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Tank shutdown and re-build


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Now comes the million dollar question; what do you do with a 600 gallon tank with a busted seal? Again with Jeremy's help we put some feelers out and found one guy that wanted it as is. After some texts back and forth he was going to bring his friend and pick the tank up. Needless to say when the time came he didn't show up and went silent. This did not surprise me too much and actually made it a little easier, I would have to take the sliding door out twice. I made the decision to breakup the tank and take it piece by piece to my dumpster at work. Now the real fun starts. I started in the back and had some careful fun

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Not too bad, relieved some built up tension.

Now it was time to evaluate the system and make needed repairs and modifications. Since the tanks are different sizes and the overflow's are different I would need to remove the sump and stand and start over fresh. I would also need to reconfigure the opening in the wall.

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Well with everything out it was time to modify the sump with some baffles and an area to hold filter socks. I was working on this when all s_ _ _ broke loose. While cutting a piece of Plexiglas on the table saw it bound and kicked back, the finger lost that battle. End story is they saved the finger by  inserting a 3" pin to hold finger together and fixed all the structural damage. I returned home to contemplate what to do, with less than 3 weeks until the new tank arrives I still had a lot to do. When it rains it pours

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After your experience and mine I am nervous about cutting it on a table saw.   In my case I didn’t have a proper blade for it.   It melted and grabbed.   Glanced off my hip (which was luckily at a 45deg angle the way I was standing) cutting my jeans before rocketing across the garage.    Scary for sure.   Glad yours turned out relatively ok!

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I understand totally, mine was a combination of factors. Blade was a cross cut but not with fine enough teeth for thin plexiglass, using the wrong pushing guide, and not waiting for help. Yeah we found the piece 15 yards behind the truck (went over the truck) up against the fence after hitting my finger. It is amazing the speed and force it came off there with.

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Holy Cow Bill!  Loved your previous tank and am certainly looking forward to seeing how this all turns out.  Very glad to see that your finger will be ok and that you are continuing with the aquarium build!

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On 10/14/2019 at 4:55 PM, TYRYFIN said:

Well with everything out it was time to modify the sump with some baffles and an area to hold filter socks. I was working on this when all s_ _ _ broke loose. While cutting a piece of Plexiglas on the table saw it bound and kicked back, the finger lost that battle. End story is they saved the finger by  inserting a 3" pin to hold finger together and fixed all the structural damage. I returned home to contemplate what to do, with less than 3 weeks until the new tank arrives I still had a lot to do. When it rains it pours

IMG_3377.jpg

Ouch!

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Plumbing this time around went as good as it could, I was not in a hurry and I rearranged the skimmer and UV to be more accessible so things went pretty smooth. I also changed from external to internal pumps for this tank and added an additional one to help with all the auxiliary equipment.  This eliminated one large manifold system that was complex to build the last time. The tank has a center overflow with all connection inside of it. The (3) two inch drain lines were dropped straight down into the sump with 1/4 turn valves to regulate flow and the (2) 1.5 inch returns were plumbed separately to ensure that if one pump failed then flow would continue between the sump and tank. The skimmer, chiller, calcium reactor, and the Macro-algae Reactor were plumbed to one of the return pumps and the UV was plumbed to the second return pump. I also learned from previous builds to use as many unions as I can, this helped to prevent bad joints. I had the back panel drilled in each corner with (2) two inches holes, one would be used for the closed loop and the other one is what I call the Oh S_ _T hole. This is for the off chance that the drains to the sump clog and would keep the tank from over filling. I will post some pictures later

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