pounds of water. Shelving will built below the tube to store things and to help support the weight. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanglandJoshua September 3, 2012 Share September 3, 2012 It sounds like you guys are sticking with the idea of cutting this slippery stone. So if traction is your worry, why not glue a similar colored sand onto the high points in a "marble pattern". Or just coat the high points with truck bed liner...just a couple off the wall ideas. No matter what you do its going to be incredible! Its been a while since your last update, and I've been wondering what you guys were up to with that monster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 Just for comparison, here is the tube after it was fiberglassed, but before it was lifted into place and connected. Also, in this earlier picture it is yellow from the fiberglass. We put several coats of epoxy primer inside and out, knowing that we would never be able to get in such a tight space again to seal the fiberglass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) OK, last pic for now. This one shows the bottom half of the steps, the landing at the slider door, and part of the top half of the steps leading up to the house. The grey slotted drain of the sunroom floor shows, as does the red tube for hot water, the yellow settlement chamber and the blue/grey connecting tube. If the previous 3 pics didn't put you to sleep, this one will. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w September 3, 2012 Author Share September 3, 2012 (edited) It sounds like you guys are sticking with the idea of cutting this slippery stone. So if traction is your worry, why not glue a similar colored sand onto the high points in a "marble pattern". Or just coat the high points with truck bed liner...just a couple off the wall ideas. No matter what you do its going to be incredible! Its been a while since your last update, and I've been wondering what you guys were up to with that monster! Joshua, I still haven't made a final decision on the steps yet. Granite would look great and I have enough scraps for the treads, but a safer alternative would be quarry tiles with an embedded carborundum grit. I've used them before and they still have good traction when wet. I would worry that glued sand may not adhere well to the granite, but I may be wrong on that point. Edited September 3, 2012 by dave w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanglandJoshua September 3, 2012 Share September 3, 2012 I have no clue either, most glues need two non non permeable materials to adhere. But another idea came to mind, sandblasting. If you protect what you don't want roughed up you can smooth the lower areas. Keep the look, and maybe add traction. Without using glue. It might take a lot of blasting to get that effect though. It sounds like you have plenty of experience with this material, do you think it would work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8 2 RISE September 3, 2012 Share September 3, 2012 Am I looking at this correctly in that the water flow will be coming "up" out of the fiberglass tube? It seems to me that you're going to get a lot of settlement right here at the elbow because the detritus won't necessarily be pushed up. I really like your idea of the settlement chamber, but I wonder if it's big enough for the detritus to be able to fall out of the water stream... will you have any way of siphoning out detritus from the bottom of the tube if need be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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