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Custom In-wall 20L with 20L sump


The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

Custom In-wall 20L with 20L sump-

 

About a year ago a buddy and i decided that we wanted a Reef Aquarium to go along with our 10 gal Freshwater. We began to draw plans for a support frame that we could build into the wall. we toyed around with a few different ideas and finally decided to buy another 10 gal freshwater setup and 20 long for our reef tank. We both do alot of work with ACAD so we both submitted designs to see which would be the most efficient and sturdy. We came up with this:

 

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We built it...

 

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We added lighting

 

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We upgraded our lighting from quad- NO fluorescents to dual Power Compacts... for our lack of protecting the fluorescent bulbs, they lost their intensity after only 3.5 months (salt deposits and condensation i imagine)... our corals were all contracted, our tank was not as bright and we had a bad problem with brown algea-blooms... it was going to cast $100 to replace all four bulbs, so I looked on the web for a prebuilt fixture that cost about the same price... i found a 24" fixture from corallife with two 65-watt compacts and two fans... This fixture would give us more wattage (more than double actually), better reflectors, more protection, and it would cost less to replace bulbs in the future... the fixture lists for $139.99 on the net, and we found it at the fish store for $160... we didnt have time to wait for it to be shipped (plus $10 for shipping costs) so we went ahead and bought the fixture...

 

When we went to install the fixture, we knew that we were going to have to leave some room for the fans to suck/blow... so we mounted the lights with metal bands that we bent to fit the fixture... the fans have about 2 inches of clearance between them and the top of the frame...they work great and they have a much lower profile than the fluorescents, so there is more room to work around in the tank...

 

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Some updated pics

 

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we have been having some trouble with temperatures... the tank temp has been up as high as 84 degrees... so the first change will be some ventilation into a crawl space that is practically open to the outside air... being like 50 degrees outside this should help with temp control...

 

second we have always planned on converting the 2 freshwater tanks to SW, but now with the temperature problem up top, we think it may be nessesary now!!! so this weekend an overflow and 700-800gph return pump was purchased... we will convert one of the bottm tanks into a temporary sump... by doing this we will be able to remove the powerfilter and powersweep power head and replace them with a single cool running pump... also our water volume will increase by nearly 8 gallons...

 

hopefully all these things will bring the tank temp back down to a reasonable level...

 

in the future the two bottom tanks will be daisy chained together an both will become refugiums/ specialized tanks... one may contain only mushrooms and the other my contain only cheato and stuff... one if not both will have a phlenum including mineral mud... a dwarf sea horse tank maybe interesting...

 

here is Photoshop depiction of how the system will opperate.. it's pretty self explanitory..

 

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

Some decisions were made and the idea of daisy-chaining two 10gallons together was thrown out... another 20L would do better so a tank, glass, and silicon were purchased for $50 and i assembled the sump:

 

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

Pics will come tomorrow... the system is already up and running (sorry for the re posts... this was worthy of it's own thread, plus the info was being split between the Once in a Lifetime Nano Thread and another existing thread for this setup...)

 

Overflow $30

Pump $40

Plumbing $30

DIY Sump/Fuge $50

Total=$150

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

sump is set up and running amazingly... the fuge has about a 1 inch layer of crshed coral and some live sand from the top tank plus a tone of cheato, some LR, and some mushrooms that we trimed from the main tank that are just sitting on the crushed coral... shrooms, and the two different kinds of macro are sectioned off with egg crate... the return pump is running well the dual nozzles are placed in the front of the tank on either end blowing back across the tank... the $30 overflow box fit fit right in where the power filter used to be... IF ANYONE WANTS A BRAND NEW OVERFLOW BOX LIKE OURS JUST PM ($30 PLUS SHIPPING)... the temp in the tank went from a max of 84* to a max of 79* after the sump was installed... we're still running the biggest powersweep PH they make in the tank to, so temperature can be decreased even more if nessecary...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

To tell you the truth i don't know a thing about sea horses... so, no, we probably won't ever get to raising them... they just aren't interesting to me...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

I'm not following u, but the eggcrate is to prevent snails, crabs, shrimp, macro, fish and anything else you can think of out of the return pump chamber...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

or are you talking about the sections i made inside the fuge?... if that's the case... i still want to be able to move stuff around down there the eggrate basicly just keeps the algea from floating away... and when you see the pics you'll see that they aren't very proffesional looking dividers...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

now i know what you mean... but i wasn't trying to make it taller... i wish i had made the fist baffle taller, but it's working great so far... i may still do something to that effect, but we'll see how it goes first

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I really like how you've done everything. Looking forward to the pics of the new setup. Do you have one of the overflow? Are you using a continuous syphon to get the water down to the fuge then pumping it back up? Thanks for any responses. I have a 20L w/ a CPR fuge on it, but I'm considering selling it and putting a 15gal in my stand...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

I will have pics today...

 

The overflow looks similar to the one pictured here, but nicer and better quality materials are used... all the corners are rounded...

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the pump is a CAP 2200 rated at about 500-600 Gph at the head height it's operating at.. .

 

i can get you one of these overflows for $30 plus shipping (plus $5 for an extra return nozzle)... be sure that you leave enough room for a bubble trap... i would build one like this, instead of using baffles cause they take up a lot of room...

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also the compartment for the return pump should be kept as small as possible to keep the tank from flooding in the case of a siphon break... which doesn't seem too likely with this overflow box, but just in case... plus it leaves more room for your fuge... you should count on putting in a protein skimmer, so leave room for that...

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The_Barbe-Hatten_Project

This is where the water from the overflow goes to keep in mind this pic is as soon as we started it...

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