Drilling and maybe undoing an AIO???

[MrZ2u]

13 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I would just get a different skimmer cuz that's easier and I don't care for tunze 🙂 I saw someone take out a baffle on here but it was just one to fit that tunze.

 

I do hate those floor baffles...a fish got under them and when I tried to rescue it... It spookedand smashed into the glass above it and died. 😞

 

 

 

I have considered removing the skimmer all together actually.  I really have never gotten much skim at all...just slightly tinted water really.  I'm not convinced that it is doing all that much.   Not sure any other would do anything better either.  These little ones just seem lacking. I do not have much of a fish load either, Two Clowns, a Banggai & Pajama Cardinal and a Filefish so water changes alone probably take care of things well enough.  
 

 

[Tamberav]

17 minutes ago, MrZ2u said:

 

I have considered removing the skimmer all together actually.  I really have never gotten much skim at all...just slightly tinted water really.  I'm not convinced that it is doing all that much.   Not sure any other would do anything better either.  These little ones just seem lacking. I do not have much of a fish load either, Two Clowns, a Banggai & Pajama Cardinal and a Filefish so water changes alone probably take care of things well enough.  
 

 

My older cad pulls dark nasty stuff but if you don't need it...I wouldn't bother to even use it.

[Donnan]

I did this to my IM Fusion 20 in August of 2018. The glass baffles are easy to remove. All you need is a small hammer and it doesn't take much force at all to shatter the baffles. You'll be left with just the remaining silicone to scrape off. 

[MrZ2u]

21 hours ago, Donnan said:

I did this to my IM Fusion 20 in August of 2018. The glass baffles are easy to remove. All you need is a small hammer and it doesn't take much force at all to shatter the baffles. You'll be left with just the remaining silicone to scrape off. 

 

 

Man I have wondered about that...I was thinking of doing that too but maybe first scoring the glass several times on both sided with a cutting tool.  Thinking is that would weaken the glass and give it a greater tendendy stress fracture there without radiating as much energy to the tank glass. 

So it looks like you left the back wall in place as well....did you keep it as an AIO or can we just not see the holes for a sump drain? 

[Donnan]

3 hours ago, MrZ2u said:

Man I have wondered about that...I was thinking of doing that too but maybe first scoring the glass several times on both sided with a cutting tool.  Thinking is that would weaken the glass and give it a greater tendendy stress fracture there without radiating as much energy to the tank glass. 

So it looks like you left the back wall in place as well....did you keep it as an AIO or can we just not see the holes for a sump drain? 

The sump has completely been removed. I painted the rear glass black and drilled 3 holes.

[MrZ2u]

12 minutes ago, Donnan said:

The sump has completely been removed. I painted the rear glass black and drilled 3 holes.

Ahh...I see it now that you said that.  So that covers getting the whole thing out...but what about just the smaller pieces only.  Did you take them out first or just break the whole thing up at once?

 

[Donnan]

3 hours ago, MrZ2u said:

Ahh...I see it now that you said that.  So that covers getting the whole thing out...but what about just the smaller pieces only.  Did you take them out first or just break the whole thing up at once?

 

I broke the entire thing at once. I think that just removing the small baffles would be really difficult due to the size of the aio sump.

I guess it could be done but it would be a lot of trouble. 

[MrZ2u]

19 hours ago, Donnan said:

I broke the entire thing at once. I think that just removing the small baffles would be really difficult due to the size of the aio sump.

I guess it could be done but it would be a lot of trouble. 

Well given the list of "projects" I have and my attention span...the smaller ones may not be an issue 😉   Taking them all out makes a lot more sense and removing just the smaller ones has a risk associated with it that really might not be worth it.  

 

[oohnoo]

Bring this back up as I also want to setup and run an external sump. I'm looking at removing the baffles and back wall on my IM 30L. BUT..........I want to do this on a stocked populated running tank. The way I got it figured is to setup the external sump and overflow which I already bought and just cut out the baffles first and then the back wall. Hoping I could just razor blade them out. Didn't realize the back wall had a glass divider along with the acrylic. Thoughts?

[jcreefer]

@oohnoo, the baffles/glass partitions are made of glass.  They’re bonded to the black false wall with silicone.  When I set up my IM30L, (Which has the same constructions as all of the Nuvo line) I had to widen one of the second chambers to accommodate my JNS/Aquamaxx WS-1 skimmer.  I scored the silicone and proceeded to use a small hammer to shatter the glass into pieces for removal.  I then silicone a new piece of acrylic the same size as the original glass to recreate a (wider) second chamber.  I have pics in my build, just haven’t updated it in a while.

 

Mind you this was done on an empty tank.  Though I have no doubt the wall will hold with a full tank, I wouldn’t do it unless you at least drain half the tank first.

 

Jeff

[stevethao]

Old thread, but I have an AIO 25 lagoon that I drilled. I know the AIO section takes up space, but I drilled the bottom of the tank where the AIO return chamber was. This way, the whole back chamber is used as an “overflow” box. You can still use the original filter socks, media baskets, etc. It’s like having 2 sumps in one!

[ReefGoat]

1 hour ago, stevethao said:

Old thread, but I have an AIO 25 lagoon that I drilled. I know the AIO section takes up space, but I drilled the bottom of the tank where the AIO return chamber was. This way, the whole back chamber is used as an “overflow” box. You can still use the original filter socks, media baskets, etc. It’s like having 2 sumps in one!

Not that it matters to me because I am not building one of these but out of curiosity alone. What style drain did you use? Herbie?

[stevethao]

Yep, Herbie. Return pipe connects right into stock outlets from behind the false wall.

[Gnicol]

On 10/27/2020 at 11:21 AM, stevethao said:

Yep, Herbie. Return pipe connects right into stock outlets from behind the false wall.

Do you have a thread showing how you did this?

[stevethao]

12 hours ago, Gnicol said:

Do you have a thread showing how you did this?

No thread, but what did you wanna know? I’ll try to answer your questions.

[Gnicol]

What size did you drill? Any other photos?

[Gnicol]

1 hour ago, stevethao said:

No thread, but what did you wanna know? I’ll try to answer your questions.

What size did you drill? I’m thinking of connecting 2 im tanks to one sump. Anything you would have done differently? Any other photos?

[stevethao]

No pics of the actual holes or anything. But this is all I got. All the holes use 3/4” bulkheads, you’ll need an adapter to 1/2” to connect to the stock outputs. Only thing I’d do differently is make a wooden template to drill the holes to make sure they’re straight. The drill bit walked on me a little bit so the holes aren’t perfect and that bugs me a little haha.

[Gnicol]

16 hours ago, stevethao said:

No pics of the actual holes or anything. But this is all I got. All the holes use 3/4” bulkheads, you’ll need an adapter to 1/2” to connect to the stock outputs. Only thing I’d do differently is make a wooden template to drill the holes to make sure they’re straight. The drill bit walked on me a little bit so the holes aren’t perfect and that bugs me a little haha.

Thank you!

[tzink]

I removed the filter section and drilled an IM 20 peninsula. But that’s the side wall, not the back so maybe different. I drilled on the back wall though, worked fine. Lots of mess in removing the chamber though—why did they use glass there instead of just acrylic???