silverado61. Rebuilding my 72g bow front and stand.

[jay0705]

I bought a second hand 35 gallon tank that I was going to use for the sump. It fit, barely, but there wasn't enough room to get in there and redo the plumbing or do any work on it for that matter so I scratched that idea and found a 30 gallon used tank that has a little more room to work on it. Now the plan is to use the 35g for baffles in the 30g.
View attachment 3375
Here's the 35g that I was going to use for the sump. You can see that it's too tall to do any work on it once it's installed in the stand.

View attachment 3374
Here's the 30g that I found to use for the sump. This one will give me more room to work. The aluminum stand that it's sitting on is going be used for my QT. I've got a 45g and a 55g and I'm thinking of using one of those for the QT. Which one does everyone think I should use or should I go smaller?

Depends what you want to qt. It's not a huge diff between them. If you need to treat, smaller volume may help

 

[silverado61]

Depends what you want to qt. It's not a huge diff between them. If you need to treat, smaller volume may help

I believe you're right. On the Hunt for a 30g qt then. I don't want to go any smaller than that though. I want to be able to keep it as stable as possible.

 

[silverado61]

The sump build has begun. All the glass pieces are cut and clean. A single 11 inch high baffle will separate the overflow/skimmer chamber from the center filtration chamber and the triple baffles will sit a total of 9-1/2 off the bottom of the sump. I'm going ahead with the under/over/under system for easier cleaning.

Some photos of what I've done so far:

First two baffles set and ready for caulking.

The sides are caulked. I'm going to let them set for a couple of hours then get in there and caulk along the bottoms. I'm debating about whether or not to install the last two baffles tomorrow or let it cure for a week and leak test the baffles that are in now just to be safe.

A closer view of my caulking talents or lack thereof.

 

[silverado61]

Well I got in there and caulked the bottoms of the first two baffles and removed the tape. I'll get in there tomorrow and clean off the tops and cap them off with finger applied caulk. The two side chambers are 10 inches wide leaving the center chamber at 16 inches.

The chamber for the skimmer is at an 11 inch depth to allow room to adjust the height of the skimmer. I know I should only need nine or ten inches but I'd rather be safe than sorry. There's lots of head room in the base of the stand to allow plenty of height adjustment.

The center chamber is at 16 inches to allow enough room for my DIY up flow Algae scrubber. Any thoughts on what else I should put in there? I was thinking either live rock or miracle mud. I should have enough room to put about 2-3 inches of mud. I need to do more research on miracle mud to see what the pros and cons are. I might end up just doing live sand and/or rock. Decisions, decisions.

The last chamber is for, you guessed it, the return pump. If I designed this right, there should be enough room for the sump to except 2 maybe 3 gallons of water from the display in case the power goes out or if I need to shut it down to work on it. I have an inti-syphon hole drilled into the return jet but I might need the room in the sump till the display water level drops enough for the anti-syphon to kick in. I might redesign the return jet with a better system.

Here's photo of what I've done so far. I've already done the touch ups on the bottom of the left baffle so disregard the screw ups. lmao

There's plenty more to come ladies and gentlemen so keep an eye out.

 

[silverado61]

I finished the sump build. My skimmer, DIY Algae scrubber and return pump all fit perfect. Or about as perfect as it's going to get anyway. Now I just need to install it in the base of the stand and update the plumbing including lubing or replacing all the plumbing seals. Then run a leak test on the whole system (fingers crossed on that one).

Setup and ready for caulk.

Caulking is all finished.

The caulk is set enough so I pulled out the framing. Now I'll just let it cure till this weekend so I can clean it up and do a leak test on the baffles.

 

[beth]

Need a long shot of all this equipment! How much time put in to this? I'm guess all your weekend time.

 

[silverado61]

I picked up what I think is a 28 gallon tank with a bunch of freshwater trinkets for $15. I'll measure it so that I know for sure but I'm going to use this one for my QT. The freshwater stuff I'll either just toss or resell it and get the tank for free.

 

[silverado61]

Need a long shot of all this equipment! How much time put in to this? I'm guess all your weekend time.

Here you go Beth.
From left to right:
First chamber. The Eflux DC flow pump is from Current USA Marine and rated for 1050gph. That should be enough turnover rate. It also has an adjustable flow rate and will be tied in with my power heads for feeding time.
Second chamber. These are the LED's for my DIY up flow Algae scrubber which are adjustable. I'm using four red and two blue actinics. The inside mesh and air stone to grow and collect Algae are still a work in progress. I'm going to cut about 2 inches off the bottom of the gray tub to the right and use the bottom to finish it off.

Here's what it looks like at full intensity.

Third chamber. My Eshopps PSK100 protein skimmer.

 

[jay0705]

Nice buddy

 

[silverado61]

Nice buddy

Thanks Jay.

 

[silverado61]

Here's a pic of my 30g I picked up for my QT.

 

[silverado61]

Sorry I've been gone for a while. A lot has happened since my last post. Got married. Separated 28 days later. Divorced a month after that. Sold the house and moved into an apartment on the second floor so I'm not able to set this bad boy up. Looking to buy a small house just for me in the mean time. Till then I'm just going to keep working on the tank and setup so that it's ready for a house. Right now I'm working on the DIY upflow algae scrubber. I'll post a pick when I get more work done.

 

[jay0705]

Glad to see you back

 

[silverado61]

Glad to see you back

Again...… LOL

 

[jay0705]

Ha ha ha me and imforbis are the only ones i recognize anymore

 

[lmforbis]

There’s always Bob

 

[beaslbob]

There’s always Bob

me?

 

[jay0705]

What about bob? Lol

 

[beaslbob]

What about bob? Lol

still using experimental unproven methods. LOL

 

[2quills]