# New 80g Project - From Tank Up



## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

So shortly I'll be starting a project tank, building everything but the tank itself. Several reasons for this multiple tank syndrome, but I'd like a project to pour some time into. I'm going to pick the tank up tomorrow morning, but I have a handful of questions about the overflow. It's a little bit more complicated than I'm used to. I understand that this setup was originally a reef setup, so some of the overflow may be unnecessary.

Right now, I'm going to just remove the bioballs as I had planned to have scrubbies below in the sump/wet/dry filter. I'm not very sure why that one drainpipe is much taller than the other, maybe a backup overflow? It looks a little high for that. Not sure what the tiny hole in the top of the cover is for either, probes maybe? Also the bulkhead at the bottom of the overflow, personally I have no clue what it is for. Perhaps draining the tank? Lastly the ring in the corner of the overflow...heater? That also, I had planned to be in the sump. If anyone knows for sure what those features are please let me know.

Anyways from the project, I plan to build the stand, the sump, the lighting using LEDs and another 3d background. I'll attempt to keep updates coming along, but I get easily distracted by all the fun I'm having. The current plan is to move my mbunas from the 55g into this 80g as well as add quite a few more, freeing up the 55g for the Ropefish and some more passive tropicals to better suit him.




























Thanks in advance for your insights.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

The "drain pipe" is a jet return pipe. The bends in it are so you can adjust the flow pattern to optimally sweep away detritus. The water drains out of the bottom bulkhead so the chambers are pretty much empty of water and you might as well leave the bioballs in. Someone has said that scrubbies have more surface area, but they are not designed to evenly divert the water over each other, so their surface area is not as effective, no matter what numbers are generated. Scrubbies also collect more detritus and so their available surface area constantly reduces and need an extra maintenance step periodically. The bioballs in freshwater may never build up significant detritus. Of course a few oscars in a tank will overpower any filter with massive waste to process.

Saltwater conducts electricity a lot better than fresh and so it was popular for a while to include a ground probe on the theory it might help reverse LLD/HITH syndrome, or at least reduce that little shock you get if you submerge your hand in the water if there is any small cut.

I see a little calcium build up. If you are patient, don't bother removing any of it. It is very hard and razor blading it off can leave some scratches. It gradually softens and dissolves in freshwater. So depending on the hardness of your water supply and the type of deposit, you will notice one day that all of it has disappeared. With Africans, it is good for them while it's there since it helps buffer the pH at an African friendly level.

It looks like there could be a missing clip in the gap in the overflow comb. If your fish are small enough to go through the hole you can replace it, or cut a piece of sponge with slots on either end to hold it over the gap.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

I knew what the jet was, but the other, much larger/taller pipe in the same chamber is what I'm not sure of. No idea why it's sticking out above the cover, so I'm planning on just trimming it down and making it just like the other chamber for redundancy.

So the grounding probe can either explain the extra hole in the lid or the bracket in the corner.

Thanks for the tip about the calcium, now I won't be spending all evening trying to scrub it all off.

As for the missing teeth, I'll probably just cut some out of some spare plexi while making the sump, glue them on and paint them black.

I'm fairly positive what I plan to do is fine...just with the unnecessary divider in the overflow. As I said a bit earlier, just trim that longer tube down and make both chambers identical. I suppose it'd save some room having the bioballs/scrubbies in the overflow rather than in the sump. I'll still probably put some biological filtering in the sump anyways.

Thanks for the help!


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

Mcdaphnia said:


> Someone has said that scrubbies have more surface area, but they are not designed to evenly divert the water over each other, so their surface area is not as effective, no matter what numbers are generated. Scrubbies also collect more detritus and so their available surface area constantly reduces and need an extra maintenance step periodically. The bioballs in freshwater may never build up significant detritus.


That's an interesting tidbit that I kind of suspected, but wasn't sure. I'll be doing bio balls in the sump.

Thanks!
-Ryan


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

I haven't seen this style of wet/dry too often since the mid-eighties or so. I believe the corner side is "wet" and the bioball side is "dry". Can't see from the photo if the bottom is drilled on the dry side. Do you have a photo of the tank bottom? Two holes or three? I think that tall tube was a way to drain the entire tank, or an attempt to quiet the gurgle. At one time it probably could be lifted and then the whole tank would drain down to the bottom of the hole in the lower front of the wet side. Until some of the "newer" (late 20th century) stand pipes, odd things were tried to quiet down the flushing toilet sound of the early designs.

The clip for the missing teeth probably went across the top of the divider with its own comb teeth, but as I said, it's been a long time since I saw a wet/dry like this one.

If you lower the center divider, you might be lowering the maximum level in the tank since water can flow in near the bottom of the wet chamber, flow up to the top of the divider and over the teeth of the missing clip into the dry side.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

Ah, I think I see now, what a complicated design. All I was expecting was a just a simple overflow with multiple drain pipes. Unfortunately the tank is not in my possession yet, but I will take more pictures as soon as I get it and clean it up a bit tomorrow morning. I'm stuck on duty at work, and have been so for the past day as well.

I like the idea of how it works and now it seems necessary to keep it working the way it does, but that will in no way stop me from building an additional wet/dry in the sump as well, unless the excessive filtering is bad. I had planned to build the sump to where I could convert it to a saltwater setup if I ever chose to go that route in the future. Have the biological filter large enough to accomodate a protein skimmer should I ever switch.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

I wasn't able to make much progress other than picking it up. The wife wouldn't help me get it out of the truck, so all I was able to do was remove 2 of the 3 bulkheads and pipes. The last bulkhead (the one on the drain side with the bioballs is quite an oddball It is 3" and the side of the bulkhead with the bioballs is attached to another screen grid on the underside of the balls. I want to remove this because on the bottom of that section, there is what appears to be dead snail shells or coral or something that definitely doesn't need to stay in there. It's been a pain trying to remove it, because it was sloppily glued in, which made it quite strong and I didn't have a proper tool to remove it with.

I tried using one of those adjustable wrenches that use the strip of rubber, similar to an oil filter wrench, but I'm not sure if that's going to work. I didn't get the tool under after dark, so I couldn't really see what I was doing. If anyone knows of a better tool to safely remove the bulkhead, I'm all eyes. As I said it's a 3" pipe probably sticking out 1.5" under the tank with about 1/4" of it squared like a nut (brainfart). There's no way of grabbing it from the top as that 2nd grid won't come out unless attached to the pipe, and I'd like to not break it.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

Some of these early designs didn't give advance thought to how the owner would clean up the farther reaches, so you might consider just letting the bodies lie where they died. Or inverting the tank over a couple saw horses and seeing how much you can get out with a garden hose.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

No kidding...been trying for so long to get this pipe out...whoever designed it is insane. The pipe is 2 1/2" but there's so many other pipes on the inside that the actual opening for water is only 1"...Over engineering. I managed to get it loosened up a little, but then the whole assembly started spinning, so I put fresh silicon down on the interior, since I can't get a good enough grip on it with any of my tools. Hopefully that'll hold it still long enough to loosen it more. If not I'll just carefully cut it out.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

First real update - Tank is clean (yay). All the nasties are gone, whatever they were. Got all the plumbing out, hopefully I'll be getting the replacement bulkheads and the wood for the stand tomorrow to start on that. Looks like the tank had a wee bit of damage on one of the corners that the seller neglected to mention. I filled it halfway and no leak, so I'm not overly concerned with it, I'll probably add a wee bit more silicon to it after it dries just to be sure. It was only $60 anyways so if the leak does become problematic, I know a few people wanting to get rid of their pythons :lol:




























Probably going to take a few tries to make the wet/dry/overflow on the back work how I want it to - both chambers being drains, rather than the corner one just being a backup should the other flood. We'll see what happens.










There's the background I've made for the 55g. After a few more touch-ups and once I get the 80g habitable, I'll install it. Definitely learned a few things making that one that I'll apply when I make the background for the 80g. Like buy my styrofoam at Lowes rather than at Michaels. The one for the 80g should be quite a bit easier to make as well since I only have 1 functional hole to make rather than half a dozen for the 55g and it's 2 canister filters.










Also figured why not take a picture of the resident of my garage.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

Now that you've cleared everything else out, it looks like that collar was for the old type of floating hydrometer.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

Well this was my first solo carpentry experience. Usually I just watched my Dad build whatever I needed, but hes out on a business trip and actually trusted me to use his power tools (it only took 21 years :dancing: :dancing: :dancing: .)














































Tools used were a miter saw, circular saw and a router. No body parts were lost, and no blood was shed, which surprised even me. I have the frame completed with just the sides on. I sort of ran out of time to keep going; 5am comes early. Not 100% sure how I'm going to do the doors either, but I have all day to figure that out tomorrow. I'm going for a flush, 1 piece look, so I'll probably try to go along those lines. I plan to have the sump inside the cabinet approx 35x15x15. That should leave room for a shelf and some storage space, since I plan to use a submersible pump.



















While cleaning up the garage, I noticed a souvenir from work. A 76mm shell from the gun mounted on my workplace  I was thinking if I can get it cleaned out well enough, it should make for a very interesting and somewhat natural (to sea life) cave. I figured it'd be a little fitting since I'm the one who empties those shells.

I hope to have the stand maybe sanded tomorrow, so probably no new pics until it's at least primed. Planning on going latex primer - latex black paint, but that could all change. The overall goal is to eliminate the wood grain look and have almost a laminate finish...without laminating it. Cost is also a big factor too, so sadly I can't be excessive and paint it with epoxy.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

Shamelessly bumping myself back up.

The stand is done except for the trim on the doors and painting. Couldn't find my digital camera and the wife won't let me use hers. Something about overkill. Anyways still a few more sandings and fillings down the line. I have to use some great stuff to fill in one of the slightly short corners and the holes cutout by the router in the floor of it. Then I chose to go for Latex primer and black latex paint.

The rest of the tank, I've kind of hit a brick wall mentally up until now. I wasn't sure what to do next...the styrofoam background, the acrylic sump or the plumbing. I'm going to start the background and do the plumbing while I'm waiting on the layers of cement to dry and lastly do the sump due to cost.

For the background, I've decided to do something similar to bface's DIY back to nature modules, since I really like the real stone look, since it actually is real stone on the front. It always bothered me that I'm not artistic enough to make a faux stone myself. I plan on hollowing out the modules from the top and putting screen over there, as to not lose as much water volume and not give the fishes a place to die and me not know about it.

Here's the interesting new thing I decided to try and do. I didn't want to go the way of UGJ since the fish I currently have are notorious diggers, but I figured a way around that. I'm going to plumb the UGJ under the styrofoam background, and just there. It should be able to kick up enough flow if aimed correctly and I'll never see them no matter how much they dig. We're going to see how well that works out coming from the return line from the sump. Yes, I know it's going to create a great siphon that will drain my entire tank, thus I plan to have a couple jets coming from above the background to create a waterfall effect, as well as a control valve against the siphon.

I figured out the sump, since so far I've been pretty bad at cutting perfect edges with the circular saw. I found http://www.vipplastics.com/ for the sheet acrylic. It'll cost half as much to have them custom cut all of the sump rather than me buying it from Lowes. That way all I have to do is glue it together, pretty sure I can't screw that up too badly.

Really, finally the hood/canopy has been bothering me since I want it to be minimalistic. I plan to build my own LED lighting, done a lot of research on this, and it's the only thing in this whole project that has anything to do with my actual occupation. I plan to use somewhere around 24 LEDs total, mostly whites, some blues, some reds and some UVs to make the colors POP. And that's about as far as I've thought for the hood. I know I want the lid made of glass and the thin light fixture to be black acrylic, but I'm not 100% sure how I want to mount it on top of the tank. I'm fairly positive I can't get away with it being an open lid with just a light bar since I have cats. I'd hate to have it accidentally go swimming.

Congrats if you read all this, but I kind of needed to write it down, lest I forget it in the coming days. Comments, questions, concerns and criticism are welcome!


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

I didn't want to start a new topic to try and draw attention to it, by adding LOTS OF PICS in the title, so hopefully people look at this one again once it gets bumped.

I skipped a lot of pictures, those of making the rocks (hammer time), cutting the styrofoam, and all the before pictures of the plumbing. I probably missed tons more, but here's the project now.





































This is the project as of yesterday - waiting on silicone to dry. The background was inspired heavily by bface's DIY back to nature modules, I used the Lowes brand Sand cement, which wasn't very fine; I definitely could have found better, but I worked with what I had. The rocks were just rocks I got from around my yard, pressure washed and wet sanded for good measure - then beat to pieces with a hammer.

The UGJ system was a "why not" kind of thing, and currently I just plan on using a very beefy submersible pump for the 10 jets. Yes, I know this is a no-no, but I'm not looking at creating an apocalyptic whirlpool. I'll be happy if it just pushes the poop into a single area so that's all I'll really have to vacuum.

In the overflow box, I put together 2 Durso standpipes, one for each chamber with the return coming up through the third hole where the original was. The only change I made to the return is a spray bar, rather than the little doo-hickey that was on it before.

Below, the plumbing is a mess in such tight quarters. I have to redo the drains as I wasn't happy how they came out. You can probably see them in the corner next to the sump. The sump was a 29g tall used tank from the LFS, for $20. It took Lowes about 4 tries to get the baffles cut correctly, but they're in there thank God. Lastly the submersible pump is a 1400 GPH from Harbor Freight - we'll see how well it works for $40. I'll stop boring you all - hope you enjoy the pics.


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## danielratti (Feb 17, 2008)

Where would you be working that you have a 76mm cannon mounted to it. The navy or something?


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

danielratti said:


> Where would you be working that you have a 76mm cannon mounted to it. The navy or something?


Coast Guard - Fire Control Technician. Specifically on a 270' cutter in Portsmouth. I'm not really considering the 76mm shell as a cave right now...I'm not able to get a hold of one of the brass ones since we don't shoot them anymore, so I'd have problems with rust on the shells that I currently have.

I may grab a few .50 cal shells for caves for juvies though.

On the topic of the tank...I'm browsing through the submersible pumps available to me...I'm looking at either two 190 GPH pumps or one 250 or 550 GPH pump. I'm probably going to start with the 190s to see how I like that, but some experienced advice would be very welcome.


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## danielratti (Feb 17, 2008)

i wouldn't do the .50 cal shells it just seems to cheesy. But it is your tank not mine its my 2 cents there.


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## KaiserSousay (Nov 2, 2008)

> 190 GPH pumps or one 250 or 550 GPH


Go for more than you think you need. You can always divert excess flow back into the sump, but once a pump has reached max output, you`re done.
Nice work so far. I think your dad will think so too. :thumb:


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

Thanks John, I appreciate the comments.

I got all the plumbing put together (without leaks finally). The sump is almost perfect, but due to some imperfect glass cutting, the water level in the first baffle is a little higher than I wanted, which is also due to the high flow rate from the drain pipes. Otherwise everything works fine.

As far as the pumps go, the 2 submersible pumps I got are indeed a little weak, however the return pump more than makes up for it. The UGJs are enough to keep the poo from settling, and I can always upgrade the pumps later. I think I'm going to have to make the spray bar bigger to spread the flow around a bit more. I'm guesstimating the return around 1000-1200gph which is currently coming out of a 9" spray bar (1/4" holes every 1"). It was too much for some juvenile goldfish, so I'll probably have to tone it down or make the bar bigger.

The last thing I have to do is the canopy. I decided to scrap the LED lights (for now) and just picked up a 48" shoplight to work with. I'm leaning toward just a basic glass lid for the cover, which is about the only thing I'm missing.

So leeching, then fishless cycling - hope to have fish in it by the end of June, otherwise it'll have to wait until October when I get home from Africa.

In case anyone is wondering, the stocking will be -

6 Yellow Lab
6 Acei 
20 Demasoni

I'm freeing up the 55g in my dining room for my ropefish and my wife's goldfish :roll:


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## brycerb (Dec 23, 2007)

The 76mm shell looks like it would rust. I wouldn't put it in my tank. Dosen't everyone have large guns at work? I work at the Norflok Naval Shipyard and we have guns scattered all over the place. I am also currently working working in the 25mm gun shop, not quite as impressive though.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

Yeah, I decided awhile ago not to try with the shells. It's a little too big and I have enough potential disasters on my plate already. I discovered a pinhole leak somewhere in the tank. I thought I patched it yesterday, but I was wrong. Hopefully I get it this time.

I haven't been able to do much recently due to training down at formerly-known-as Blackwater. Fun times there, but not leaving me much personal time.


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## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

I'm as done as I'm going to get before leaving on my next deployment. The wife has a ton of other things for me to get done so I had to finish this quick.





































I have a 48" shop light hanging about 2 1/2' above the tank with the "plant and aquarium" bulbs from Lowes, but they're horrible. Since my 55g is empty right now (RIP Ropefish from SBD), I have both the lights and the filters from that running in there. The 24" lights are so much better looking that I'm going to have to figure out a way to rig a pair of them up to the tank. The canister filters (Magnum 350 and Eheim 2217) are speeding up the cycling of the wet/dry. Not sure how long that is going to take, but I'm not in any hurry to get those cans back in the 55g as it has the background curing in it at the moment.

I decided not to go with the UGJ as I didn't have enough time to perfect them. I don't think it'll be too much of a problem to install them later down the line, but as it sets now I don't think I'll be needing them. The flow from my pump is rated at 1400gph and moves stuff around quite well. I have to sink the regular floating pellets for the fish to even have a chance at eating them before the overflow does.

I haven't noticed many people using a refugium for their F/W sumps - I'm not sure why. I'm planning on using it for carrying females and as a little area for growing out.

So there it is as it stands...I have 6 Yellow Labs, 3 Aceis and 1 OB Zebra in there...The OB Zebra was sort of a sacrificial fish as the water read tolerable levels, but I still didn't trust it. Now I can't get the bugger out...Not sure I ever will be able to get anything out of there.


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