Final leveling of the 400g - Saturday, Feb 5
by
, 02-10-2011 at 12:34 PM (11973 Views)
After looking at my tank full of water, I decided the tank had to be 100% perfectly level. It was down on the left end 1/8" for some reason, even though it was level every which way I'd measured it previously. It was a little frustrating to see this, but what can you do? Go out and buy another jack, that's what you can do. And get Wes to come over to help.
A club member lent me some 1" tubing.
I already had two 200g poly tanks in the back yard.
A trip to Harbor Freight yielded a second 12-ton can jack. I placed it on a small board on the carpet.
The matching one went in the fishroom.
And a trip to Home Depot for a couple of 4x4 posts. The cross member was cut to 60" long, and the uprights to 33.5" tall.
I screwed the uprights to the cross member to make sure there weren't any surprises. The tank only had to lift enough to slide in two shims, but why risk it?
The return pump was turned off, and I watched to see how full the sump would get letting the tank drain down to the penductors.
Fishing around in my plumbing gear, we found the perfect pieces to screw a union onto a Mag 9.5 and a piece with a hosebarb that fit the borrowed tubing. That was a momentarily rewarding experience, not having to run out and buy a fitting which only delays the project. The pump was placed in the tank and plugged in, and water was fed to the 200g container outside.
With it being 44F, it required plugging in a heater and a Tunze for flow. Due to water on the ground from the recent ice storm, the plugs were elevated on that small planter stand. The hose was clamped to make sure it didn't flop out.
Here's me coming back in after checking all was well, back to the warmth of indoors.
While the tank drained, I had to cut out two new shims. I used 1/8" acrylic since it wouldn't rust or deteriorate over time. It seems like any project I ever do and any solution I ever seek can be done with acrylic. I needed two 2" x 6" shims.
It was full to the top, and the tank was drained almost to the sandbed.
Wes and I each manned a jack, and working in tandem raised the end of the tank and stand about 3/16" to slide in the shims.
Here's a good couple of pictures of the rockwork from above.
Time to refill the tank. We moved the Mag 9.5 into the 200g and placed the ziptied the tubing to the return plumbing going into the tank, pointing the tubing at a piece of live rock to avoid blasting the sandbed. Once that was done, the pump was plugged in and we waited about 20 minutes for the aquarium to fill up.
Due to the extra high water level in the sump, the skimmer was quietly overflowing, which required me to clean that up once more.
Once done, the tank was completely level. Like it should have been all along.