Jump to content
Pod Your Reef

37g custom acrylic "cube" full build process


latazyo

Recommended Posts

UPDATE:

 

I have finished the sump and ordered my plumbing

 

here is the pic of the sump (as you can see I am undoubtedly the greatest silicone artist in the world)

 

20lsump.jpg

 

the sump is designed exactly as shown in the diagram in my previous post

 

for me, being lazy is a way of life and is of utmost importance, for this reason I have designed my system to make water changes easier for me

 

in doing so I have ordered a DJ power center on which I will control all of the things that need to be turned off during a water change (skimmer, ATO pump, heater, etc)...it is a phenominal device and I recommend eveyrone get one...I got this one

290407.jpg

 

going along with my theme of easy water changes I installed a side door on my stand

door.jpg

 

behind which lies my water changing station

waterchangingstation.jpg

 

both nozzles will have about 5 feet of flexible tubing connected to them and rolled up inside the compartment

 

the nozzle on the left will be the water in line, through which I will pump saltwater back into the sump

 

the nozzle on the right will be the water out line, through which old water from the sump will be pumped into my water buckets...I would have loved to hook my outgoing water up through a garden hose, and run it outside or to my bathroom during a water change, but my pump does not have those capabilities...oh well..maybe someday

 

well tomorrow, comes plumbing and mounting of the electrical gadgets, hope to update again in a few days

 

thanks for looking

Link to comment
  • Replies 77
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I have finished the plumbing...will wait until tomorrow for a leak test

 

here are several shots of the plumbing...all visible pvc will be krylon fusioned

 

back, the two over the top returns will have 3/4" locline Y's into 4 flare nozzles...you'll also notice on the lower right hand side of the picture that I siliconed on a 97 cent sterilite container to keep the power center dry in the event of an overflow/splashing

plumbingback.JPG

 

water overflows through this 1.25" durso

plumbingdurso.JPG

 

through the drain where it is split, one line to the skimmer and one to the fuge (still need a skimmer)

plumbingfront.JPG

 

mounted a fuge light

fugelight.JPG

 

here is a shot of the plumbing at the waterchange center....the reason it looks so ridiculous is due to some bad planning and very bad pvc cutting on my part...so it had to be modified with those huge upward loops...oh well, its not like IM sweating it

plumbingleft.JPG

 

here is how I mounted the dj power center to control things during water changes

powerswitch.JPG

 

stand update:

my puppy decided that the stand had far too much wood and paint on it and decided to help me remove some by chewing on teh corner...I decided to just leave it since 1) gives it character, 2) its not like it was show quality to begin with, and 3) like Im sweating it

standpuppy.JPG

 

 

thanks again to everyone for looking, this tank is finally within weeks of rock and water...I'll be looking for some live rock and sand in a few weeks

 

I also need some base rock, but hirocks.com apparently no longer exists

Link to comment

well I finished the jump guard this should remain semi in cognito, I hope, if not I might paint the edges black...not sure yet

 

lidtopview.JPG

 

 

I made it by cutting eggcrate to the proper size and then glueing pieces of plexi onto the corners

cornerdetail.JPG

 

from the front it isnt so bad...will have to wait and see it with water

 

tankwlid.JPG

Link to comment

well, I ran the water test today and there are a few problems

 

only one leak (loose bulkhead...fixed)

 

but my lack of knowledge of water dynamics has really gotten me

 

the drain line is fine and working great, I adjusted my durso and it is silent and perfect

 

anyways...

on the return line there are problems all around

 

1. the left side of the cross, used for water changes is just not working right, the 1/2 pipe cuts down the flow so much that it would be faster to just use an mj1200, on top of that, it sounds like closing everything down and running the pump through 1/2 inch is pretty stressful on the pump, so I"ll modify that a little

 

2. since water (apparently like electricity) follows the path of least resistance, if the ball valve to the right of the cross is open at all, all of the water goes through that, so I have to keep that closed the whole time, rendering it useless

 

3. after all of the bs the water goes through to get to my tank, the flow is (as steve predicted) dismal

 

before I go modifying my plumbing or upgrading to a mag12, Im going to wait until my locline comes in from savko (if ever...what a slow company) and see how the flow is with that

 

so now I have two options

1. closed loop - Im really not comfortable drilling the tank myself and adding yet another pump to the system

 

2. upgrade pumps - PITA, will have to buy a new pump and find someone to sell this one to...I guess I thought that 600gph would have some force behind it

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

it looks likek you have that egg crate upsidown. there's a right direction and a wrong direction. you'll notice the cross pieces taper from thick on one side to thin on the other... you want the thin edges of the braces facing up, that will direct the light spread down into the tank.

 

also, eggcrate, even used the "correct" direction, reduces lamp par by about 25%, so plan your coral stocking accordingly.

 

looks awesome so far!

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

thanks for the comments charlie, with 6x24w t5s I dont think light will be an issue

 

well as you may notice my last post was 9-5-06 and school started on 9-7-06, so that should be an explanation to my progress speed

 

anyways, I decided that I needed to go to the world series, so I budgeted a couple hundred bucks for tickets, then decided "wait, Im a braves fan, not a cards fan, why would I pay 400 bucks to go to a cardinals game even if it is the world series?"

 

so I decided to spend that money on everything else I needed to get my tank going

 

so I ordered my RODI (will be here tues), picked up some salt and sand, got some live rock (have it in a holding tank) and picked up a great skimmer (ER RS5-3)

 

here are some updated pics

 

skimmer.JPG

 

liverock.JPG

 

tankwsand.JPG

 

thanks for looking, and this is one of the slowest moving tank builds EVER

Link to comment
thanks for looking, and this is one of the slowest moving tank builds EVER

 

Slow and steady wins the race. I've been building and planning my current tank for some 6 months. Don't worry! All looks well and you're much closer to the finish line then I am. :D

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...
So, um.....What do you plan on doing with the dead beagle?

 

I ate it

 

btw: great sig

 

HERE IS MY MOST RECENT UPDATE:

well progress is finally being made...I am now ready to rock and in the cycling process...all of the snails that came with my rock died in the holding bin, so I am extrapolating that there will be a lot of die off within the rock itself, hopefully this is not the case, water tests will confirm or deny it, I suppose

 

I would like to start off with some of the minor installs I did in preparation for the addition of live rock

 

I installed a ground probe (about 2-3" are underwater)...I did not have a probe in my last tank and noticed a very tiny tingling sensation when my arms were in the tank and I made contact with my lighting unit...for this tank I decided to get a grounding probe

groundprobe.JPG

 

I also picked up a delux ATO unit from aquahub.com...its a pretty solid unit so far and I like the dual switch back up...the instructions are very easy and installation was easy

 

switches

ATOswitches.JPG

 

and the output

ATOinput.JPG

 

and here is a shot of the sump loaded full of crap...it now has some live rock rubble in it, but I am in need of more for the fuge portion...it is doubling as a live rock area as well, since I dont want that much rock in my display

 

loadedsump.JPG

 

here are the views of the rockwork...

front:

front11202006.JPG

 

right:

right11202006.JPG

 

left:

left11202006.JPG

 

 

at this time I would like to aknowledge a few mistakes that I made so that others will not do the same

 

1. the auto top off freshwater outlet needs to be higher than your reservoir....I learned this the hard way the first time it ran and a siphon continued to put water into the tank...I wanted to put the new water into the sump, but that is too low, and a siphon formed...for this reason the fresh water now enters the system into the overflow box

 

2. when drilling a hole in your return line to prevent siphon in the event of a power outage, the hole (obviously) needs to be underwater...I drilled mine (without thinking first) above the water and it sucked air in like a venturi and put bubbles in the tank....boo

 

3. if you split your return line, make sure the total cross sectional area of pipe is SMALLER than your main return line, or you will not get any flow...I learned the hard way by splitting 1" line into 2 x 3/4"...I am now having to ghetto rig it into 2 x 1/2" ...if you want to do the math to verify, the area of a circle is pi x radius ^ 2...the area of a 1" pipe is about .785 sq in, dual 3/4's is .88 and dual 1/2's is .39....switching to dual 1/2s should give me significant pressure increases

Link to comment
1. the auto top off freshwater outlet needs to be higher than your reservoir....I learned this the hard way the first time it ran and a siphon continued to put water into the tank...I wanted to put the new water into the sump, but that is too low, and a siphon formed...for this reason the fresh water now enters the system into the overflow box

 

2. when drilling a hole in your return line to prevent siphon in the event of a power outage, the hole (obviously) needs to be underwater...I drilled mine (without thinking first) above the water and it sucked air in like a venturi and put bubbles in the tank....boo

 

3. if you split your return line, make sure the total cross sectional area of pipe is SMALLER than your main return line, or you will not get any flow...I learned the hard way by splitting 1" line into 2 x 3/4"...I am not having to ghetto rig it into 2 x 1/2" ...if you want to do the math to verify, the area of a circle is pi x radius ^ 2...the area of a 1" pipe is about .785 sq in, dual 3/4's is .88 and dual 1/2's is .39....switching to dual 1/2s should give me significant pressure increases

 

 

You just answered some questions I'd been wondering about. I appreciate that people like you come on here and aren't afraid to tell people about your mistakes. It helps us all. Tank is looking pretty tight, that's some some serious plumbing and the water change station deserves one of these:

 

:bowdown:

Link to comment

that's why I have included so many pics that seem pointless to veteran tankers...for example, the ground probe pic

 

thanks for the compliments, the water change station works perfectly, I used it to remove and replace some saltwater when I added my live rock

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

another update...I have now added a few frags to the tank and trying to think of what fish I want to keep in here

 

so far so good...Ive got some hair algae in my display tank, so I tuned up the flow to my fuge to see if that helps any...I also have a water change scheduled this week

 

anyways...on with the pics

 

here is a pic of the fuge with a large lump of chaeto in there...not really doing its job according to my hair algae...maybe I need more lighting on it??

fuge.JPG

 

and the candy cane, which is doing great and will hopefully start splitting soon

candycane.JPG

 

orange monti cap...you can actually see how much its grown in the month that Ive had it

orangemonticap.JPG

 

pocillopora w/ bubble algae (came free with orders over $10)

pocillopora.JPG

 

and misc zoo pic

zoos.JPG

 

sorry no FTS, my camera is 4 years old or so and sucks at pics w/o flash

 

thanks for looking

Link to comment

more pics, including FTS

 

this is the excellent frogspawn I picked up

frogspawn182007.JPG

 

orange digitata frag

orangemontidig182007.JPG

 

here is a shot of my monti caps as seen through the left side panel

monticaps182007.JPG

 

and the FTS...since my camera is so crappy w/o flash it took about 20 pics to get 2 or 3 that were decent and this was the best I could do with my equipment

 

fts182007.JPG

 

I am going to modify the placement of the monti digi frag and the olive green monti cap (right now theyre within a few inches of the orange monti cap and that'll obivously be a problem...Im just waiting on some plumbers putty

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

update: might finally hve the flow situation resolved

 

I removed the MJ1200 and added two seio m620s

 

right now Im sitting at about 48x turnover, which I think is pretty decent

 

I have an extra 20L sitting around that I might make into a fuge, but havent decided yet...it would have to be on its own stand and I think that would look stuipd...but still thinking about it

 

updated stocking list (this is what I have so far):

emerald crab

queen conch

astreas

1 blue leg hermit hitch hiker

 

orange monti digi

pocillopora

acropora millepora

orange monti cap

olive green monti cap

zoos (greens, orange)

blue ric

orange ric

frilly mushroom

GSP

frogspawn

candy cane

 

 

planning to add ultimately:

long nosed hawk fish (dont care if it eats shrimp, Im getting one)

true percula clown

yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp

yellow candy hogfish Bodianus bimaculatus*

flame or coral beauty angel (havent decided which one)*

 

*=maybe, haven't decided yet

 

cleaner shrimp

 

brain coral (havent decided which variety

acros (need some pinks/blues/purples)

superman monti

more zoos

more ricordea

 

clam (havent decided which kind I want yet...obviously not a large one...right now Im liking squamosas)

 

 

thanks for looking, as usual any and all comments are welcome

Link to comment

well I added a fish yesterday, just a standard firefish...I've always thought they were cool so I picked one up

 

no pics yet, he's still hiding out, but its the first fish in the tank so he shouldn't be shy for too long

 

just sharing some growth pics so far

 

here are the orange and green zoos I got a while back, they are reproducing like crazy

 

greenorangezoos222007.JPG

 

the pocillopora is showing incredible growth, I got it exactly one month ago (I think)

pocigrowth222007.jpg

 

I also recently added a queen conch to stir up my sand bed, but its behaving weird...it is climbing on the rocks and glass...is that normal?

queenonrocks222007.JPG

 

here is a shot of the one and only mushroom in my tank, it was too cool to ban from the tank

shroom222007.JPG

 

I picked up some used seios (as previously mentioned) but only one had a mount so I had to improvise, so far it's working well, but the downside is that I can't adjust the direction or position of the seio

seiomount1.JPG

 

another shot of it

seiomount2.JPG

 

here is a full tank shot taken today

fts222007.JPG

 

here are a few shots of the tank bowing situation IM having DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOMETHING I SHOULD WORRY ABOUT?

tankbow1.JPG

 

tankbow2.JPG

 

note the queen conch up in the corner of the tank...wtf?

 

and just for fun, here is a shot of my first ever tank back in 2002...things have come a long way

myfirsttank.JPG

Link to comment

That bowing looks really bad. I never had a tank bow on me, but I know it cant be good. :( Maybe someone else who has experience can tell you about this...

 

Good Luck

 

MJD

Link to comment

thanks for the comment MJD...I dont know what to say about the tank bowing, I contacted the manufacturer and he said that it should be fine, but to look out for any crazing along the edges....he seemed very confident that it would be fine

 

I might consider going with a canopy or else just making a frome to go around the top....

 

at this point I am not considering a eurobrace

 

 

also, since I put the seios in, my eggcrate top was breached and the firefish made a run for it...found my dog chewing on the fish jerky this morning...RIP firefish

Link to comment

well, I bought a piece of acrylic to make a eurobrace today

 

so the tank will be rimless for only one more week and then it will be braced....bummer

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...