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Old 07/10/2007, 09:05 AM
Dudester Dudester is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 1,522
As I mentioned, the tank was transported from Kingfish to my house. Fortunately Dallas has a truck and he volunteered to replace the U-Haul I was going to rent. The thought of driving this beautiful glass tank in an open-bed truck at highway speeds was a little nerve-wracking but all's well that ends well. It was adequately padded and very well secured. Here it is, with the stand and some boxes of plumbing equipment that I had ordered on-line, backed into my driveway.





Here's another look at that starphire glass, with one leg of the stand just to the right.



While the tank was outdoors and easily accessible, we applied a black adhesive material to the back glass, the only non-starphire panel. Brian has applied this to numerous tanks in the past, and as a result the actual application process wasn't all that onerous. It looks incredible, just as good if not better than painting, and without the mess or risk of getting paint on other surfaces. The stand was leveled at its desired location, then the tank was taken indoors, with just enough space to squeeze through the front door. We then put Hayward bulkheads in all of the cutouts in the PVC bottom. In case anyone's counting and the numbers don't add up properly for you, it may look as if one 1.5" bulkhead is missing, and there are two extra 1" bulkheads. That's because one of the 1.5"ers was already installed, and the extra 1"ers are for the sump.



The OceansMotions Omniflex CL return nozzles were then plumbed into the bulkheads. Here's the tank on the stand, and note the black background (looks lighter on the right side due to glare, sorry).



You can barely see a mirror on the wall behind the tank. After a bit of negotiation and tremendous understanding on my wife's part, it will be coming down. Sure, it would have been a lot easier to remove the mirror BEFORE the tank was in place, but at least it's still dry and empty.
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