Another new tank..

[psykokid]

I finally got the canopy done enough the design review broad would grant me a variance to bring it in and hook everything up.

closed:


open:


The halides are mounted onto a board with drawer type sliders on the inside. Works out pretty good.

Here's yesterdays photo with a single 250W halide and 2 39W t5:


And here's todays shot with two 250W halides and no supplemntation:


Not bad, i'm going to have to move the halides in towards the center a little bit as the center part of the tank seems kind of dark. I really like the way it turned out. Just have to sand down the finish and put another coat on using the smoothest roller i can and then mount the t5's, LED's, and the fan grills and call it a done project.

[Just_Greg]

it is me or is that tomato clown HUGE!?!

i know Jake is well aware of this, but actually, the adult size of clownfish (and other damsels) is fairly large, much larger than peeps realize, and when they get some size on them is when they REALLY get nasty.

[Bergy]

tomato and maroon clowns get to be really kind of nuisance BIG though.. as in why the hell did i get them to bigin with big...

as for your paint job... if you want the finest 'nap' for a finer/cleaner finish you can use 'mohair' roller sleave...

but.. what type of paint/coating are you puttng on?  oil/latx??

and is it paint or clear coat???

If it is clear coat, then i have a mohair sleeve for ya..

Also, if if it is oil/solvent based coating. then i would suggst 'laying off' the roller...i.e. put the coating on with the roller, (nice and even), then using a good brush to 'lay off' the roller texture.. that is.. after it is rolled on and nice and even, then use your brush with uber long strokes to go over the roller texter area...

If it is oil/enamel, then i can put the paint down for ya and it will look like it was sprayed on...  if it is latex, it can still be done, but you have to do it quickly and carefully...

I would suggest going over the latex finish with a clear coat...

Use an eggshell finish on the paint then a semigloss or gloss finish on the clear coat, and that should give you a great uber smooth finish... 

[psykokid]

I'm using Rusto Semi Gloss Black (oil ), main reason for that was to get the paint to lay down as smooth as possible. Latex dries too dam fast and doesnt "flow" like the old oil paints. I was also trying to match the stand as much as possible.

I did one end before i painted the whole thing, sanding between coats and it matches pretty good. I got the smoothest nap small roller i could to try and keep it from getting too rough. It still needs to go back outside and get sanded and then another coat. Theres a few spots i need to take down to the wood on the front panel and put a little filler in.

Gotta do my auqauascape or at least pull the rocks that are appie infested and toss them into the sump. Gotta open up some space and make room for the leaf fish to amble around upon. With the amount of LR i have in there right now i cant really even move things around.

I really like how it looks with the dual lights over the setup. It really evens out the light over the whole tank. I know i'm still going to have a bit of a dark spot over the center because of the glass bracing absorbing light but meh, i'll live with it.

The one thing i was really concerned with was the dual halides heating up the water too much. I ran them longer than i normally do last night (approx 6.5 hours vs the usual 4) With just one of the 120mm fans at the end of the canopy hooked up the water didnt  go over 81.5, which for me is really good. Often after having the halides running for most of the light cycle with the old canopy the temp would be edging up to 82-83 at the very high end of things. I attribute the lower temps to a couple of things.. one being that the lights are much higher off the waters surface with the new canopy vs the old (3" vs 7") and having bigger fans that move more air while making less noise. We'll see how temps stay once i have the other fan on and pulling air in and keeping a continuous flow across the bulbs in the canopy area.

[Learner]

It looks great Jake.

[Bergy]

rustoleum is great paint but it is made for metal.. which isnt reallyt a problem here, but what is kinda goin happen or goin on is that the paint is really thin. so you are really putting on a thin film... (FILM being the big issue here)

If you can put on a film that is about 3-5 mils thik, (about 3-5 pices of thick paper) and get that to 'flatten' out, ten you wont have to worry as much about teh sufrace of the wood and the grain or smaler sanding markes or what have you...

This is the big issue between 'old school and new school' paint techniques...

Newer technolgy lives breathes eats color sanding... i.e. sanding the paint to get rid of 'paint textures' issues


Where as teh old school techniques was to work the paint to flow and level off and let the designed 'sheen' to do the work...


your right about the latex drying issues, but if you put the paint on  uber thick, and even, (even being the mopst important issue), then it will come out nice too.

and of course im talking house and funiture paint, not metal paint, as i dont know squat about auto painting

And like 'bristle brushes ' are for oil based paint, mohair is for oil paints also... you wont hear teh snap or sound of bristles or foam when you use a good mohair roller


mohairs are usually used for doors and trim


You might also want to look at APPLIANCE paint... it is a very hard enamel paint and they have a really nice black finish... it's almost PIANO black/gloss black


Also, if you really wanted you can put on formica/laminate

that isnt hard to do either...

but, i know you already have it covered and will do a really good job.. im just offering suggestions for you or others in case they get into a project like this for themselves...

[psykokid]

The aqua scape is done, not sure how well I like it ATM. The way its setup its eating up a lot of valuable sand bed. I may need to trip down a few rocks so i can shove the rock work back towards the back wall. The anemone is on its own little island near the end of the tank and all of my frags are at the opposite end of the tank so i shouldn't have any more problems with the clown tossing small frags around.

[psykokid]

well here's the prelim aquascape. gotta wait till lights out to mount some of the pieces so the dam clown will stay in its nem and leave me the hell alone.


CLICK HERE

click on the link below the photo to bring it up larger from picasa. All of my fish are present and accounted for in this photo, see if you can find them all :)

[Bergy]

i actually likle the aquascape, at least the rock work... maybe move that stag or acro on the right side/shelf and move it to the left.. i know youwant it uyp hight  but it is a big piece already an dis kinda  off setting the rock work...

maybe put the acros together a bit make a cluster...

but, i like the step and the little shelf thing in the middle left for the future home of that lobo??

[Learner]

I wouldn't change a thing...it looks great to me. However, I think I'd borrow Amy's glove before I put my hand anywhere near that clown; he's big!!!

[Just_Greg]

nice Jake!  it looks like your leaf is a good-sized specimen...very cool.

[KYLE.801]

  on the aquascape!

[psykokid]

I'd had the skimmer out for the last week or so while i was re-arranging things and letting the new sump monkey settle in. So now my janky "S" trap for silencing the drain line and live rock are all settled into place, the crab in the live rock is doing good in his little tupperware and the mandarin has free reign of the appie infested live rock in the sump. I drilled a hole in the street elbow and ran a small 5/16 ID line out of the end of my janky "S" trap sillyness into the fuge to give it some water circulation. To use the flow that is already there instead of running another pump seemed to be a good idea. I finally filled the nitrate reactor with media last night and plumbed it today. It's going to run wide open for a day or so to get the air out and the media seeded. After that i have to ratchet back the flow and start really testing the effluent. Now i just have to get a low flow pump to put on my phosban reactor and my sump will be complete. That is until next weekend when i have to add the RO/DI, ATO and the PM Kalkwasser reactor from the free 125 gallon setup Lanny and I are picking up.

[psykokid]

So another of the pieces has fallen into place. I finally got my t5 actinics up and running and all of my moonlights installed and wired up and working right. It will be nice to scale the halides back to just a few hours a day. I'm sure my Edison bill will appreciate it as well. 500W of halides for 7 hours a day is sure to knock me up to tier 4 if not tier 5 pricing. Now i just have to get my 120mm fans warrantied so i can put them back in the canopy. Although i'm going to have to come up with a clever quick dismount system as i think now the end caps for the t5's will foul on the fans.  Other than that I just have to get the RKL implemented and working as it should, plumb the chiller and kalk reactor, find a smaller ballast for the halides I can mount under my stand and then be done until something else needs to be "upgraded" :)

[Bergy]

this thread is useless without PICTURES


you got the tech talk down perfectly but a picture is worth a thousand of those things...