My 50g custom project

[Sinistard]

Thanks all. I really like the look of the black PVC, it's much cleaner looking then white and blends in to the back of my tank perfectly. It is very nice to have Savko just down the road, I probably made 30 trips there over the last 3 or 4 weeks LOL. I was in there one day and they where shipping a few big packages to Japan, now thats a shipping bill I would not want to have. I think they said shipping alone was around 300 bucks.

 

I did my leak test today and the only things that leaked where the 2 threaded closed loop intakes and a 45 that drains into my sump that managed to get cracked some how. Both should be easy fixes. The 20g tank allowed for a lot more volume in the sump with no worries about overflow.

 

My other problem is my Iwaki pump is very loud, much louder then I expected or hoped it would be. The pan world pump that is much bigger is actually quieter, in fact to only thing loud about it is the fan. I don't know why the Iwaki is so loud, I think its vibrating the stand and I have tried to isolate it with rubber and Styrofoam with no luck. Could there be something out of alignment in the pump causing the vibration? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Hopefully I will be able to get water in it sometime in the next few weeks.

 

Thanks again for the complements on my plumbing.

[Sinistard]

I added the baffles to my sump for the bubble trap. Here is a picture of the setup. I am going to add an egg crate shelf to the section where the fuge drains in to hold any carbon, chemi pure, etc.

 

I left enough room in the skimmer section for when I upgrade skimmers down the road. I am very glad I decided to upgrade the sump from 10g to 20g, there is so much more room to work with.

 

[ProFlatlander15]

put your pump on a mousepad. is that a 20L for your sump?

[Sinistard]

put your pump on a mousepad. is that a 20L for your sump?

 

Thanks for the mouse pad idea, I think I'm going to try that. I'm worried something is out of whack in the pump and is causing it to vibrate excessively. I took it apart to check the barrings and they seem fine and nothing looks out of place although I'm not sure I would notice if there was. I hope the mouse pad idea works because it is very loud and will suck to hear all the time in our living room.

 

Yup it's a 20g long.

[ProFlatlander15]

yea...make sure the mousepad does not get submerged in the water... i had a partial tank crash due to that...you might wanna check w/ Iwaki too.

[Babycakes]

omgosh. the plumbing reminds me of a game of snakes and ladders

 

it's intense!

[Sinistard]

Well I finally have some updates.

 

I finally got my Iwaki pump quieted down enough to make it usable. After taking some advice from melev and geo (thanks) over on reefcentral I added some "soft" plumbing to the PVC between the sump and pump and the returns lines. It was amazing how much less noise it made with just a couple inches of Vinyl tubing added to the PVC. I would recommend that everyone add some soft plumbing to new set-ups of noisy set-ups, especially between the pump and sump, thats where I heard the most change. Here are a few pictures of the new plumbing. I also have the pump sitting on around 2 inches of "mouse pad" foam.

 

 

 

I also added a bubble tower to my sump to stop some of the bubbles caused from the drain into the sump. It's hard to tell in the second picture but it's around 1" off the bottom so the water will flow under and if it works out the bubbles will rise to the top. I was getting lots of micro bubbles and I hope this helps.

 

 

 

I also added two American DJ power strips to the side and plan to add two boxes with GFCI outlets which the American DJ strips will plug into. I'm going to build a shelf that will sit on the ground behind the stand and stick the boxes on the bottom side to keep out water. I will probably also add some kind of wall to keep water off the power strips and plan to have some type of UPS to protect against power outages.

 

 

That's it for now.

 

Next I am going to add lights above the fuge tank, finish the rest of the electrical and the finish up a couple things in the sump. Once I get all this done I will be able to stick the tank in place and add water.

 

Thanks again to everyone for the advice on quieting my pump.

[socalcreations]

Oh come on, lets see some water in that thing already, LOL. J/K. Looking like a real nice system, really can't wait to see it all in action.

[Zapatista]

this is gonna be one awsome set-up...great job on the plumbing!!

[Sinistard]

Thanks Randy. LOL, I know it's been forever since you got the tank to me and I still don't have it done. I figured it would take a few weeks not months. Oh well I want to get it right the first time.

 

Thanks Zapatista, I'm very happy with the plumbing. It ended up nice and compact, it only sticks out 4.5 inches from the back of the stand.

[Sinistard]

I got a bit more done. I got a coralife 260w light fixture for cheap a while back and decided to use part of it as my fuge light and the other half will go in my hood.

 

 

I basically gutted the light and cut the reflector in half. I just took off the switches and fans and wired the power cord straight into the ballast since I will be able to turn them on and off using the American DJ power strip.

 

 

 

I stuck 2 of the 65w bulbs with half the reflector in the stand over the fuge and will use 6700k bulbs. The other 2 will go in the hood and be actinic. I am going mount the ballasts up in the stand and then get a piece of plexi and stick it over the lights and ballast to protect against water splashing. I don't think I will need any fans but if I do I will just add a couple 80mm fans to the open end.

 

 

 

This should be plenty of light to support the 10g fuge and maybe even some frags if I need a place to stick them.

[Sebea]

Cool! Great idea!

 

BTW, the pics of your stand have really helped me with building mine. Thanks! I'm still amazed at how awesome yours turned out.

[Sinistard]

Thanks Sebea.

 

You tank is coming along nicely, good luck with it.

 

Well I have water in the tank and am testing it for leaks and testing the sump. No leaks but I found that I am having a problem with micro bubbles.

 

Basically I am getting some very fine micro bubbles making it through the sump and back into the tank. I have tried several things including adding the bubble tower in the corner, adding the last baffle before the return and a sponge under the tank drain pipe and can not make them go away. I don't know if the flow is to high, my baffles are to close together, or it could be anything as far as I know. Most of the bubbles are being caused by the tank drain pipe and are making it through the bubble trap.

 

Here is a picture of the sump setup. If you see anything that could be changed or added to help please let me know. It's a 20g long tank and I would guess around 700-800 gph are flowing through it combined from both the tank and the fuge.

 

[Sinistard]

Well I finally got a picture with water in the tank, although I don't know if I have enough light You can see there are a lot of micro bubbles in the shot, I hope they will clear out a bit after it runs for a while. This is just a test run with tap water to make sure everything is going to work

 

 

I changed my overflow design to get rid of the bubbles. Instead of a Durso Stand pipe I went with a design that someone recommended over on RC. Here is a link to the thread with info on the overflow design.

 

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=344892

 

So far It seem like it will work great although I have a bit of tweaking to do on the height of the 2 drains in my overflow. Once I get it tweaked I will post some pictures.

 

I also learned you need to be careful when drilling acrylic with a hole saw. When the saw part hit the acrylic I had it going to fast of a bit out of level and it caught and spun the drill smashing my little finger into the side of the tank. That's a mistake I will only make once. I'm lucky it was not worse. I imagine in a few days my finger nail will look like hell.

 

[Nanomaniac]

Wow your tank is awesome. 130watts of pc over your 10 gallon fuge that is crazy. I can't wait to see how your tank turns out.

[Sinistard]

Wow your tank is awesome. 130watts of pc over your 10 gallon fuge that is crazy. I can't wait to see how your tank turns out.

 

Thanks Nanomaniac, I hope to add salt water to it soon.

 

I figure I can stick some frags in the fuge if needed with the 130w of pc, plus it was cheap

[virex27th]

How much to build a stand for me? Great job man, everything looks nice. But seriously 3-4 weeks on that stand for me... take your time.

[g0tfish]

This is a great tank man. The plumbing is intense and expensive looking xP great job.

[Sinistard]

Thanks virex27th, g0tfish.

 

 

virex27th where are you located?

 

And yes the plumbing was expensive, way more then I planned on. It just kept adding up

[virex27th]

I am located in Raleigh, NC and that is NC(North Carolina) not NC(Nano-Cube) :-).

[Tigahboy]

god. that plumbing job must of cost u a fortune. good job on it.