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Installing the tank
The tank is acrylic - I would actually have preferred glass but I couldn't find anyone willing to custom build a glass tank with the angle in it. They all said the angle would cause the seams to be compromised during shipping. Acrylic has advantages, but of course it will get scratched, and since I have young kids I just planned on it happening. And yes, it did. On the other hand, there are some nice things about the acrylic tank:
My tank was built by Tenecor, and other than the problem with the angle not being precise, it is very high quality construction and was done just like I wanted. The overflow chambers are actually attached on the back of the aquarium, instead of taking space out of the tank. Also, the back of the tank is blue acrylic, so you don't see through to the overflows, the room, and the equipment behind. I really like the blue effect. Moving the tank into place was a real adventure - we already had the front door installed, which is really large, but not large enough to get the tank (with the bend and the external overflows) through the opening. The only option left was the sliding glass door to the deck in the back. One big problem with that - our house is on a slope, so the deck is up on the second level in the back!
Once the stand was ready, it was time to move the tank into place. One important construction note: Before putting the tank on the stand, I covered the plywood with 1/2 inch of styrofoam, purchased at Home Depot for like $5. This ensures that any slight irregularities in the surface don't crack the tank. For example, imagine if there were a little pebble on the stand, and we put the tank on it. All the weight would be right on the little pebble, and when you fill the tank it would crack. Now imagine the same pebble, but with the styrofoam. The pebble pushes its way through the foam, still distributing the weight of the tank evenly across the entire surface of the foam. While I was sure to clean off any pebbles, there are still knots in the wood, and who knows what else. Despite what you might think, the weight of the tank does not crush the foam. The foam is strong enough to keep its full 1/2 inch thickness even when the tank is filled with water. It simply evens out the distribution of weight across the whole bottom of the tank and the whole surface of the sand. Above right you can see the frame, the angle iron and 2x6's, the plywood and the foam under the tank. I don't have any pictures of the actual tank-moving event because I was too busy to be taking pictures. I invited a bunch of friends, and we grabbed a few of the workers, and eight of us carried the tank from the deck outside. We put the tank into the whole in the wall and pushed it back into place. Wow, what a relief to have it in place at last!
The tank was in place, but it was still very much a construction zone Next step was getting the walls painted and the floor (with the drain) put in. I wanted to get all the painting done to avoid the toxic fumes when I had living things in there, even though the rest of the house was still weeks away from being painted. I also used plywood to completely board-up the tank outside the room. The risk was too high that construction workers would bang the tank or gouge it accidentally. The house was still very much an active construction site.
Next I installed just enough plumbing (which is stubbed out above) to get things running.
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Luckily we had a few really brave, and slightly crazy people around to help.
Brad Daniels, the owner and operator of The Aquarium in Sandy was on site to
help - talk about customer service! The brick masons had a bobcat with a very high fork-lift which they use to
lift heavy brick high onto the scaffold. We loaded the tank onto the fork lift, and
tried to lift it. Unfortunately, because of the angle in the tank, the pallet
had to be 14 feet long and 5 feet wide. The forks were not long enough, so the tank
would tip back off the forks whenever we tried to lift it. No problem - our
general contractor Rob, and one of the framers simply jumped on the pallet with
the tank, the extra weight tipping the tank and pallet back onto the fork. They
rode with the 800 pound tank up to the deck! Believe me, I was nervous as my
dream tank teetered at the top of a fork lift with a couple of guys standing on
one side to keep it from toppling off! 
Once
I had the tank on the deck, it took another week or two before we were ready to
move it into place. I had to wait for the sheetrock guys to finish, and I had to
build the steel-frame stands that would carry the bulk of the aquarium weight,
leaving the space under the tank open for equipment and pumps. After some
consultation with his high-school welding instructor, my son got the materials
and welded the steel frames. There are two separate frames, one for each
"leg" of the tank. At the top side of the frames, we welded angle
iron, upon which we laid 2x6's to span across the frame. We then put 5/8 inch
plywood on top of the whole thing, and shimmed the frames to ensure the whole
thing was perfectly level.
Here
you can see the structure of the stands. The 1x3 steel tubing had angle iron
welded at the top to support 2x6 lumber across the top for a strong, flat
surface. Underneath, we shimmed the steel frame to ensure it was level. The
shims are exactly on top of floor joists. I knew that we would later put a
mortar bed over the entire floor sloping to the drain, and the mortar would fill
the gap under the frame between shims. This would ensure the weight was
distributed across the floor, and not just on the shims.
We
poured the mortar bed in the room, and ensured a gentle slope would carry any
water to the drain. I filled in under the steel frame stand, so I would have a
flat surface to work with, as well as having a slightly elevated surface. This
ensures that if there are any leaks, the water will flow away from any pumps and
equipment toward the drain. I painted the entire floor with epoxy paint, then
again painted the floor and about six inches up
the walls and the stand with a waterproof elastomeric paint. I put a rim around
the heating duct which is in the floor, to ensure water leaking from the sink or
anywhere else would flow around the duct opening, instead of down it. When this
was all done, I had a completely water-proof room with a drain in the bottom!
