125 in wall reef

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

The lights do slide up and down on tracks w/ rollers. It will be raised and lowered with a small winch system. Good eye, reef angel!! I can raise them a total of 3 ft above the water so i have plenty of room to work in the tank. I can lower them to within 4 inches off of the water. There are emergency stops so if the lights would ever fall, they will never come closer than 6 inches from the top of the water. I can change that level if i want to.

The ballasts are mounted into the wall on the side of the tank. They will be vented to the inside and outside. In the winter they will be vented into the house for the heat and in the summer they will be vented outdoors. We are using something like a damper or a chimney flume that you use in a fireplace. Open, it vents outside. Closed, it vents inside.

My poor husband is working frantically to get this all done before Christmas when the families all come over. Not easy to do when you work 10 hrs a day.

I will post more pics as soon as I get them. I have a TON of aquascaping to get done. Everything is sorta thrown in there right now. I couldn't see very well because of the sandstorm. I just put it in and let it clear overnight. So ignore the crappy aquascaping for now. lol.

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

latest...enjoy

[Whoyah]

Very nice. I like the winch idea for the lights. Someone had there thinking cap on. I give it two :thumbright:

[Reef_Angel]

It made perfect sense to me Angie! When you clean or work in the tank, you don't want the lights right on top of you or have to move them out of the way. I can hear myself explaining to Dave just how I need it so I don't have a lot of hassle when I'm working in there. I can hear you doing the same thing to your hubby to!! lol However, I was thinking right before I read your post just how brave you were to let your hubby bring out the powertool toys before Christmas and company!! Brave Angie....very brave!! Good job to the hubby though! I guess he deserves that pool table!

[davejnz]

that looks awesome,great job

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Done except for the winch installation and trim work.

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

We are done working on it till after christmas. I went to La Crosse yesterday and bought two new additions. I bought a female scooter blenny to go with my male. He was constantly displaying and shaking so I figured I would get him a girlfriend for christmas. So far I don't think they have found eachother. The female is on one side of the 125 and the male is on the opposite side, lol. They haven't crossed paths yet.

I also bought a male percula to go with my female. He is about 1/2 the size of the female. They took all of 5 min. to get together, lol. No fighting or anything. I'm crossing my fingers since I didn't quaranteen them. With moving the tank I didn't have the QT tank up and running. So far everything looks good.

My corals are starting to open and get back to normal. (first the sand storm, then the reaquascaping stressed them out.)

I will post more pics when we get the trim and the winch system installed.

Angie

[dakar]

Looking great... Dan is quite the carpenter. If you can get some shots of the winch setup. Looks like I'm going to need some ideas.

Oh yeah and thanks... can you guess who got volunteered for a tiny project, take down and move the 180 now? Not to mention build a wall unit around it..... Just glad I have been booked solid enough not to start on the canopy for it.

[Reef_Angel]

hehehehe..... this is so funny but it's what I want and I don't want it any different. You don't close up a completely open wall when theres a wall almost exactly the size of the 180 the is like a dead space area in my sunken living room. I can't find anything I like to put there that I really like, but a bookcase...lit just right, with the tank and a classy ladder. That would be just to cool. The other dead spot is on the other side of the fireplace and that was filled nicely with a 7 person span. When that room is all redone, it's going to be like a romantic den. Then I want one of those thin screened tv's. Eliminate bulky stuff is the idea here. As soon as the doctors get some good diagnosis's on me, then I'm taking my like back and tearing the house apart. I love doing stuff like that. The kitchen is going to be done after Xmas if I can be cured quickly. Pray for me.

[AJ :)]

OK so I know this thread in ancient, but is this system still running? Would you give us and update? Old reefs are very cool to me.