Lagoon style reef in Abu Dhabi now complete and running

[Duane family]

I've just finished gluing down a 3mm rubber strip to the bottom of the stand. I think the rubber is about a shore A80 so it's nice and soft and should be perfect for leveling out any minor stand inaccuracies or tile inaccuracies

 

[toi_ss]

Coming along quickly!

 

[Duane family]

Coming along quickly!

Thanks, it's likely because it was all planned long time ago and now it's just about assembly. I lost a good few hrs yesterday while we watched one of the best rugby games ever. I've got the display base pane on the stand now and might get the first panels prepped today still.

 

[Duane family]

Foam bonded to the base pane and the through hole for the overflow is done. I have a problem with all the PVC fittings I ordered. The order appears to be lost, I re ordered but the delivery date is 16Sept so there will be a delay in the plumbing work.

 

[Duane family]

More progress for the day. Display tank 75% assembled

 

[Duane family]

And the final pane is bonded. Wow that was alot of work, I'm so glad it's done. But next is to trim 20 linear meters of external edge silicone. It's all very rewarding but hard work.
Our wood panels for the cladding should be ready and I will collect those in the next few days.
The silicone is going to take 10days to cure so there is lots of spare time for other tasks which is why it's such a pity that the PVC plumbing had to be re ordered and time lost to that.

My wife has joined the party by starting a set of 3 paintings 500 x 400mm to go above the tank, basically one above each light fitting

 

[Duane family]

This evening I painted the back and side panes. Then I moved everything into place. You can see the original idea of the tank extending off the dinner table. Also some more tank equipment arrived today and the next few days many more packages will arrive. We have set aside the 21st Sept to drive out to a open ocean clean beach 3hrs away from town. Here we will collect some live sand which we will use to seed our display tank sand bed and use for our sump dsb. This means water in from then and within a day of then the tank should be running. It's been an absolute blast building all this and I'm looking forward to the rest.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Looks great so far. Nice job

 

[Duane family]

We have some progress to report.
The overflow is designed and built but not yet permanently bonded. I'm considering waiting to fit the PVC drain fitting before bonding this permanently. Will think about this.

 

[Duane family]

Then the wood cladding is fitted and looking real neat. I'm very happy with this. There will still be a cover strip fitted around the perimeter and above the wood panels. This will close off the base board and foam. Then the extension on the left side is for power points and power supplies. Depending on the size of the controllers I might fit them in a panel closing this area off at the top or I might put the controllers below this if they are to big. Will have to see what cards we are dealt. Our next task is sump compartments and the filter compartment in the QT tank, then wiring of our DIY ATO. 2 weeks to go till sand and water get added. Rock a week after due to curing.

The front wood panels are held on with magnets located at the top. The side panel will be screw fastened to the plastic printed brackets.

 

[Duane family]

I've just bonded the printed channels for the sump compartments and the filter compartment in the QT tank. These channels will give me the ability to fine tune the water height as needed by adding or removing 1inch high sections.

 

[Duane family]

Small bits of progress over this weekend. But atleast I can say that our carpentry work is 100% complete now with all cover strips attached. Unfortunately this is now where we hit a halt as next is our plumbing but this is only due to arrive on the 17th Sept unless we get an early delivery which is likely. Our rock arrives in 3 days and the barrels are ready to do a 7 day bleach cure then a 2 day dry/rinse cycle. After that we can assemble the scaping pieces. Both our skimmers arrive with the plumbing aswell as the gyre flow pumps. So we are still on target for a running system on the 22nd. The 3 Noonphsyce NP7 light fittings are also on their way from China. I don't like not being able to do something but the next few days I have no choice.

When I sit back and think that in exactly 7days all of this was built 100% from scratch and also part time, I think I'm happy with the result.

 

[Duane family]

Yesterday our boxes of live rock arrived and I was totally blown away, its the nicest dried 100% natural rock I have ever seen. In fact even the pieces themselves are fantastic. Mostly shelf type pieces with a few boulder pieces per box. I ordered a 4th box of rock just to have some more boulder pieces. The rock takes 7 days to ship from the UK so I will have to cure the new pieces separately. The first 3 boxes are in a bleach bath as of last night. The supplier is iAquatics UK

Also our plumbing parts will all be delivered today. This gives us the opportunity to go fetch live sand this coming weekend and start filling the tank up 1 week before planned, so that will be what we aim for. More than anything I'm looking forward to getting some work done in the next night or two.

 

[Duane family]

Pretty big day today, we received a bulk equipment delivery. We have gyre flow pumps, heater, return pump for main display and QT tank, test equipment, water parameter monitor and the protein skimmer for the QT system. Then the display tanks plumbing is complete so it will be able to cycle water.

We have scrubbed and rinsed the rock after a few days in a bleach cure mix. It will dry now for a few days in the sun. There are some benefits of 50degC (120F) temperatures. I think we can assemble the scaping Monday / Tuesday. I expect our main skimmer over the weekend but we don't need it for a few weeks.

Things are happening fast

 

[Duane family]

We came home this afternoon to a big surprise, our Hydor SK1000 skimmer was delivered today. This means that the only other equipment outstanding is our light units.

Tomorrow is our sand collection day. Then water.

 

[Duane family]

Our collection trip was fantastic, we grabbed a slice of DSB from a mangrove area, full of all the good stuff you'd ever want. And some real reef sand for our display, not white but tan in color. It was low tide on our visit and we were able to walk out to a reef and sit in 3feet deep water and had some beautiful fish come visit us as we sat still. It was an incredible experience.

 

[Duane family]

50kg of sand for the display

 

[Duane family]

A slice of DSB, here I was draining any excess water via holes I made in the bottom of the foam box.

 

[Duane family]

Here I have put the foam box inside the DSB area of the sump, I trimmed the sides of the foam box to be level with the side height

 

[Duane family]

Here I cut away the sides of the foam box leaving a nicely undisturbed section of DSB