The House of Orange

Reeflix · Feb 9, 2023

AAAAAHHHHH!!! this is so cool! I love the orange!!! I wish could get a tank that big...

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Reeflix said:
AAAAAHHHHH!!! this is so cool! I love the orange!!! I wish could get a tank that big...

Thanks, dude. I appreciate the support! One day, perhaps you will. It took over 30 years in the hobby before I was able to do it. Don't rule anything out!

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Okay, so the canopy was modified, painted, and lined with mylar. Time to get the lighting installed. That would be handled by six (6) 80w T5 bulbs and five (5) Kessil A360 WE's (Tuna Blue, of course). Additionally, a 5 bulb string for the APEX LSM was added to simulate moonlight, and since I'm not a big fan of Windex systems (no offence to the blue lovers out there, just personal preference), I added a strip of cheap blacklight UV LED's to help aid florescence. Here are some pics of it all coming together:

Reeflix · Feb 9, 2023

Fish Styx said:
Thanks, dude. I appreciate the support! One day, perhaps you will. It took over 30 years in the hobby before I was able to do it. Don't rule anything out!

one day i will!

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Time to start building the lift system! Okay, so like I mentioned previously, for this I repurposed a set of linear actuators designed to adjust heavy solar arrays. These would provide the vertical lift for the canopy, whilst industrial bearing slides mounted to 2x4 struts would provide stability and guide the contraption up and down. The entire setup would be mounted to the back of the stand and wired to a switch on its side. Here are some pics of it coming together:

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Reeflix said:
one day i will!

That's the spirit!

Reeflix · Feb 9, 2023

Fish Styx said:
Time to start building the lift system! Okay, so like I mentioned previously, for this I repurposed a set of linear actuators designed to adjust heavy solar arrays. These would provide the vertical lift for the canopy, whilst industrial bearing slides mounted to 2x4 struts would provide stability and guide the contraption up and down. The entire setup would be mounted to the back of the stand and wired to a switch on the side of the stand. Here are some pics of it coming together:

this is amazing!!!!!

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

So, if you've been following along thus far, I bet that this is about the time you're asking yourself if this thing actually works. It sure did!! Now, full disclaimer: I sound like a massive toolbag in this video, so no judgements, okay? No, seriously... lol. Okay here's a video of the thing in action. Special thanks to The Dainty Dictator for the assist:

Reeflix · Feb 9, 2023

whattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. i want that on my tank!

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Reeflix said:
whattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. i want that on my tank!

Maybe hold that thought and revisit it a bit later. I ran into some issues that will be discussed later on. That being said, I would 100% do it all over again with one minor change...

Sean Clark · Feb 9, 2023

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Now that the system was assembled, tested, and functioning as intended, it was time to shift focus to the interior of the house. A minor miscommunication with The Dainty Dictator meant that the original location that I had planned for the tank would no longer be possible. This complicated things, as the only other spot in the house where this thing could possibly fit was the sitting room in the front of the house. Unfortunately, the floor joists in that room run parallel to the wall it would need to rest against. Given the full weight of the system, I did not want it involuntarily relocating itself to the basement. So, it was time to reinforce the floor. To do this, I opened the ceiling in the basement, directly below where the tank would call home and sistered up the three joists underneath, double sistering the center joist. I then ran six (6) jackposts, rated at 18,000 lb load tolerance to the basement floor below. Did I mention that I was a big fan of over engineering things? Had I known that I would be reinforcing the floor and putting the tank there, I would have gone much larger, as the wall could easily accommodate a 10' x 2' x 2' tank. Oh well. Food for thought when it comes time to upgrade <wink><wink>. For note, the room in the basement there will be converted into a fish room / coral farm (hopefully) later this year. Anyways, here's a pic of the handy work:

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Now that a location for the system was locked in and structurally sound, it was time to run the electrical. For this, I enlisted the aid of my friend, David who is a licensed master electrician and owns his own company. We added four (4) 30 amp GFCI circuits to the breaker box (conveniently located directly below the tank in the basement). This will allow for the setup to be isolated on its own circuits and provide AMPle (see what I did there?) juice to run it. I also added a network jack and a pass through plate that I will use to run RODI tubing and an APEX cable to the basement below. Here's some pics of the work being done and of my service dog, Johann supervising the process:

Reeflix · Feb 9, 2023

Fish Styx said:
Maybe hold that thought and revisit it a bit later. I ran into some issues that will be discussed later on. That being said, I would 100% do it all over again with one minor change...

oh no! thats sad

Fish Styx · Feb 9, 2023

Sturdy floor? check. Electrical? check. Time to move this beast into position! For this, I needed to enlist the help of a couple of my buddies and bribed them with beer and food. I made some slow roasted, garlic pegged pork roast with dill cooked over a bed of apples and vidalia onions (which gets turned into a topping for the meat when it's done). I made sure it was in the oven before they showed up, so the smell provided added motivation.