[dhardy]

I started this on our club forums, and I am just porting it over here to get further input from this great community .

So my sump is leaking on my 37G and I don't want to fix it again. Instead with the help of tprivitor I have located a 125G Reef ready aquarium in Winter Park. ynot65, myself and possibly Cuba are going to head up on Sunday to pick it up.

Seeing as I am starting this early I don't have much to say about it but will post the few pictures that they have given me to show what I am expecting to have to start with.

It does come with a canopy, but I am under the impression it may need a little bit of work. Overall the entire setup looks like it is in great condition.

Seeing as I am unsure of the lighting setup this comes with, I am going to assume I will need to add additional light to the setup. It has a Current USA fixture of some form based on the picture it is roughly 3ft long. I have a 24" Current Nova Pro Extreme I can use, but I am already planning to buy two 175w MH's as supplement.

This tank is being used for fresh water fish currently, so I am also assuming it has no power heads. While a reef tank can survive without the additional flow from power heads, I am planning on buying 2x JBJ 1100GPH with a wave maker to get started. I may or may not end up adding 2 more, it will just depend on how the flow works out.

There are quite a few variables left with this system as I have not seen it in person to know exactly what I am looking at. With it being a 2 hour ride, this is going to be like a goodie box for me. I have more than accepted the price they are asking for the stand/aquarium so anything else is a huge bonus.

It comes with a Wet/Dry filter but I am a fan of refugiums so I will be installing one. I just cant decide what size I will be going with until I get the inner dimensions of the stand to work with.

I will keep this thread updated as time progresses. I look forward to doing this build out and cant wait to hear the input you guys will have once I get to it in person an figure out exactly what is what.

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Today the wife and I cleared the space where the new tank will go during our weekly sweeping/mopping.

In the morning I will be going to pick up 2 175w metal halides for this tank. Then at 12 we are heading to Orlando to check out some of the fish stores and await the time when we can pick the new tank up.

I Will post more pictures tomorrow of the break down, transport and reassembly.

At this point I am still desperately in need of a few power heads, I thought I had found some for sale in TRT but the guy isn't responding. So the search continues.

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First of all a big thanks to Cuba and Ynot65 for helping me go get the tank today. So thank you guys again!

So today I went an picked up 2 175W Metal Halides

Then this afternoon we started the trek to Winter Park to pick up the tank. What we found was a bit more than I had anticipated, it appeared their husbandry on this tank was lacking to say the least.

This is what the filter floss looked like from sump.

So after getting it all drained out emptied out, we got it all loaded.

There was a LFS about a block up from where the tank was, so after stopping there for a few we started the 2 hour drive back.

It is finally rinsed out an setup in my foyer. It still needs to be cleaned out properly. It fortunately fits perfectly.

I had neglected to get a tank for the fuge, so after deliberation it was decided a 55g would fit nicely and still leave some extra room to work. This setup presents the same problem I have now though, once it is in it is not coming out. So some further thought is needed. One option we discussed was putting a door on the side for removal if required.

I now have a 55g to get to work with immediately thanks to Cuba.

I still need to locate one to replace this with, but it will at least get me started in the right direction for the time being. Unfortunately it was to late to stop at home depot and get acrylic to start the baffles, but this may have turned out to be a good thing as it was rather late by the time moving it rinsing it and setting it all back up.

Tomorrow Nelson is going to come back over and help me setup the baffles. Hopefully I will be able to get the DT cleaned an start putting the RODI water in it.

I will update this thread as time progresses.

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So the canopy is only 4" tall, so I am considering options in how to raise it so that the halides will be usable and hidden. They are 5.5" tall.

I went an looked around home depot and found some 1x12's that may work to raise it. I will have to crunch numbers and see if that is going to put me at least close to being high enough off the water.

My current thoughts are to have them 8-10" off the water, what do you guys think?

 

[ynot65]

I keep mine at about 10" up from the tank.

 

[dhardy]

So, as with any projects I have run into a few minor, hopefully minor set backs with the initial planning or lack there of.

My wife is refusing to let me move the ship picture from above the tank, so I am going to have to move it up and build a new canopy. Unfortunately with this canopy at best I am looking at 13-14" of total clearance from the water to the top of the canopy. This is going to put my halides somewhere between 7-8 inches off the water.

The 55G sump I had intended on building has turned out to be less than feasible. While it will fit an work in the tank, on a long term basis maintenance would be a nightmare with a meer 3.5" clearance from the nearest access point, leave replacing rock, socks, skimmers or anything similar to be a nightmare.

At this point I am heavily considering doing a split sump/refugium. Utilizing a Wet/Dry for the initial sump plumbed into a smaller tank for the refugium.

 

[musicfeind2001]

Beautiful looking tank! I also have a 125g, though mine is corner flow with drilled bottom. While the stand is very attractive, I can see how it would be a pain in the rear to access it. My stand was custom built and only has 2 doors, split in the middle, which makes maintanance much easier. You seem like a DIY'r, have you considered modifying the stand to have 2 doors instead of 3? Only difficulty there would be getting matching laminated doors?
Also, since you are looking to do a refugium, perhaps you ought to consider a 30g long, rather than that 55tall you have. I plan to do the same for mine.
Good luck!

 

[ynot65]

+1 on the 30 long.

 

[dhardy]

Beautiful looking tank! I also have a 125g, though mine is corner flow with drilled bottom. While the stand is very attractive, I can see how it would be a pain in the rear to access it. My stand was custom built and only has 2 doors, split in the middle, which makes maintanance much easier. You seem like a DIY'r, have you considered modifying the stand to have 2 doors instead of 3? Only difficulty there would be getting matching laminated doors?
Also, since you are looking to do a refugium, perhaps you ought to consider a 30g long, rather than that 55tall you have. I plan to do the same for mine.
Good luck!

Thank you, I am excited to get it finished an running.

I opted to go for a split sump instead of a single refugium/sump combo. I am going to use 20 gallon tank for the separated fuge, and a wet dry as a split sump.

I am considering upgrading the wet dry to another 20 gallon tank later, but for now I feel it will work well.

 

[dhardy]

After realizing that the 55G wouldn't work for the sump/fuge it was back to the drawing board. tprivitor and I went back an forth on possible designs and he finally convinced me to do a split fuge and sump setup. After doing research on it I agreed and we started the build out of that last night.

This is the general idea of how it will look when complete.

tprivitor was nice enough to donate a 20G for the fuge along with a glass drill bit to customize it a slight bit.

Its a little bit dirty, but nothing some vinegar and elbow grease wont take care of.

The stand was rather dirty and required some cleaning. The previous owners really neglected this tank.

After cleaning out the area the tank would end up, I had to do some creative thinking about how to fit it in through the openings.

Now that the tank is in place, it was time to start doing some plumbing.

Due to the age of the tank I opted to replace the bulkheads that came with it. and to replumb the overflow and and return line in the corner.

So, the bulkheads are in and tested for leaks. Its time to start plumbing.

The return and overflow pipes are still visible from the side of the tank, which happens to be one of the first things you will see when you walk through my front door. With this in mind I opted to use schedule 80, grey PVC pipe instead of the standard white pipe. My hopes that are over time it wont look as neglected due to the minimal contrast.

Time to layout the underneath plumbing.

I am doing a dry run with the plumbing first, to see how everything will fit and to ensure all my measurements are accurate.

At this point I ran into a slight issue with how I was planning to plumb the tank. Who ever drilled the tank originally did not plan for hard plumbing and did not put in any kind of offset on the holes to allow for two sets of PVC to run through the stand with ease.

While this is easily fixed with a few 90's I do not want the added head. So at this point I called it a night to go back to the drawing board.

I plan on picking up a few more plumbing parts tonight from home depot and a few more bulkheads for the refugium and sump because my LFS had ran out.

 

[musicfeind2001]

Flexible PVC sir. Not sure about how costly it is, but unless you are hard set on having hard plumbing, I much recommend flexible tubing.

 

[dhardy]

Flexible PVC sir. Not sure about how costly it is, but unless you are hard set on having hard plumbing, I much recommend flexible tubing.

I have discussed using it with tprivitor, but I keep coming back to the same problem. In order to make it look tidy I would have to fasten it to the stand which is going to cause the same bends.

 

[emkbass]

looking good, tagging along.......

 

[ynot65]

:dance:It's looking good,I like the split sump idea

 

[dhardy]

My wife was nice enough to pick up the bulk heads for me while I was at work yesterday, so I planned on cleaning the wet/dry and finishing all the plumbing last night.

I decided I would get the wet/dry clean first.

So I installed a new bulkhead on the wet/dry, time to put it in the stand.

After I put it in the stand I immediately notice that by changing from the original sump I was going to use from my 37g, to this wet dry my heights are now off.

The angle is nearly flat, might even aim up once I put the 1" pipe in.

I wanted to test that theory last night, but it turns out two of the bulkheads are of the wrong size . I have to go back an try to swap them out today.

Well, to not let it get me down I decided to try to finish running the rest of the plumbing.

As I was doing this I ran out of fittings, and noticed I needed two female threaded adapters for the pump.

So this morning I ran back up to home depot, I purchased another ball valve to be able to shut off all drain water, and the rest of the fittings I need to hook up the return. When I get off work I am going to attempt to swap out the bulk heads I need and finish the plumbing and fire up the tank tonight.

I started filling it with water already as I don't have enough storage for the full amount of RO/DI water required to fill the system.

My goal is to have the plumbing finished tonight so I can fire up the pump and start mixing the salt.

Then its to the drawing board to design a canopy that will allow for me to use my metal halides inside at 12" space.

 

[musicfeind2001]

I have discussed using it with tprivitor, but I keep coming back to the same problem. In order to make it look tidy I would have to fasten it to the stand which is going to cause the same bends.

Understandable. Everything you're doing looks VERY nice!!

 

[dhardy]

Understandable. Everything you're doing looks VERY nice!!

Thank you very much.

My LFS (Fintastic Aquariums great store if you live on the TC) swapped out my bulkheads without any questions. So I went home and started to finish the plumbing again.

I had pondered and pondered about how to do the plumbing to make it as clean and out of the way as possible while minimizing head caused by 90's. I came up with a new way yesterday and was able to get the return down to two 90's.

I also decided it would be a good idea to put a ball valve in so that I could stop all flow to the sumps in the event I needed to work on something.

I started with a dry run just to make sure everything would fit nicely as I thought it would in my mind.

After a complete dry build, I went to gluing and finished the plumbing.

I am not pleased with how the fuge is plumbed to the Wet/Dry currently as it flows at an upwards angle. While it does work, it is sloppy looking, restricted and in the way. I plan to redo this when I swap out the wet/dry in the near future.

I finished filling the tank and test for leaks. After a short while I went ahead and added the salt.

As happy as I was that it was finally done, I noticed my home now sounds like a factory. Between the overflow drain, and the drains to the split sump the noise was rather excessive. I left it for the night and discussed it with tprivitor. I explained to him that it was so loud I could hear it in my bedroom with the door closed and the TV on. Outside of it being annoying, I knew my wife would have a conniption over how loud it was. He suggested looking into a Durso standpipe.

(Turned out I was right, first thing my wife said to me this morning was how loud it was lol)

After researching it, it seemed simple enough to build, so this morning I went out to the shed and grabbed a handful of fittings I had laying around and was able to replicated it in all of 5 minutes.

Building it was simple, it is nothing more than a 90, a Tee, and an end cap.

To prevent the typical gurgle, you have to drill a hole in the end cap.

The drain is whisper quiet now, the way this works is by forcing the water level to be higher than the drain point similar to a HOB overflow. Excluding the fact this will be sell priming. I assume double 90s would probably work to make this as well in a pinch.

I tend to like to simplify things and build them cheap as possible so I am going to test that theory later this evening.

I will add drop down pipes to the sump returns , I didn't want to last night as I am not positive on my equipment placement yet. As soon as I know the location I will be able to measure out the length of the pipes to quiet that down a bit.

Overall I am very pleased with how this has turned out, the tank has a pretty good flow currently with no power heads.

I need to clean up the wires in the stand to make that look cleaner, but I am going to wait till I get the lights and everything else on the stand. Considering I need to build a new canopy to contain the metal halides, I think I am going to light the tank with t5's for the time being. This will at least make it look half way decent for the next few weeks while I design and build a canopy.

 

[ynot65]

Congrats on the build so far