FENKER Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 I'm a woodworker at heart, I think I enjoy the build more than the actual finished stocked tank. In fact I haven't had a tank for over 6 months since I was 17. I built myself a tank (more on that later in another thread) and had some scrap wood left over and well, a extra 10g truvu laying around as well. With the 2 I made my girlfriend a tank. I had mime from precision marine put a box on the back so I can make an overflow. I feel the overflow is large enough to get a couple stages or at least one stage of filtration. Just finished refinishing the tank I will be using a 5 gallon tank as a sump. Skimmer (any suggestions for a small sumped tank?) Diy media baskets Mag 5 or equivalent return pump Drilled overflow with drilled return (one at each side) Lights will be LED, not sure what to go with here. I stupidly gave myself only 6" from tank to top of canopy. I'll be doing a diy led but not sure for spaced out LEDs will look. This will be a slow process but hope to have sump and plumbing with water in within a couple weeks. Link to comment
Kolarz Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Wow! The tank and stand looks amazing. Definitely following along. Link to comment
clink51 Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 following along just because Rics and Zoas lol Link to comment
FENKER Posted July 9, 2015 Author Share Posted July 9, 2015 Thanks for the compliments everyone. Going to get/order bulkheads this weekend but still not sure on what size I should go. I think I'm gonna end up doing a small closed loop for flow and keep the sump at around 250-350gph. 2@ 1/2" returns from the closed loop, one at each end of the tank. With a 3/4" or 1" with screen as pickup. For the overflow I'm going to drill one 1" bulkhead in the overflow box. For the return I'm either going to tee it into the closed loop with a cv, or pipe it into the hole on top of the tank. I'm big into diy but am lost when it comes to electrical and wiring. I also don't know anything about LED. But I would like to do a diy led.... My main question is, do I need a controller for LEDs? I don't have a controller and don't plan on getting one. Any good links to LED kits that come with everything I need to rock? Lastly, here's a teaser of my other tank Link to comment
FENKER Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 Told you this was a slow build. It's my ladies tank. I let her know what she needs to get. We get a little here and there for our tanks. But today we got most of the ingredients we need to almost get this little guy up and running. 1) we got a cadlights bridgelux 3x9w led light for the tank 2) got a 5.5g for a sump finally. 3) bulkheads and piping is done (except for return pump to union) Need Make baffles in the sump, I'm not 100% on this what do you think about an open sump? A skimmer A return pump Filter media (I ordered a few pounds of carbon and 3 lbs of gfo, should be enough for both tanks for awhile Here are some pics of what I've done and how it sits now. Light on and sand in 2@ 1/2" bulkheads, one at each end Top of tank I planned for this when building the stand, everything in in the stand, drawer still works too Link to comment
FENKER Posted August 22, 2015 Author Share Posted August 22, 2015 It's alive! I finally got water in the tank. At first the overflow wasn't enough for the mag 5. But I took the dremel to the overflow and made all the slots 1/4" deeper. Now it pulls 500gph no problem with room to grow. All we need now is some locline, a heater and I'm getting a media rack/chamber made for the sump. Just need to quiet down the overflow itself and we r ready for salt! Here's a video of the tank working Link to comment
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