Neptune Aquatics

Mike's Machination

Ok laid down tiles for the base, grouted it all in, kind of cheesed off that two boxes of the same color tile have a very drastic color change, but whatever it happens. Would post a picture but having very odd things happening with the pictures. First the flash is oversaturating the tile but whatever shiny tile and all that rot. But second is that the pictures look to be very "liney" almost like an interlaced video image, very obvious when you zoom in, and I'm not sure why this is happening maybe I whacked a setting or something on the point and shoot but it's supposed to be a point and shoot camera no effort needed no way to easily screw up the image!

Oh well, maybe I'll get a picture with the other camera if I can't figure things out. So next step is a waiting game, as my vent will be here sometime next week, I need to get dry wall in before I start building the framing up for the tank but I can't do that until the vent & humidistat are installed. Kind of double suck because the wife left to go do farm stuff for about a week and a half so now I can as big of a mess, as loud of a racket, whenever the hell I want, but I can't really get anything further done!! GRRR.. maybe I can build the base, just slide it away from the wall (but that summabitch is gonna be heavy).

Also toying with the plan to remove the antenna on my car, and see if I can't just put a few sheets of plywood & drywall on the roof and strap that and bring it home that way (because yes I'm a cheap ass bastard who doesn't want to pay the $20 to rent their truck :D
 
Yeah, but the thing is a Lowes is nothing but city streets away from me. So it's not like I'll be traveling terribly fast. Hell I got a big desk home from Ikea on the roof of my Geo Prizm going from Palo Alto to San Francisco on 101 going 65mph in the slow lane :D My hand was out the window holding on for dear life, apparently every single loop I tied with their string had about 5 inches of slack on it!
 
Well apparently the place I used to upload to is now a pay site, so let me give photobucket a try. So far, not liking it, in making it user friendly it actually makes it unfriendly to someone who just wants basic CLI type of stuff.

Anyways the base layer is done, I lurve reclaimed wood! And damnit if the flash picture shows every little spec of dust that was left over, half the stuff on the tiles I can't see in the light down there.

 
Previously new condition! :D

Honestly I have for a long time looked at a toyota tacoma pick up from the pre 2006 (I think) era, back when they were a reasonable medium size, unfortunately when Toyota made it just as big as the Tundra they basically assured that existing stock of Tacomas would be in high demand, as a result expensive as all hell.
 
Previously new condition! :D

Honestly I have for a long time looked at a toyota tacoma pick up from the pre 2006 (I think) era, back when they were a reasonable medium size, unfortunately when Toyota made it just as big as the Tundra they basically assured that existing stock of Tacomas would be in high demand, as a result expensive as all hell.

Taking the thread even more OT...

My new ride:



It's maybe 6 inches longer and just a couple inches wider. Long way from a Tundra!

You are right about the price of a used Tacoma. I was pleasantly surprised how much I got for the 'previously new condition' 2002.
 
It might still be smaller than a Tundra but it sure is closer to the 1st generation of Tundras than it is to the 1st generation of Tacomas, that's not to say the Tundra's didn't get larger either :D. Just looking at one I remember thinking it was a Tundra, but was surprised at how much larger they got over time. My nostalgic side misses those little 4 banger Toyota pickup trucks, now you tend to see those with plywood wall panels on the back and way overloaded with cardboard or some other recyclable material :D

And who cares about off topic saves me from doing work today! Although I'm going to make some chili in the crock pot, do a Ronco on that and set and forget it, and maybe build the sump platform.
 
To bring it back on topic, I got a pocket hole jig and used it to screw everything together. I originally was going to biscuit join everything, but I figure screwing would be easier, and considering how old the wood is (dry) I didn't want to risk splitting the wood by trying to just jam a screw in there at an angle.

I goofed on one though when I got a little over zealous with my impact driver, and and screwed it all the way through the first board and halfway into the second. Needless to say after that I put a piece of tape on my driver bit so I wouldn't go too deep :D
 
And to keep with the off topic theme, was looking at a video on a webpage and my monitor just artifacted, the speakers belched and the computer crashed, upon rebooting I see artifacts on the screen when any sort of "hi-res" display is up (i.e. BIOS boot screen, windows start screen, but not the ascii device driver page). *sigh* time for a new video card I'm guessing, now just need to find some Fry's ads to see if they have anything comparable to what I can get online price wise, because apparently "You need to buy over priced Monster brand cables" Best Buy has all this territory locked up or Fry's doesn't want to be less than hour away from one of the larger cities in the bay.
 
To bring it back on topic, I got a pocket hole jig and used it to screw everything together. I originally was going to biscuit join everything, but I figure screwing would be easier, and considering how old the wood is (dry) I didn't want to risk splitting the wood by trying to just jam a screw in there at an angle.

Good for you. Biscuits are considered more of an alinement aid and PH screws are structural.

Old timbers can be tough. Not only do they get hard with age but the wood was tighter grained then. I love to repurpose lumber too.
 
And the drywall is in the building! Little Prius did a bang up job without getting banged up :D The key probably was the fact I also needed a couple sheets of plywood for the top of the stand(s), as a result I was able to make a drywall sandwich so I could yank on my rope really hard and make it tight, which brings me to another question, WTF is with rope naturally wanting to be tangled up? I spent more time in the damn parking lot untangling my rope than I did driving home, then as I was typing it off, the other end got tangled up again! WTF! Also it's amazing how much you notice how fricking windy it gets as you're driving home with a 32 square foot sandwich on your roof! Luckily didn't need to go more than 25mph so so other than the jackasses who felt like tailgating me (didn't notice the big sandwich on the roof?), part of me was hoping my rope would break and the plywood would go right through their car, I mean hell I have good insurance so biggy to me! :evil:
 
Ok got some work done yesterday, worked up a good stank on me too! :D

ONE
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TWO
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THREE!
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And a little Instagram action here... no seriously that's exactly the effect I was going for!
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And to top it off...
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Michael Bay brings you, the tank so large, the sump needs it's own stand *lens flare*

Oh and hello sexy, look what showed up the instant I finished putting that top coat on.
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Unfortunately the work week is about to start, so I'm going to be limited to how much work I can do :( Seriously though, I'm a day or two away from putting in the sump, and then the task of buffing the hell out of it. Unfortunately that's a 2 man job, and my wife will still be gone another week... not to say my wife is a man... nevermind.
 
Ha, don't worry about the buffing part that's something that will take me quite a few days I'm sure. But I got the magic tool to help speed my task along.
 
It looks nicely built of course.

But what size sump goes on that thing???

A little sump is a non-issue, but a 180G tank is 1,500 pounds+.
I worry a little that it does not seem all that strong.
It is hard to see how big of a span you have on that central 2x4.
And the little pocket-hole cross braces are a bit iffy on sheer.
 
The longest span is a hair under 3 feet. The cross braces are not for sheer, they're to tie each of the 3 beams into one solid piece, they're not there for strength. Gussets are there for lateral strain, and the top board ties it all together, also plan on tying in some plywood on the side for additional sheer. I made a point to make sure everything was level in every damn direction. It's built to house a monster. And the main tank isn't going to be supported on this stand, only the sump. All the weight is on they tiny legs, and partially on the concrete block.

The math says the stand will be able to support 10x the weight of the tank as it is. I'm not worried.
 
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