USCG CWO Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I have to give some background first so please bear with me. Okay, so for those of you who don't know me I am in the Coast Guard here in Portland, and I'm a Coast Guard Investigating Officer. Basically I conduct maritime accident investgations, and represent the Coast Guard during administrative hearings for acts of mariner misconduct. We had a pretty drab conference/interview room in our office, so we decided to upgrade it to help make life a little better at work. So without further ado: We painted the walls and added a nice conference table and chairs, installed a 42" Plasma TV, a Onkyo 7.1 surround sound system, a Oppo 1080p upgrading DVD player, and we tied one of our computer workstations into the whole system. Next to come, video conferencing. Oh and I forgot to mention we built the entertainment stand and we added a 20 gallon tall, 175w MH with Hamilton magnetic ballast (Thanks Andy), and a sump we modified to include a skimmer section, refugium section , and submersible return pump section. So now that is out of the way, here's the pics. Let me know what you think. Basic Frame Adding Shelves Added Backing for top shelving Stain and polyed Getting there We have a few more things to take care of, like adding the skin to the middle and lower areas. I''l post more pics as we go. Thanks for looking. Shane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Looking good, Shane. Can't wait to see what happens next. Oh, and the ballast is a Hamilton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsoz Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 That is so cool. How many of you at the office are into salt tanks? dsoz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted February 13, 2009 Author Share Posted February 13, 2009 There are five of us in the office. All of us enjoy saltwater, only a couple are willing to pay for it. (whistle) Dang Andy, I could have swore you said PFO ballast. Oh well I corrected myself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I may have. I find that if I spread out my claims, I have a higher percentage chance of actually being right at one point or another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowman Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I may have. I find that if I spread out my claims' date=' I have a higher percentage chance of actually being right at one point or another.[/quote'] Dude, you're on fire today!!! Nice setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted February 13, 2009 Author Share Posted February 13, 2009 A couple more shots, front half and back half of the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Hey, nice job Shane - that is going to be a really sweet setup and that corner cabinet is looking sharp. I do think you need to angle the plasma TV a little bit more so the fish will get a decent view Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted February 17, 2009 Author Share Posted February 17, 2009 Here's an update. We added the rock and water and now everything is running. Latest pics. Here is what the middle skin will look like. We are trying for an in-the-wall look without actually being in the wall. The opening on the left will be framed and covered and allow for ventilation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 That is looking pretty good, I wanna have a conference in there when it is done. Please..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180Brandy Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 So what kinds of live stock will you be keeping? I like the fact that the tv is on the wall. Less cord mess!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted February 19, 2009 Author Share Posted February 19, 2009 Hey Brandy, I don't have pics, but so far we have added a small clean-up crew, two heads of frogspawn, one head of torch coral, small candy cane coral and a very small yellow watchman goby. We would like to keep whatever suits our fancy. We just have to be careful of over crowding. Shane PS: Don't tell my bosses but the TV is really for Friday movie day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180Brandy Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 mums the word!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 Neglected by Shane What's up everybody. I am a newbie to the forum and to the world of salt water (I had a fresh water setup but I f-ed that up royally a few years back). Feel free to throw your toad comments, I grew up in Mass and it will take more than that to get through my skin! I hope with your knowledgable input I can see the error of my way and I can set up a nice system. I am going to Highjack Shane's post of our conference room reef aquarium right now b/c he is busy with his new 75 gallon build and I feel he has been neglecting our office 20 gallon a bit (thanks Andy). Here are some more pics to see what is going on in the tank to this point. Tank a little more settled: Our Shrimp Chubby (when he see's you approach the tank he sways his front claws like he is doing the twist). Shane's duncans looked like *** when he brought them in, I will have to post an updated pic: Our Frog Spawn is loving life!! This mushroom is absolutlely thriving! Entire Cabinet with the front face boards on I appreciate you all for taking a look and I look forward to a lot of support when I venture to build my 40g breeder. Mike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsoz Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 Welcome Mike. Glad you could join us. Your pics are not showing up for me... :( How are the frags that I gave you guys doing? dsoz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted March 3, 2009 Author Share Posted March 3, 2009 What!!! What's up highjacker!!! Your pics are not showing up, you might have to use photobucket. This thread is yours until the misses gives you permission to begin the build of your 40 gallon. How are the frags that I gave you guys doing? dsoz Dennis our office tank looks amazing. All those corals you gave us are growing by leaps and bounds. It's insane! Even my home system isn't responding like this. Shane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 There's something magic about that 20gal tank -- no lie. It healed every receding, sad, sick coral I put into it. It's like Lourdes for cnidarians. Glad it's still got it's mojo. Hi Mike, Welcome! Where in Mass are you from? I lived in Nashua NH (just across the border) for several years, and my wife is a NH girl... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Andy, I grew up in Franklin, MA (45 min SW Boston). I love the east coast but I am glad I missed this winter, they are getting killed! One of my good buddies in college is from Rochester, NH. I apologize everybody for the picture dilema, I am going to correct that issue tomorrow and will add some more pics as well of the mostly finished product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Hey Shane and Mike - that is looking really sharp! Nice job with the tank and the cabinet and good luck with your own projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CCR Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I think watching a project\build is the best. A real fine job if I say so myself. Be proud of that one:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USCG CWO Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 I think watching a project\build is the best. A real fine job if I say so myself. Be proud of that one Thank you CCR. For being two burros:eek: who didn't know what they were doing, we are really happy with it. A couple of things I learned on this build: 1) I can't measure to save my (censored)!!!! (laugh) Mike is the math whiz and; 2) Do not skimp on the lights and skimmer. They will make or break a tank. IMO Shane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 Well we hit a bit of a snag the other day. For some reason all of a sudden we tripped our GFCI outlet we had all of our equipment plugged into, and when we got into the office everything was off. Shane quickly rearranged the electrical situation to get the necessary stuff on line so we didn't lose anything. Then later in the afternoon we had one of our unit electricians come over so he could install a new outlet so we could plug our AV equipment into a different outlet to reduce the load on the GFCI. Shane and I had to take off so we left the electrician to do his work. He made the effort to plug in all of our gear, however did not understand the timer setup, etc. He accidentally plugged in our MH light and it was on all night!!!!! When Shane got to the office everything was shrunk up and looked pretty hurting. We left the light off for a few hours before turning it back on to feed and everything seemed to respond OK to that. I hope tomorrow when we go into work that everything survived the ordeal. I will keep you all posted as we progress. In the near future we hope to be adding a clown fish, blue linkia starfish, mandarin dragonet, and a six line wrasse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 That tank turned out sick. I hope to see those Duncan's looking like this some day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undrtkr_00 Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 This is a 20g, right? If so, you may want to re-think the mandarin dragonet idea, unless you can get one that for sure eats prepared food. Many will only eat copepods, etc, and a tank that small is not really big enough to support an adequate food supply for that fish. I have a mandarin, and it is my favorite fish - but he has all the copepods in my 110 to himself, so he's fat and happy. They are a great addition if you can guarantee they'll have enough to eat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 We are definitley going to wait a little while until the tank matures before we venture into the mandarin realm, just to see how much pods our refugium will produce, I think we will be alright but we need to wait and see. I think I am going to go pick up our Six Line Wrasse tomorrow and get him in the tank so we have something that swims around. We did however have another near catastrophe this weekend as our GFCI tripped again and we came into a dark cold tank (63 degrees). Everything looked pretty shoddy. We got everything back on line and let the system heat back up to 78 and most everything seems to be coming back around, we will have to wait and see how everything looks tomorrow. We are also going to replace the [language filter] GFCI outlet too! I will let you know how we make out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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