DIY AIO tank. Please advise!

[Tanksy]

Hi there!

I'm building a 20 gallon AIO aquarium and I could use some advise.

I have the tank, ( 60 x 40 x 40 cm, 8mm low iron float glass) and I want to add the sump like the sketch below.

 

 

I already have the additional bottom pane, which is 75 x 40 cm 8mm float glass, and I'm going to add 4 more panes, same thickness. So basically I'm extending the tank by 15 cm. Do you think it's going to be safe and solid if I build it this way?

Cheers!
Chris

 

[Tanksy]

I realised that my life would be much easier if I had a longer tank and just add some acrylic panels. So I exchanged the one I had for a bigger one.

 

L80 x W40 x H45 cm or roughly 32 x 16 x 18 inches, 8 mm low iron glass

 

Time to order the acrylic sheet. I was just wondering if I should get 6mm or 8mm thick acrylic. Does it matter how thick it is?

[Tanksy]

I came up with these designs for the sump/refugium. Comments and criticism always welcome!

 

Cheers!

Chris
 

[ReefingRelapse]

I vote A. Seems easiest to clean & install

[mitten_reef]

I vote A also if all the available options. But I think it needs to be even further simplified. The more up/down paths you have, the harder to keep every section clean after a while. Don’t 

Recommend looking at the back of the innovative marine fusion 30 long diagram (just google it). 

Also someone on here once said, about DIY AIO, that the first baffle should never be the same height as the false wall. If you primary filter gets clogged you want water to be able to spill over to the second chamber. If it is the same height you’ll get a flood. 

[Tanksy]

Ok. I've noticed that there's no "right" way to set up a built in sump and everyone's setting it up according to their own needs. 

In my case, I need a refugium to produce some microfauna and hopefully one day I can get a green mandarin. I've always liked that fish, but we all know it's a "picky" eater.

I've read somewhere on this forum that a fuge needs to be fed raw water from the tank for the micro fauna and macro algae not to starve. That makes sense to me. 
That means the skimmer can't be in the fuge, or after it.
So here's a couple more ideas.

The first design has two overflows and the return pump's in the middle, as you can see. 
Pros: The fuge's being fed directly from the DT, meaning plenty of nutrients for the micro fauna to thrive and eventually overflow and feed the fish and corals in the DT. 
Cons: The refugium chamber is is too small, only 6 liters.

The second design is as simple as possible and yet tailored to my needs.
Pros: The fuge is a bit bigger, 9.5 liters, exactly 10% of the DT. That means more real estate for pods etc. Moving the filter media (matrix, siporax, purigen) to the 3rd chamber could provide more space for the pods etc. to live in (does that make sense?)
Cons: The skimmer removes 30-35% of the dissolved nutrients and solids before they reach the fuge. That means less food for the algae and it's inhabitants. I could add a very small overflow and that could solve that problem (?). Or I could add 1-2 creatures to produce that nutrients.

Note that with both designs the first chamber's split in two smaller ones, floss then skimmer.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.
Chris

[Beer]

I'd go with A if your end goal is supporting a dragonette, though you will still need to train to prepared/frozen or suppliment with pods as the area is still pretty small and only a small portion of the population will make its way to the display.

 

I would leave out the filter media for the fuge section as that will remove the solid waste that the pods would feed on.

 

 

[Tanksy]

Thanks for your input Beer.

I made some modifications to design B. Moved the heater the the last chamber and the filter media to the first chamber. A hole or holes in the first baffle would provide the solid waste that copepods need. Would that work?

[ReefingRelapse]

I would want a good ATO if putting heater in 3rd chamber. Or put heater in 2nd

 

Also water spilling over might cause air bubbles to get sucked into pump. Might want another baffle.

[Tanksy]

You're right. Heater in second chamber makes more sense.
Also, the water's going to flow into the second chamber rather  than spilling over *.
Does that make sense?

Edit: *Perhaps the hole needs to be higher, near/level to the overflow (?)

[Beer]

My sump flows over the last baffle into the pump chamber and I don't have issues with air being drawn into the pump, even when the level gets pretty low (traveled and did not have the ATO set up properly, pumps were close to the point of sucking air but no bubbles created). All of my flow goes through the sump, which is pretty significant for its size. It is also made of corrugated plastic, so the edges are not rounded over for a nice transition.

[FISHnChix]

1 hour ago, RookieRock said:

Thanks for your input Beer.

I made some modifications to design B. Moved the heater the the last chamber and the filter media to the first chamber. A hole or holes in the first baffle would provide the solid waste that copepods need. Would that work?

In the right side chamber is that a protein skimmer you are adding or is it just a surface skimmer.. I would not plan on having a protein skimmer above my floss and media. You will change your floss out 2 times a week and rinse your media probably once a week. Dialing in the height of a nano skimmer is a pain you will not want to do it every time you want to change your floss... IMO making maintenance easier is the key to longevity in this hobby.. happy reefing .. looks like your going to have a nice build can’t wait to check it out when your done..

[ReefingRelapse]

42 minutes ago, Beer said:

My sump flows over the last baffle into the pump chamber and I don't have issues with air being drawn into the pump, even when the level gets pretty low (traveled and did not have the ATO set up properly, pumps were close to the point of sucking air but no bubbles created). All of my flow goes through the sump, which is pretty significant for its size. It is also made of corrugated plastic, so the edges are not rounded over for a nice transition.

You do have a bubble trap in the first 2 baffles though right?

[Tanksy]

53 minutes ago, Weikel said:

In the right side chamber is that a protein skimmer you are adding or is it just a surface skimmer.. I would not plan on having a protein skimmer above my floss and media. You will change your floss out 2 times a week and rinse your media probably once a week. Dialing in the height of a nano skimmer is a pain you will not want to do it every time you want to change your floss... IMO making maintenance easier is the key to longevity in this hobby.. happy reefing .. looks like your going to have a nice build can’t wait to check it out when your done..

Thanks Weikel. I agree that maintenance should be easy. The floss is going to be placed before the protein skimmer.
It'll be floss > protein skimmer > media > fuge. 

 

Edit: Here's a side view.

 

 

[Beer]

On 2/18/2018 at 10:46 AM, ReefingRelapse said:

You do have a bubble trap in the first 2 baffles though right?

Just over, under, over. I was thinking you meant the water solashing over the last section, not bubbles from the skimmer. I run skimmerless, so I don't need to worry about issues like that.

 

I'd imagine the media would do a decent job at mitigating bubbles.

[Tanksy]

I'm waiting for the acrylic sheets to arrive, so that I can finally kick this off.
In the meantime, here's my latest design. Not much of a difference from the last one. Just an update with the correct overflow size. 

I don't know if you guys know how big an AIO weir should be. I didn't, until I found this calculator.

The return pump is a Sicce Syncra 1.5 @ 700 - 1350 lph ( 185 - 355 gph). I'm going to run it @ 1000 lph or 265 gph, so I wanted the weir to have the same flow rate. I figured out that if each slot of the weir is 6 mm/0.02 '' wide and there are 8 slots in total, then the height of it should be around 20 mm or 3/4''. However, to make it future proof, I decided to make the weir 50 mm/2'' and my normal DT water level's going to be 35 mm above the weir, thus I'll have a flow rate of 2160 lph or 570 gph. I think that's enough to keep things in order.
Does any of the above make sense?

 

By the way, how fast do 3.5l (1 gallon) of water evaporate from a DT that's L24 x W16 ''?

[k4ndyk1ng]

This is going to be such a good tank, the evaporation will depend a lot on the humidity of your room and the temperature difference, but if this is any help my rimless 4x2 evaporated about a gallon per day. Also sorry if I missed this, what happened to the idea of the skimmer? 

[Tanksy]

8 hours ago, k4ndyk1ng said:

This is going to be such a good tank, the evaporation will depend a lot on the humidity of your room and the temperature difference, but if this is any help my rimless 4x2 evaporated about a gallon per day. Also sorry if I missed this, what happened to the idea of the skimmer? 

I'm going to give it a try using a DIY protein skimmer at first and see how it goes. There will be enough space behind the media basket for a Tunze 9001 though.

 

[Tamberav]

Going to be a great build! One thing I love about DIY is you can make sure it can fit the exact equipment you want. I love the IM tanks except I really wish the back part was slightly wider because it really limits which nano skimmers are usable. 

[ReefingRelapse]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

Going to be a great build! One thing I love about DIY is you can make sure it can fit the exact equipment you want. I love the IM tanks except I really wish the back part was slightly wider because it really limits which nano skimmers are usable. 

Hate that about my biocube!

[Tanksy]

2 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Going to be a great build! One thing I love about DIY is you can make sure it can fit the exact equipment you want. I love the IM tanks except I really wish the back part was slightly wider because it really limits which nano skimmers are usable. 

That's why I wanted a DIY tank. I don't know if it's cheaper, depends on the components I guess, but it sure is tailored to your needs.

My current setup is a 30 gallon FOWLR (freshwater tank with a canister filter) and it's a home to a couple of clownfish, a royal gramma, a cleaner shrimp, an emerald crab and a CUC. Been running like that for almost 2 years without any casualties or serious problems (except some green hair algae). The reason I'm building a new one, is because I wanted a couple of corals, 1-2 euphylias, a toadstool, maybe a GSP, and I knew they wouldn't survive in my current tank. 

[Tanksy]

Soooo.... I decided that the false wall should be 5mm glass with 3mm black acrylic behind it, that's going to be 2-3 mm smaller than the glass pane.
The reason is that I want to be able to clean it without being afraid that I could scratch it, but mostly because I've heard a few horror stories of broken tanks because of the expanded acrylic and I've seen many photos of acrylic false walls bowed due to stress. 

Today, I tried to drill the weir in the glass pane.... and I broke it. I used some diamond drill bits, that worked great, and then I scored the glass with my glass cutter. My plan was to cut out a rectangle piece (like a small window) and then cut the weir teeth in the acrylic that's going to be behind the glass. Well, I failed miserably. When I tried to break the glass along the score, the glass just broke in half. Most probably the scoring was not good enough. I placed an order for another piece of glass and I have to wait till Monday to pick it up. At least I have the acrylic sheets to build the sump this weekend.

 

Anyway, my day wasn't too disappointing. I built the protein skimmer. I used:

• Acrylic tube, L300 x D38 mm, 2mm wall thickness
• Plastic end cap D38mm   
• Wooden airstone
• Air line, elbow connector and adjustable valve
• Some silicone to seal the connectors

And voila!

 

Easy peasy! 

 

 

[Subsea]

On 2/22/2018 at 6:16 PM, RookieRock said:

That's why I wanted a DIY tank. I don't know if it's cheaper, depends on the components I guess, but it sure is tailored to your needs.

My current setup is a 30 gallon FOWLR (freshwater tank with a canister filter) and it's a home to a couple of clownfish, a royal gramma, a cleaner shrimp, an emerald crab and a CUC. Been running like that for almost 2 years without any casualties or serious problems (except some green hair algae). The reason I'm building a new one, is because I wanted a couple of corals, 1-2 euphylias, a toadstool, maybe a GSP, and I knew they wouldn't survive in my current tank. 

Considering the corals you mentioned, without knowing more about your  FOWLR tank, with exception of reef lighting, I see no reason those corals would not thrive in your present tank.  I have many reef tanks operating on cannister filter.  I change GAC every other week and replace floss weekly or bi-weekly.  With the leather in the tank, you should use GAC 24/7.

[Tanksy]

Very interesting input Patrick.

I'm really keen to try natural filtration.  That being said I came up with a new design which combines light for chaeto and phytoplankton and darkness for cryptic sponges and zooplankton. Do you think I should add floss right below the overflow?
Looking forward to your thoughts.

 

[ReefingRelapse]

With the corals you plan on keeping, naural filtration isn't going to be a problem. My nitrates have dropped 10ppm in the last week since my fuge has finally started taking off and my phosphates are undetectable with salifert kit. Im only running floss and chaeto & red ogo right now