Hello, I'm still pretty new here, but I'm upgrading tanks, and thought I'd do a build thread on it.
My current/previous tank is a 100 Gallon Cube I posted it in a welcome mat thread here: http://www.socalireefs.com/forums/showthread.php?34785-Hi!-My-name-is-Ryan!&p=360972#post360972
In the last month I came across a 180 gallon 6x2x2 acrylic tank on craigslist for a good price and had to pick it up. I was surprised at how nice it was when I saw it considering most tanks i've come across on craigslist are horrible. It only had one significant scratch (which i buffed out) and pretty much nothing else wrong with it. It has 1/2" acrylic sides and bottom with a 5/8" top. It also has a black back and nice big openings on top.
The stand and hood are not furniture grade, but nice none the less. The bottom was just a piece of 3/4" ply which the 2x4" uprights butted directly into it. I was afraid of weight distribution because the house has a raised floor, so I cut 3 1/2" off the bottom of all the legs, than added 2x4" horizontally all along the bottom to help spread the weight. I than added the piece of plywood in the back because there was no other type of cross bracing along that side, and then painted the inside of the stand with killz.
While I am reusing most of my equipment from my old tank, I decided to go with a bigger sump. Both to add more equipment later, and I needed the greater volume for flow back when the pumps shut off. I found a 55 gallon frag tank, dimensions 48"x18"x13.5" on craigslist for $50.
$40 more for glass, acrylic, and silicone, and I have a sump. The water will enter in the far left with the chamber designed to keep the pipe under water at all times as I am going to use a herbie style overflow, then it will dump onto the filter sock plate, then into the protein skimmer/reactor/whatever chamber, through the bubble trap, and into the return chamber. The tank will contain around 30 gallons at all times, with 10 of that being the return chamber for evaporation and an extra 25 empty for backflow, leaks, etc.
The tank does have dual overflows, each with holes for bulkheads to allow a 1" and a 1 1/2" pipe. In order to use the Herbie method on dual overflow tanks i've seen people modify dual overflow tanks with pipes between the overflows, or coast to coast addons to keep the water level equal in each chamber, but I did not want to modify such a perfect tank. Instead I will use the 1" pipes as overflows and then plumb them together underneath the tank, with a gate valve to control the flow. One of the 1 1/2" pipes will be left open as an emergency overflow, and the other will be used as the return and will be teed up above the tank to 4 3/4" loc lines.
Other equipment coming from the last tank will be a reef octopus XS200, a gen-x PCX40 return pump, and a vortech MP40 (which I'll defintely be looking to add a second later). Lighting will be a single 400 watt MH on one end of the tank until I can get some LEDs up. I simply wont put any coral in the other side of the tank until I get more lights.
That's about where I'm at now, next step is to start plumbing. Any suggestions, questions, etc?
My current/previous tank is a 100 Gallon Cube I posted it in a welcome mat thread here: http://www.socalireefs.com/forums/showthread.php?34785-Hi!-My-name-is-Ryan!&p=360972#post360972
In the last month I came across a 180 gallon 6x2x2 acrylic tank on craigslist for a good price and had to pick it up. I was surprised at how nice it was when I saw it considering most tanks i've come across on craigslist are horrible. It only had one significant scratch (which i buffed out) and pretty much nothing else wrong with it. It has 1/2" acrylic sides and bottom with a 5/8" top. It also has a black back and nice big openings on top.
The stand and hood are not furniture grade, but nice none the less. The bottom was just a piece of 3/4" ply which the 2x4" uprights butted directly into it. I was afraid of weight distribution because the house has a raised floor, so I cut 3 1/2" off the bottom of all the legs, than added 2x4" horizontally all along the bottom to help spread the weight. I than added the piece of plywood in the back because there was no other type of cross bracing along that side, and then painted the inside of the stand with killz.
While I am reusing most of my equipment from my old tank, I decided to go with a bigger sump. Both to add more equipment later, and I needed the greater volume for flow back when the pumps shut off. I found a 55 gallon frag tank, dimensions 48"x18"x13.5" on craigslist for $50.
$40 more for glass, acrylic, and silicone, and I have a sump. The water will enter in the far left with the chamber designed to keep the pipe under water at all times as I am going to use a herbie style overflow, then it will dump onto the filter sock plate, then into the protein skimmer/reactor/whatever chamber, through the bubble trap, and into the return chamber. The tank will contain around 30 gallons at all times, with 10 of that being the return chamber for evaporation and an extra 25 empty for backflow, leaks, etc.
The tank does have dual overflows, each with holes for bulkheads to allow a 1" and a 1 1/2" pipe. In order to use the Herbie method on dual overflow tanks i've seen people modify dual overflow tanks with pipes between the overflows, or coast to coast addons to keep the water level equal in each chamber, but I did not want to modify such a perfect tank. Instead I will use the 1" pipes as overflows and then plumb them together underneath the tank, with a gate valve to control the flow. One of the 1 1/2" pipes will be left open as an emergency overflow, and the other will be used as the return and will be teed up above the tank to 4 3/4" loc lines.
Other equipment coming from the last tank will be a reef octopus XS200, a gen-x PCX40 return pump, and a vortech MP40 (which I'll defintely be looking to add a second later). Lighting will be a single 400 watt MH on one end of the tank until I can get some LEDs up. I simply wont put any coral in the other side of the tank until I get more lights.
That's about where I'm at now, next step is to start plumbing. Any suggestions, questions, etc?
