Blog Comments

Marc, you mentioned jacking up the joists and drilling and lag bolting it together to prevent sag, but i wouldnt just do that. i would get some 3/4in Plywood, and some Liquid Nails or some sort of adhesive, and cut strips as wide as your joists. then jack it up, and glue the Plywood on the Joists. )Plywood is super strong when put on its side due to the lamination of the wood.) then screw (not nail, as nails can pull out unless you get dipped jagged nails) the ply to the joists, and then you could drill and lag everything together.
it will only cost you the money for a sheet of ply, and 2 tubes of glue.
just another thought to add..... it deff wont hurt!

Well since you like to build things then maybe this will be a good next project. CNC Router Kit it's a bit pricey but a lot less than a manufactured CNC and would allow you to make all your own stuff.

I would assume that this is just a secondary ground anyway another line should be ran back to the main panel which is likely connected to a grounding rod outside, but galvanic corrosion can happen with dissimilar metals in contact with each other.

The ground bar in the breaker box it's the cold water pipe earth ground.

Marc, what's the other end of the ground wire hooked to?

Nice stuff Marc!

The pipe ground clamp is just fine they have been using them for decades with no issues

Your moving right along. Too bad I couldnt be there to help out. Believe it or not, I like projects like this.

Oh yeah? Didn't even think about that. I'll have to trade it in - thanks for catching that. Since the pipe is copper and so is the wire, I might as well get the right connector.

Your grounding clamp has me worried. You may want to replace it with a brass one in order to preven electrolisis which will corrode the copper pipe over time.

Ya, its quite the corpuscle of a roof truss intersection. Good luck nailing off your sheetrock in that area.

No, I don't. They have a CAD-driven router that can make whenever they can draw up. Having them make 'em so I can just glue them in was totally worth it. Two are for my sump and two are for a customer of mine.

I'll only run socks on occasion; the water will route to the proven bubble tower I make for all the sumps I build. It'll be handy for big cleaning days or a few hours prior to a photography session.

I've wanted a way to clean the riser for a long time. Deltec came out with one years ago, but it cost around $1200 and you had to have their skimmer as well. It's actually a funny story how I encountered this product:

Someone decided to follow my YouTube channel (melevsreef) and I got an email notification. I went to his channel to see his tank, and noticed on the right were suggested videos including the Skimmer Swabbie. I watched it and thought "This is what I want!" and looked for their company information in the description. I went to their website and was checking out their other products, and noticed they had a "Like us on Facebook" button so I clicked on it. It took me to FB and I was already their friend! As I checked their wall posts out, it turns out the product had just come out in the past 30 days, so I put it on my wish list. A few weeks later, I purchased it and it just arrived.

Very cool, really interested in the salt you have, still haven't seen much on that brand. Interesting little toy for the skimmer though. . . I am not lucky enough to have one as of yet but with what little I have in my tank i have not come across any problems without so far.

Kool SCH~ But I am a bit confused re: the sock holders... you don't have enough time to make them yourself?

Holy Crap!

What a wild intersection...

Ahhh...the sweet feeling of demolition!
Quite the project you've got underway there Marc. And I thought your original 14 day build was impressive.

And that doesn't even go into how my livingroom and kitchen/dining nook are gone to the 'temporary' set up.

looking good Marc, its going to be perfect when its done

John

Yeah what you are going through is almost as bad as moving but you have to live with it all for months on end.

No, it's not wet at all. I pumped some in 6 years ago, and then the white stuff maybe 2 years ago. I just want to be sure to get plenty up there because it helps with my electric bill. Even with the 280g, in the summer months with a/c running non-stop in the fishroom and the house, my bill never got over $240. Reusing this stuff doesn't bother me, and I still threw out some.

I'm probably going to insert some planking up there just for safety reasons, and I too was thinking about adding some type of 2x8 or 2x10 perimeter woodwork around the access point to keep the stuff in the attic and avoid it falling down in the future when something needs doing up there.

Work work work, LOL. Looking good though.

Looks like you had two layers of insulation up there, some new light fluffy fiber and some old cellulose stuff. And is it me or was some of it wet?? May take a small handful of the cellulose stuff and do a quick self check of it's fire retardant abilities, basically take a lighter or something with a good flame and see if it will ignite and burn or just smolder a bit. If it burns throw it out and spring for a little new if not re use it if its not wet. The blown in insulation like that stuff has to be fluffy to insulate so if it all packs down hard then it's not as good an insulator. Good idea using the existing roof vent to vent your fishroom out though but in colder weather it may get condensation on it from the warm moist air touching cooler metal.

You may also get some sort of frame built for your walking boards in the ceiling now so that your insulation under the boards isn't compacted down, and use some sheetrock or plywood to make a box around your opening to go into the attic to keep the insulation from falling through. Will be much easier to do without the sheetrock in place.