The Drop Off Tank !
- Thread starter Neil H
- Start date
oh no!....now what?
a lintel normally rests on half a brick length upto a full brick length on either side of the opening, it seems you chipped the wall a bit far from the opening and might have missed the lintel.
drill holes from below up into the wall, if the first 10mm is easy and it then gets tuff to drill the lintel is probably there, much easier to close a 10mm drill hole...
drill holes from below up into the wall, if the first 10mm is easy and it then gets tuff to drill the lintel is probably there, much easier to close a 10mm drill hole...
tagging along
I did that as well, there was only one long lintel in place, had a couple of experts assess the thing and basically to be 100% sure i would have had to insert a new second longer lintel, or or or ..... none of the options available to me were acceptable in terms of the risk or expenditure.... I accepted the fact that i was back to square one !
butcherman
Moderator
so your just teasing us here NEIL H?not many months but we are getting close to what the build is actually about
Its about time mate, this tank it gonna be a force to reckoned with! I've got an idea for the tank, I'm sure you've thought about it already, but still. We'll chat!
Tagging along.
Ja thats about right :razz:
A glass Box
Well after moping around the house for a few days I kind of realized that the wide tank I had wanted was not going to happen, so time to settle for second best ……. Just a normal rectangle glass box, utilizing the available space (1700 x 600) giving me about a 500L tank.
So again I went into the design phase and drew up a sketchup model …..
It looked NICE, it was a good Second place …….. !!!!!
BUT Mrs Brown who teaches Grade 1 is NIIIIIICE…. And Second place is also good I spose ……. :nono:
I was NOT happy with this design, this was not the amazing tank I had been dreaming about…..but without major alterations to the house there was no other option….. or was there ? :razz:
And my next long post will take me ages to write up…. So for that you are probably going to wait a good while
Well after moping around the house for a few days I kind of realized that the wide tank I had wanted was not going to happen, so time to settle for second best ……. Just a normal rectangle glass box, utilizing the available space (1700 x 600) giving me about a 500L tank.
So again I went into the design phase and drew up a sketchup model …..
It looked NICE, it was a good Second place …….. !!!!!
BUT Mrs Brown who teaches Grade 1 is NIIIIIICE…. And Second place is also good I spose ……. :nono:
I was NOT happy with this design, this was not the amazing tank I had been dreaming about…..but without major alterations to the house there was no other option….. or was there ? :razz:
And my next long post will take me ages to write up…. So for that you are probably going to wait a good while
Manic
Retired Moderator
If you want to go for the bonsai look I have the perfect thing to hold the rock up. I'm using it in my tank and at the moment it is holding a lot of live rock up with a really thin rod.
Tobes
Retired Moderator
Nice going Neil, now out with the rest
Ahhh, dude you cant just leave us hanging like that!
Awesome build log, well done so far
Awesome build log, well done so far
The Drop Off
Ok, enough of the pre-tank story….. now lets get to the point where a proper decision was made.
I have made many friends while on MASA, not least of which is Dallasg. Dallas and I have been plotting about my new tank since November, swinging from one idea to the next ….. yes the two previous idea’s were no the only idea’s that we looked into. But at the end of the day one single idea kept coming back…. Triggered by a single picture and here is the picture ……..
A Drop Off Tank
I cannot begin to describe how many times I discussed the concept not only with Dallas, but with many members of this forum, Reef Maniac, Leslie, Crispin and JacquesB to mention but a few.
There are a NUMBER of unique challenges in a build of this sort.
How do you calculate the glass thickness required???
How do you compensate for the different compression of the shallow side and the deep side on the polystyrene????
The list goes on and ON ……
I went as far as approaching international forums where there are to my knowledge only 4 tanks that have even been shown. The first tank comes from the east somewhere and if I have to guess, drops from a depth of 15cm to about 60cm, the pressures and complexities are simply not comparable
Then there are 2 acrylic drop off tank builds that have been published, one in the US and one in the UK…. While these builds were comparable in dimensions, they were made of acrylic…. And thus not comparable in terms of the pressures involved.
The US Tank
The UK Tank
Some people went as far as recommending 32mm glass thickness all around, even at wholesale prices that is the price of a small car, not to mention the distortion and green color that would have been involved.
I spoke to the SA DIY GURU’s and they were honest enough to say they simply did not know…. I spoke to structural engineers who replied with all the confidence of eish …… I downloaded structural glass modeling programs to simulate the stresses….. no clear result…… bugger it, I now knew what I wanted but had no idea how to get there ……..
Anyway at this point I had ordered the steel and had two construction diagrams sent, one with the glass box stand and one with the drop off stand ……. Dallas sent me a link to the 4th drop off tank, seen below this tank has been featured on MASA before !
I was drooling over the tank yet again, anyway after some time cruising through the site I came across a CV of the gentleman concerned …….I gleaned one vital piece of information from the CV I downloaded, an e-mail address……. What the hell, I had nothing to loose….. and so began a e-mail conversation across the world that changed my build from concept to reality.
I canned the glass box idea…. Drop off it was come hell or high water (a poor description I agree)
Philippe is the owner of the 4th magnificent drop off tank, and he happens to be a Professor of Coral Ecosystems at the University of Belgium. My humble thanks go out to Philippe for him taking the time to chat to me about design, building and filtration on my new system. His input gave me the courage to call up Pads who built a magnificent stand for me and tell him, drop off it is…
We are pretty close to where i am now.... now the posting will be a lot slower as the build progresses......
So there we have it, a Drop Off Tank it is !!
Ok, enough of the pre-tank story….. now lets get to the point where a proper decision was made.
I have made many friends while on MASA, not least of which is Dallasg. Dallas and I have been plotting about my new tank since November, swinging from one idea to the next ….. yes the two previous idea’s were no the only idea’s that we looked into. But at the end of the day one single idea kept coming back…. Triggered by a single picture and here is the picture ……..
A Drop Off Tank
I cannot begin to describe how many times I discussed the concept not only with Dallas, but with many members of this forum, Reef Maniac, Leslie, Crispin and JacquesB to mention but a few.
There are a NUMBER of unique challenges in a build of this sort.
How do you calculate the glass thickness required???
How do you compensate for the different compression of the shallow side and the deep side on the polystyrene????
The list goes on and ON ……
I went as far as approaching international forums where there are to my knowledge only 4 tanks that have even been shown. The first tank comes from the east somewhere and if I have to guess, drops from a depth of 15cm to about 60cm, the pressures and complexities are simply not comparable
Then there are 2 acrylic drop off tank builds that have been published, one in the US and one in the UK…. While these builds were comparable in dimensions, they were made of acrylic…. And thus not comparable in terms of the pressures involved.
The US Tank
The UK Tank
Some people went as far as recommending 32mm glass thickness all around, even at wholesale prices that is the price of a small car, not to mention the distortion and green color that would have been involved.
I spoke to the SA DIY GURU’s and they were honest enough to say they simply did not know…. I spoke to structural engineers who replied with all the confidence of eish …… I downloaded structural glass modeling programs to simulate the stresses….. no clear result…… bugger it, I now knew what I wanted but had no idea how to get there ……..
Anyway at this point I had ordered the steel and had two construction diagrams sent, one with the glass box stand and one with the drop off stand ……. Dallas sent me a link to the 4th drop off tank, seen below this tank has been featured on MASA before !
I was drooling over the tank yet again, anyway after some time cruising through the site I came across a CV of the gentleman concerned …….I gleaned one vital piece of information from the CV I downloaded, an e-mail address……. What the hell, I had nothing to loose….. and so began a e-mail conversation across the world that changed my build from concept to reality.
I canned the glass box idea…. Drop off it was come hell or high water (a poor description I agree)
Philippe is the owner of the 4th magnificent drop off tank, and he happens to be a Professor of Coral Ecosystems at the University of Belgium. My humble thanks go out to Philippe for him taking the time to chat to me about design, building and filtration on my new system. His input gave me the courage to call up Pads who built a magnificent stand for me and tell him, drop off it is…
We are pretty close to where i am now.... now the posting will be a lot slower as the build progresses......
So there we have it, a Drop Off Tank it is !!
Good to see you getting a thread done Neil...all the best mate!
To get back to your lintel problem...can u not get a contractor to put one in then break down the wall below?
My builder (currently doing my new stoep build) put one in to cover a set of 4.8m wide double folding doors....and two days later was standing and doing cart wheels in the middle of it.
p.s. what ever you do....don't settle for a tank width of 60cm, aqua scaping will be a problem....90cm would be great, stick to the dimensions you wanted and rather "make a plan"!
To get back to your lintel problem...can u not get a contractor to put one in then break down the wall below?
My builder (currently doing my new stoep build) put one in to cover a set of 4.8m wide double folding doors....and two days later was standing and doing cart wheels in the middle of it.
p.s. what ever you do....don't settle for a tank width of 60cm, aqua scaping will be a problem....90cm would be great, stick to the dimensions you wanted and rather "make a plan"!
ok...so you were typing as I was typing...drop off tank looks really cool!
Tagging along !