Hi all. As most of you know, I've been busy planning a bigger tank for some time now. Unfortunately it did not go as originally planned but everything is back on track. I am in the process of renovating my house and due to a lot of breaking and ceiling replacing - a lot of dust was all over the place. So for the last couple of weeks we were all living(eating, drinking, sleeping, watching tv etc) inside the main bedroom and we are all a bit gatvol of this place. Fortunately we are starting with the back section of the house and I'll definately change the bedrooom.. Enough of that...
I originally planned a 3700 lt Concrete system but due to space (The wife's version - according to me there is plenty space) had to make it a tat smaller. Then came all the equipment issues. I eventually settled for a 3000lt system but the guy I bought the glass from in Johannesburg, misread the size and cut it smaller than ordered (Again to the joy of the wife) and I again planned around the glass size (Only one viewing pane).
So after all this issues had to go for a 2340lt system. At least it is bigger to the existing one but not completely to what I planned.
So we started breaking walls, retiling and receiling the whole house, new kitchens, bathrooms etc, and then came the time for the long awaited tank.
I built a base that could be strong enough to hold 03 tonnes of weight.
Worked out the reinforcing I needed. The difficult part was not to have deflection on the base as I was worried about the front glass panel. The best I could get was 0.2 mm short time (01 year or less) and 04 mm deflection- long time( 10 - 15 years). But it was difficult to get almost zero deflection as I did not want to build support beams below the slab that would geopordise space for future refugiums etc. But the latter eventually outweighed the 1st and to my dismay had to put extra beams (In time i'll work around that)
Next came the moving issue of the existing tank. So I SET OFF ealy Sunday morning with a lot of empty drums. Filled them up and came back to the house to start emtying the tank. Fortunately you get good people like Herkie and he brought a huge tank and pump and a lot of hands from Kwambonambi to assist me in this job. We emptied (well almost) the existing tank into the huge drum he brought, moved the tank (It was standing in the place the new tank was gonna be built) and re filled it with water. Believe me. An almost 1000lt tank (without most of the water) full of rock and coral is not easy to move - Again a Big Thank you to Herkie as well as his whole family that helped.
Ok, let me start a new post regarding the new tank and equipment.....
I originally planned a 3700 lt Concrete system but due to space (The wife's version - according to me there is plenty space) had to make it a tat smaller. Then came all the equipment issues. I eventually settled for a 3000lt system but the guy I bought the glass from in Johannesburg, misread the size and cut it smaller than ordered (Again to the joy of the wife) and I again planned around the glass size (Only one viewing pane).
So after all this issues had to go for a 2340lt system. At least it is bigger to the existing one but not completely to what I planned.
So we started breaking walls, retiling and receiling the whole house, new kitchens, bathrooms etc, and then came the time for the long awaited tank.
I built a base that could be strong enough to hold 03 tonnes of weight.
Worked out the reinforcing I needed. The difficult part was not to have deflection on the base as I was worried about the front glass panel. The best I could get was 0.2 mm short time (01 year or less) and 04 mm deflection- long time( 10 - 15 years). But it was difficult to get almost zero deflection as I did not want to build support beams below the slab that would geopordise space for future refugiums etc. But the latter eventually outweighed the 1st and to my dismay had to put extra beams (In time i'll work around that)
Next came the moving issue of the existing tank. So I SET OFF ealy Sunday morning with a lot of empty drums. Filled them up and came back to the house to start emtying the tank. Fortunately you get good people like Herkie and he brought a huge tank and pump and a lot of hands from Kwambonambi to assist me in this job. We emptied (well almost) the existing tank into the huge drum he brought, moved the tank (It was standing in the place the new tank was gonna be built) and re filled it with water. Believe me. An almost 1000lt tank (without most of the water) full of rock and coral is not easy to move - Again a Big Thank you to Herkie as well as his whole family that helped.
Ok, let me start a new post regarding the new tank and equipment.....