DIY 15 Gallon AIO, DIY WetWorx Skimmer, and Foam/Rock Wall *NEW PICS 02/14

[vresor]

Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. By foam, do you mean insulating foam in a can? Is it safe to assume that it's okay for water to get in behind the foam/rock/sand layer?

[hcsceo]

be careful

 

the one time i tried a foam back, i exploded my tank.

 

woooo Adinsxq I'd like to hear more about this. This will be my first Foam wall and I haven't heard of any issues regarding the process so this gets my attention. do you have a thread link or something? Do you know what caused it?

 

vresor, I'm planning to use pond foam but I see lots of people using greatstuff so yes the insulating type foam. Do a search on google for "Reef Foam Wall" and you will get a lot of hits explaining it in detail.

[cdelicath]

Super clean I love it

 

Nice work

[hcsceo]

Well I got all my plumbing parts in today and in the bag the bulkhead was supposed to be in all I got was the nut. Without that I'm at a standstill. So hopefully they can get that part to me by this weekend so I can do a water test.

 

Steve

[hcsceo]

Super clean I love it

 

Nice work

 

Haha I missed this last time I posted. Thanks

 

OK tonight I got all the plumping in and turned it on. Dude this tank rocks. MJ1200 is going to be enough flow without any additional pumps I think. I guessed at the number of slats and the depth of the overflow and I couldn't have gotton it better. The water is about 1/2" from the bottom of a glass top if I get one and it settles well within the rim so you don't see the water line at all. I'm going to let it run and get the heater dialed in tonight and tomorrow.

 

All that is left is the rock wall and skimmer. The foam came in today and I"m waiting on 15#'s of fiji rubble to come in from marcorocks.com. He's promissed sizes up to 3". I should be building that wall next weekend.

 

As far as the skimmer my initial design was too small for a mj400 and the water overflowed over the top. I'm going to redesign it with a larger integrated return pipe. I could put a smaller pump or a flow regulater on it but I really want something with an MJ400 that can be duplicated for all you guys running up to 20 gallons of water. The final design will allow for flow control, air control and an adjustable return pipe but I want it to work nicely with all that in default positions so you guys can tweak it better. I"ll get photos up and post plans for it when I'm done.

 

Steve

[aaren]

The tank looks very clean! How did you get those acrylic walls in there, did you need to remove the top plastic rim?

 

I'm thinking of taking a 20 gallon Long tank and doing pretty much the same design (20L is basically the same, but 30" instead of 24" long). How did you paint the sides? I'm thinking of just masking off the area and using rust-oleum spray, but I haven't done it before.

 

I'm interesting in the final plans for the skimmer, looks pretty good.

[hcsceo]

The tank looks very clean! How did you get those acrylic walls in there, did you need to remove the top plastic rim?

 

I'm thinking of taking a 20 gallon Long tank and doing pretty much the same design (20L is basically the same, but 30" instead of 24" long). How did you paint the sides? I'm thinking of just masking off the area and using rust-oleum spray, but I haven't done it before.

 

I'm interesting in the final plans for the skimmer, looks pretty good.

 

No need to remove the rim. Just measure your inside width and subract 1/8". Then lay something across the top of the tank and measure to the bottom and again subtract 1/8" and that will give you your panel dimensions. From there it is easy to get the panel in place and Siliconed up. What I do is put silicon on the one peice that touches the side of the tank, then insert the whole deal and use your finger to smooth out the silicon that comes out. Then silicon the front of the panel all the way around. Let that dry about 15 minutes or so then silicon the back side of it the best you can. One thing to do is silicon underneath the top of the rim. I've had rims leak with hydorflo's in them cause the manufacture didn't put silicon all the way around.

 

As far as paint your explanation is perfect. Just mask and paint. Do a lot of light coats. Will take like 5 coats to get it good and covered. Should be about 1 can of paint to do. I use Krylon Fusion as it says it works for glass but I don't know if it really is any better. Make sure to clean the glass real good before you paint. Use a cleaner that doesn't leave any residue. Alcohol is fine. Just don't get any inside the tank. I normally clean the glass after I mask it off so that it can't get in there.

 

Glad you like the tank.

 

Steve

[andresmirt]

i love your tank man, really well planned out and well executed. i wish my build had come out this clean.

 

did you make your filter unit for inside the chamber yourself or buy it? the plans look great.

[hcsceo]

i love your tank man, really well planned out and well executed. i wish my build had come out this clean.

 

did you make your filter unit for inside the chamber yourself or buy it? the plans look great.

 

Thanks for the kind words. All of this is built from scratch including the protein skimmer. This is my fourth build so I'm slowly learning techniques to make them nicer along the way. Tag along. I should be doing the rock work this weekend as my rock is supposed to be here today.

 

Steve

[aaren]

Thanks for the kind words. All of this is built from scratch including the protein skimmer. This is my fourth build so I'm slowly learning techniques to make them nicer along the way. Tag along. I should be doing the rock work this weekend as my rock is supposed to be here today.

 

Steve

 

Do you have the final dimensions for the skimmer? Is it based on UTR recirc design? Does it use the MJ 1200 for the recirc pump as his design did?

 

Sorry for so many questions, just to work some issues out of my design.

[hcsceo]

Do you have the final dimensions for the skimmer? Is it based on UTR recirc design? Does it use the MJ 1200 for the recirc pump as his design did?

 

Sorry for so many questions, just to work some issues out of my design.

 

Hey aaren. I've decided not to do the recirc design as I'm getting worried that the extra pump required might give me heat problems in such a small tank. However, I'm building basically the recirc design without the pump. My final design will look nearly identical to the recirc. I built this one 3.5" wide with the MJ400 as the feed pump. All other dems are the same. I'll have more info probably in another week as I'm getting ready to build the second design this weekend.

 

Steve

[hcsceo]

Ok lots of progress this morning. I started with laying out the base panel with the areas I would want the rock to sit on the bottom of the tank. I used some recycled paper for this by cutting it out my layout and taping it to the base frame

 

 

Then I traced that plan onto the eggcrate with a sharpie. Then I cut out the area just beyond all those marking so that I would have some eggcrate that the sand would sit on to help hold it down to the tank once filled. I also took the time to zip tie the back and side walls to the base plate. One thing to note is that I cut this into two sections so that I can get it in the tank once complete.

 

 

Here is a pic with everything in the tank for a test fit.

 

 

Next I drilled small holes in the rock with a masonry bit and zip tied everything to the walls.

 

 

Then test fit it in the tank

 

 

Finally I foamed all the spaces around the rock.

 

 

 

Stay tuned I'll be cutting and epoxing the crushed rubble to the foam.

 

Steve

[hcsceo]

OK got a little further today. I cut all the foam off the back and bottom so i could test fit everything before epoxy.

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'll be using my dremmel to try and scuplt the foam between the rocks a bit for a more natural appearance before I epoxy. I'll also break up a bunch of my fiji rubble for the top coat with the epoxy.

 

Steve

[coralcor]

wowowowowowowowow this is one nice build i think im gona do this for a tank in my room (in a few years)

 

 

but looking at the drawing up top i love how the lights are going to sit.... i dont rely liek the look of the legs on the lights.

 

 

im so gona folow this build\

 

and cute kid can i get a frag of it?

[reefer123]

def looks badass. sick job

[hcsceo]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

 

I just tested my dremel and the process for removing the foam between rocks and I think I have the perfect solution. Stay tuned.

 

Steve

[The Propagator]

woooo Adinsxq I'd like to hear more about this. This will be my first Foam wall and I haven't heard of any issues regarding the process so this gets my attention. do you have a thread link or something? Do you know what caused it?

 

vresor, I'm planning to use pond foam but I see lots of people using greatstuff so yes the insulating type foam. Do a search on google for "Reef Foam Wall" and you will get a lot of hits explaining it in detail.

 

 

Nothing will explode because you are not shooting the expanding foam into a restricted and closed area. The foam will have plenty of room to expand as it dries so no worries. Unless Adin was trying to make a paper pipe filled with GS foam I have no idea how that would even happen.

Just let it cure for a couple days to ensure its dry before you fill it and your all set.

[hcsceo]

Nothing will explode because you are not shooting the expanding foam into a restricted and closed area. The foam will have plenty of room to expand as it dries so no worries. Unless Adin was trying to make a paper pipe filled with GS foam I have no idea how that would even happen.

Just let it cure for a couple days to ensure its dry before you fill it and your all set.

 

Yea Prop I figured so much. I went searching through his posts shortly after that post and figured it was BS. However, I ended up doing more research after that to see if anyone else had the same issue and found a lot of really nice tanks that gave me more ideas before foaming mine. So in the end it worked out well.

 

Adin if you weren't a mod I'd say your an A$SH0LE. But I only thought it.

 

Steve

[BKtomodachi]

Adin would not mislead you. He definitely must have busted a tank, personally guarantee it.

 

Either way, it looks great! Can't wait to see more.

[neanderthalman]

I heard that a good way to make foam look like realistic liverock was to flick acetone at it. The droplets will dissolve small holes in the surface, larger drops will bore further in for deep holes. The acetone will evaporate to nothing within minutes.

 

Don't use a spray bottle. You want coarse droplets, not a fine mist.

[hcsceo]

I heard that a good way to make foam look like realistic liverock was to flick acetone at it. The droplets will dissolve small holes in the surface, larger drops will bore further in for deep holes. The acetone will evaporate to nothing within minutes.

 

Don't use a spray bottle. You want coarse droplets, not a fine mist.

 

that sounds like a good idea. I was planning to use a very small round bit and go around making some holes. One thing that I've noticed since cutting the foam down is that underneath the hard exterior of the foam there are lots of varying holes in the foam itself. It's possible the foam has done all the work for me. I'm getting ready to work on it here in a minute.

 

Steve

[coralcor]

more pics!!

[JKUNZ]

Looks awesome!!! Keep it up!

[hcsceo]

more pics!!

 

OK you asked and you get. I got all the foam carving done today. As I suspected taking away foam reveals very realistic looking pockets in the foam that work perfectly with the fiji coral. Now once I epoxy and cover with sand or crushed rubble it might cover all those holes but for now I am very pleased with the results. I used my dremel tool with a small wire wheel attachment. It had the added benefit of cleaning any rocks I wanted during the process and if I hit a rock with it it didn't hurt it at all. Honestly this entire foam carving took about 1.5 hours so it was very fast. Here are some before and after shots and a close up detailed photo of the carving. I've also removed the zip ties since these photos. Next is epoxy.

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

CLOSEUP

[travisurfer]

I strongly suggest against a DSB. I have never really seen it done successfully in a nano. The problem is that the edges of the tank are too abundant and prevent the anoxic areas from functioning properly. Their long term success is questionable in larger tanks as well. Usually, they work great for a little bit and then the tank slowly starts doing worse and worse. Since you are basing your sand bed on Calfo, I'd like to say that Calfo also says that a sand bed of around 1/2" is generally the most successful for reef aquariums. Hope this helps.