Apexdv Posted September 18, 2013 Share Posted September 18, 2013 Very Nice. I especially like the way you configured the sump to take advantage of as much possible space as can be. Slick. How many gallons will the sump contain? Total water volume less rock/sand for DT & sump? Following! Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted September 19, 2013 Author Share Posted September 19, 2013 The tank will hold 25 gallons and the sump 22.5 gallons. The tank will actually have about 19 gallons when the rock and substrate are in and the sump will run with about 13 gallons. I hope to have the rock wall done this weekend and salt water in a few days after that once everything is good and dry! Thanks for following along, I sure have enjoyed following your build. Mike Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted September 21, 2013 Author Share Posted September 21, 2013 Sorry I have been so busy, I have two speaking engagements coming up and I'm trying to get my website up besides working on the tank. Anyway, I digress. . . The RO unit is installed in the basement and the line run across the house to a eShopps float valve in the sump. Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 The plumbing is now in to drain out of the sump for water changes. No hauling buckets of old water! Link to comment
Dramad1 Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Looking good. Looks clean Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 serious plumbing! Looking good. Looks clean Thank you both. I hope to get more done on it this weekend! Link to comment
Giga Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Thank you both. I hope to get more done on it this weekend! That makes two of us Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted September 28, 2013 Author Share Posted September 28, 2013 Thanks Rehype! Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 Okay, finally some photos of the foam wall for the back and left side. Here I am attaching some of the larger rocks to the egg crate light diffuser with zip ties. Next I applied the black pond foam. Once it dried for a couple days I turned the whole thing over and removed the paper that I was using to protect the tabletop. It did protect the top but was a pain to remove from the back of the rock wall. When I do the wall for the left side I will use plastic to protect the table. Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 3, 2013 Author Share Posted October 3, 2013 Cool design! Very nice Thanks guys! Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 13, 2013 Author Share Posted October 13, 2013 Well I made the wall for the left side of the tank and I did use old thin plastic grocery bags to protect the table. They worked perfectly! I test fit the two walls by laying one on its back and the other is straight up on its side. And here it is from a different angle. The larger rocks on the left in the photo are the bottom of the walls. Link to comment
Giga Posted October 13, 2013 Share Posted October 13, 2013 have you seen if it floats-I remember doing this before and it was hard to keep down Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 13, 2013 Author Share Posted October 13, 2013 The rock I have on here is much to heavy for it to float. Each wall is about 17" square and there is 20lb of rock and 8-9lb of rubble on them. I used a little less than two cans of pond foam and trimmed off some of that. I let the foam cure for a few days then used a needle nose pliers (mostly the side of the jaws) to peel and pull the shiny skin off of the pond foam. This left a good texture not unlike the rock. In this photo you can see some shiny parts on the edge and the rest I have already taken off the "skin" Link to comment
Apexdv Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Very nice project. Thumbs-up! Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 How many gals? 22 ? Yes, 25 gallons. I figure with the sump/sand/rock it has an actual 30 gallons of water. Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 18, 2013 Author Share Posted October 18, 2013 such a nice tank Thanks College Reefer! Link to comment
Mike Savage Posted October 19, 2013 Author Share Posted October 19, 2013 The next step is to mix up the two-part epoxy and use a flux brush to apply it to the pond foam. I covered about 20-25% of the foam on one wall (with the wall laying on its back) then covered the area with sand. I continued until both wall were done then waited about an hour or so. Once I was pretty sure the sand was stuck in place I picked up the wall, held it upside down and turned it every direction I could so I could see how much sand actually stuck. It looked pretty good. I thought about it a while and decided to touchup the blank spots and give most areas a second coat of sand for good measure. About 3 days later I installed the walls. I thought this would be the easy part but there was no way to fit the two walls into the tank separately. Just not enough wiggle room. So after getting another set of hands, getting it half way in, some trimming with the dremmel, and being careful not to scratch the tank, the walls were finally in place. I put the substrate in and pushed it under the large rocks at the bottom of the walls to support them well and It didn't look half bad. I clamped the walls to the tank and ran a bead of silicone along the top edge to hold everything together. Link to comment
Apexdv Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Wow. Super sharp. Very impressive. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.