20G Long, University Peninsula build

[cocojakes]

So, I think I've finally found a tank that I will be happy with for more than a few months. My current 16gal Tall tank has been up for about 8 months now, but I designed the whole system around the stand, this time I'm doing the opposite. I'm doing what I want, and the stand can deal with it! The plan right now is a 20L tank rotated 90˚ so it is viewable from both long sides, with a 15 gal sump. 5gal of the sump will be sectioned off as a topoff reservoir, and the rest will be who knows what, filtration I guess. My current tank has a kessil ocean blue on it, but I wanted more control, without the 360 price, so I'm designing a custom LED light in the hood which should be fun. I know all anyone cares about here are pictures though, so here you go:

 

This is the basic idea, tank sticking out from the wall beside my bed so I can lie in bed and watch my fishies, and also it will be the first thing anyone sees when they come into my room

 

As far as rock work, I'll be moving over the main rock structure from my current tank, and adding an extra piece as my current arch is about 18 inches long, and I will have 26 inches of usable tank space in the new tank

 

Here is the design of the sump, water goes in, gets heated up by the ridiculously long jager heater, goes around the corner and hits the skimmer, before going through 3 baffles and back up the return line.

 

This time I have decided again on a herbie overflow, but will not be making the same mistake as last time, and have a bigger emergency drain than the main syphon drain.

The back 4 inches of the tank are sectioned off with a nice piece of black acrylic, acting as a false wall/overflow. The left side has the drains, the right side the return, but the return does not feed into the tank directly, it will feed into a compartment of the overflow, where the WP-10 is hiding, which will pump the water back into the tank (as well as some water I'm sure will overflow back into the drain to be re-filtered

 

The idea here is that there is no equipment in the tank, even the tiny WP-10 is hidden behind the false wall. I think I mint need to drill a few holes in the false wall to allow enough water flow into the return section of the hidden compartment to ensure the waterline doesn't drop too low for the WP-10. We'll have to see when I do a wet test.

 

Thats all for now, pictures of actual tanks should be coming soon. then the stand. I've been spending a lot of time planning this, and so everything will be coming together relatively fast

[cocojakes]

Okay, so everything is here, and I have been slowly assembling stuff. Right now I'm waiting till the weekend to build the stand, and then I can start putting it all together! here's what we have so far.

 

The display tank, along with a view of the back compartment

 

The sump (it will make more sense when its not sideways)

 

The LEDs are finally here

 

And the drivers are wired up

 

just waiting on the stand (which will have the hood built to it) and the LEDs will be in the hood. Once the stand is built, just waiting for the heat sinks and fans (which should arrive on monday) and I can get everything put together and wet

 

Big things should be happening soon

[cocojakes]

Okay, so I get fed up waiting for a guy in the area who I could never get a hold of, and went to home depot and got them to cut the wood for me. 1 long walk home with 8x30" pieces of 2x4 in my arms and I was ready to build.

 

Picked up some nice new clamps while I was there

 

and one frame is done

 

adding the L connectors

 

And here we have it, a big wooden box

 

and here it is in my room with the empty tanks on it

 

Just need to get the plywood cut now, and then I can paint, and we'll be ready to get wet!

[cocojakes]

so I tried to cheap it, and learnt once again (the hard way) to just spend the money the first time. Tried using cheap plywood sheeting, and the crap isn't flat at all, and bows, and is just, not fun. Got it all painted, and decided to scrap it. So I went back and got some 3/4 inch melamine,

it looks much better. I think I might even just leave it white! What do you think

 

 

 

Amazing what you can do with just google sketch up, a screw driver, and some clamps

[skyscraper2290]

Looks really good, i would say definitely keep the scape from your other tank. maybe add an island with the extra room. Your current tanks looks really nice, how long has it been up? I love the peninsula style

[cocojakes]

Thanks! its been up about 8 months now, yeah I'm keeping the scape (Its puttied together) and adding the island rock that you can see in the new tank beside the sand. We'll see how it ends up orientated can't wait to make the transfer though

[Nanofreak79]

Cool build. I'm diggin the white.

[cocojakes]

thanks, hopefully I can keep it clean haha

[el_ote]

that looks great!!! any pics of the canopy build?!?!

[JaceR]

=O

[Toybuddha]

Looking good!

I would move it away from the edge of the bed a little though.

[cocojakes]

that looks great!!! any pics of the canopy build?!?!

no, I didn't take many pics as I built, I can take pics and show you some diagrams of how the canopy is put together though. The whole canopy folds up towards the wall on hinges to allow for access to the tank. I'm away for the next week though so I won't have more pics until the 20th

 

Looking good!

I would move it away from the edge of the bed a little though.

Why? Its at the foot of the bed, here's the layout of the room:

 

I used to have the bed rotated 90 degrees, but it was a nuisance to have it at the side of the bed, this way, I'll add in a bed side table. I've got it there for now, going to live with it for a few more days before I fill the tank, because once its filled I'm not moving it

[kirbaay]

Dude this is a boss build! I'm jealous of the stand great job

[Dylan.N]

Looks great! I was reading along and I was also thinking of moving it away from the bed by just a few inches before someone else posted that. If it's touching the bed, I would be worried about banging into it in my sleep or something. And I like the white but I think it would look even better if it were black. Looking forward to seeing it wet!

[Toybuddha]

I'd be scared of bumping it. If you get busy in there it could rock the tank. JS

 

White looks awesome!

[cocojakes]

Dude this is a boss build! I'm jealous of the stand great job

Thanks, it took a lot of planning and work, and reworking

 

 

I'd be scared of bumping it. If you get busy in there it could rock the tank. JS

 

White looks awesome!

I'm not super concerned, the stand itself is over 100lbs of melamine, plus 150lbs in the sump, and 250 in the display, I don't think that thing is moving I was more worried when I had it beside the bed, as one might roll into it, or swing your arm into it or something, but at the foot of the bed I don't think I have much concern, I don't think I ever kick past the foot of the bed, and with it butted right up against it, the bed can't move. Theres no header or footer to worry about, its just a mattress on a box spring on a small ikea frame. The mattress overhangs the frame on that end, so theres nothing solid hitting the stand. I'll post pics when I get home in a week.

 

 

Looks great! I was reading along and I was also thinking of moving it away from the bed by just a few inches before someone else posted that. If it's touching the bed, I would be worried about banging into it in my sleep or something. And I like the white but I think it would look even better if it were black. Looking forward to seeing it wet!

Thanks, I'm still unsure about white or black. I think it looks slick/modern with the all white with silver screw "accents" lol but it would stand out less and make the tank itself more of a focus if it was black. Here's kind of what it was starting to look like when I was trying to use the cheap plywood I had painted black:

 

 

[bdevillier19]

i say stick with the white. but maybe i'm biased

 

[frankdontsurf]

Nice build

[cocojakes]

okay, so I'm having second guesses after talking to another reefer in the area about my acrylic weir. I have two possible issues, one with the design, one with the material. As far as design is concerned, I was thinking about what might happen if the return pump turns off, but the powerhead stays on. Was wondering if the powerhead might be powerful enough to pump its section dry, or if you think enough water will get pulled in around the hole that its pumping water out of. To solve this I was thinking of drilling a few small holes on that side of the weir for water flow into the return section of the back section. Let me know if I need to explain that a bit better

 

the second problem is that I used acrylic, in a wall to wall weir. The primary concern being that acrylic expands a little when it gets wet, and doesn't bond that well to silicone to begin with. I'm also a little concerned at my silicone job because it wasn't my best silicone job ever, and so theres not as good of a bond as I would have liked. I'll post some pictures of what I mean when I get home later today, but any thoughts?

[cocojakes]

So, I don't know about everyone else, but I just got an e-mail last night from fish-street letting me know about their new RW wireless wave makers. The RW-8 looks beautiful and amazing and having more than just 50%-75%-100% as flow options would be great. I'm trying to decide if I should put the 20 Long on hold and order one and redesign the back compartment around the new dimensions of the RW-8, since I'm considering redoing the back compartment anyway. What are peoples thoughts? I'm also interested in the extra flow (8000L compared to the 4000L of my WP-10) due to the extra length and water volume (My 15 tall has the wp-10 running on else mode, at 100% and so I might want the ability to give more flow in the longer 20 long). Here's the link, it'll cost me about $100, is it worth it?

 

http://www.fish-street.com/jebao_wireless_rw-8_wave_maker

[cocojakes]

UPDATE!

 

so while I was away last week, my fans and heat sinks arrived in the mail. so obviously I worked all day, made a quick trip to home depot for some last minute parts, and here we have it! one DIY LED hood (pictures of it actually turned on will come later, but all four channels work. Had an issue with one but I think its worked out now. I'm still waiting on the fan controller, but I'm thinking I might just wire them up at full blast on a timer instead, any thoughts? anyway, here are loads of pics!

 

First I drilled the heat sinks to match the mounting points of the fans:

 

Arranging the LED stars

 

Once everything is glued down with arctic fox thermal paste

 

Always keep a clean work space

 

I had a few troubles with the soldering, got some new flux and was patient and it eventually worked out. Clearly I wasn't thinking about polarity of the LEDs when I glued down the stars note for next time.

 

Drilling and marking where the pucks will be going

 

The fan fits

 

And now the puck on the fan mounted over the vent

 

A mess of wires connecting the two pucks

 

My brilliant last minute thought, and reason for the home depot trip. Cat 5 connectors to keep the wiring from hood to controller simple.

 

The brain/power unit

 

Cat 5 connector on the hood end

 

 

Thats it for now, I'm leaving it alone for now and preparing for a local frag swap. I had a few custom LED bulbs made for me at a factory in china, so I built a make shift unit to house 5 of them over the frags at the swap.

 

 

 

Next up is the daunting task of redoing the overflow with glass, as a fellow reefer convinced me to scrap the acrylic and use frosted glass, I'm also waiting for a pay check before I splurge on the new Jebao RW-8 for the bigger tank instead of my current WP-10 which only has half the power. The design of the RW will also allow me to not worry about the issue of the return pump turning off without the circulation pump turning off, as it will stick out into the tank a bit more, and be able to pull water from the tank as well as the return area.

[kirbaay]

those DIY leds are awesome!!

[cocojakes]

those DIY leds are awesome!!

thanks, and they work! lol i'm so excited, everything is ready now, I'm just waiting on a pay check so I can order a new RW-8 and then I'll get the dimensions in order to redo the black acrylic wall with frosted glass instead. I can't wait to get this thing wet! its taking a lot longer than I planned, but I think thats a good thing in this hobby lol

 

[cocojakes]

one two skip a few, here we are at present:

the stand came out nice

and even has a decent bit of space underneath for storage and an ample sized 15 gal sump with 4gal RO resevoire

The support system fits nicely on the left door, minus the ATO which is on the shelf

Everyone seems happy, current stocking is 2 tank raised O clowns, 1 blue green chromis, and 1 six line wrasse. Its going to be fun selecting corals to place on the new rock will post a more in depth post later, but felt I needed to at least make a quick update

 

PS working on another "small" project

36"x24"x16" baby stingray tank with 29gal sump. Working to get it wet next week