Today was not the best day for progress..
I assembled the internal overflow box. It consists of two layers, glass on the inside and black acrylic on the outside. I wanted the black acrylic so I could notch the top (I decided to go with the notches), but I was fearful of a failure trying to seal the acrylic to the tank glass, so the glass behind it provides a good seal. However, after much hard work and cutting and epoxying, I peeled the backing off of the acrylic only to find it is TRANSLUCENT black. I'll probably be able to see the plumbing through the acrylic as well as the epoxy that bonds it to the glass layer. Oh well, I guess when I paint the back of the tank, I'll go ahead and paint behind the overflow as well, I'm tall enough that I can see down into it anyway... I can also stack some well placed live rock to cover a lot of the plumbing and epoxy if it's too visible.
I discovered today (reading the instructions a little too late), that you have to punch a hole in the end of the silicone tube after cutting away the nozzle tip, if you don't the tube breaks from the back-side and makes a mess... I went ahead and siliconed the overflow box into the tank, everything went pretty well with that and it should be set by tomorrow. Then I started siliconing my glass baffles into the sump. First of all,
QUESTION: If you are putting 3 baffles side by side (for a bubble trap), how do you apply silicone to all three and be able to run your finger down to smooth it out?
Next, I had a disaster, I ran out of silicone on my next to last baffle, so I scrambled to find something. I remembered the busted tube from earlier and in my frustration, I started scooping fingerfulls of it out and smoozhing it on to the tank. This didn't really work very well and took a lot of time and in the mean time, I forgot to take the masking tape off from the other baffles. They set up enough that when I started peeling it off, the silicone was all trying to come with it. SO, I've got 5 of 6 baffles in the sump, but it looks pretty rough. I think I've got a pretty good seal on all of those, but I might just rip it out and start over anyway. The number one rule that I broke today is when you get frustrated, you should stop and relax for a little bit.
I called it quits after this. I may take tomorrow off from working on the tank. I was going to try and finish the plumbing up, but I think its time for a little break. Maybe I'll just paint the back and let it go tomorrow....
I did get some pictures, I'll update the blog tomorrow. The one thing I am happy with is the construction of the overflow, I think it turned out pretty well..
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