My False Wall.

[Rosseau]

I already posted this in another forum (DIY) so I'm sorry if you're reading this again, but I thought th nano folk might want to see/help me out with this.

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Hello everyone. I will get right to the point.

I'm building a 15G Long reef tank. For ease of use and "portability" I'm building an acrylic divider/false wall to house my pumps, heater, skimmer and fuge.


Here's what I have so far. Before I start siliconing I was hoping for some suggestions. Thanks!


Not the best pic but...

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r265/rosseau52/IMG_7871.jpg

The overflow (not cut out yet) will likely be in the middle above the beer, instead of teeth I think I will just do a lowered down section (for aesthetics). Is this an ok idea? How deep should it be?

There will be 2 maxi-jets of unkown power, one on the right (as shown) and one on the other side to the left (by the suction cups). You can see where I have already put my bulkheads in.

My skimmer (Tunze Nano DOC) is shown. Is there any real requirement to how wide apart these two baffels are?( to the left of the skimmer)

In the middle I will put LR, Chaeto and perhaps a DSB.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

[Rosseau]

Well as said above I have posted this thread in another forum, received about 150 total views and I have received 1 response. Either everyone thinks arcylic is boring as all hell or my design isn't so bad... or maybe everyone is still at church?


Anyways, I'm about to start putting this guy together and will hopefully have it painted later today. It's a good rainy Sunday to be working away at it.

I may also drill a few more bulkhead spots so that I can add more pumps later if necessary, change up the flow, or plumb the existing pumps to send water through more than out bulkhead.

Since I enjoy RC way too much I'll upload a few pics of the progress, if anything can be learnt from it.

[wiggie89]

Well what do you need help with?

[GSMguy]

will it be a coast to coast overflow?

[wiggie89]

You might want two maxi jet 1200 that 400 wont cut it. And do the whole back wall as overflow it will be the best surface skimm as long as you dont have jumpy fish lol

[Rosseau]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9735809#post9735809 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wiggie89
Well what do you need help with?

The sentences I put in bold would be a good place to start.




I've made up the overflow and it's about 0.5" deep and 9" long. It's length is constrained by the presence of baffles and things towards the sides - I want my water to flow into the middle chamber first. I'll get a wet test in later this week. I may put some eggcrate or something along those lines to stop fish etc from getting in, I can do that later.


The MJ400 was there just to use as scale, it is laying around from a 5.5 I have. I'll have 900's in there likely. I sort of said that above too.


There isn't anything too specific, I just haven't made a sump before and wasn't sure if there were any major oversights.

I'll keep working away. Yesterday was rain, today its a friggin blizzard..... half way through April! Last year at this time I was outside in shorts soaking up the sun.

[wiggie89]

Well I think you got it pretty good post some picks when your all done and when its up and running

[SNAKEMANVET]

The plan you got laid out looks pretty good, I am doing a 5.5 gallon with false wall, i am using a rio 600 for flow that i teed off , to move the flow in different directions. I think a mj 900 should have plenty of flow.

[GSMguy]

id add one more baffle past the skimmer and place them 3/4 an inch apart any less and you may have flow problems

that is not enough flow for the whole tank i would use a MJ 1200 in the back there.it may seem allot at first but its not. most tanks i see wont last and have problems and many times flow is the problem.

[Rosseau]

Thansk for the input. I've run a wet test and all is well - the baffles are adequately spaced and no bubble problems with the skimmer.

My only worry with the MJ1200's is that they seem to put out much more heat than the 900's. Though I don't have much experience with it personally.

I would throw in (2) 1200's for sure if this wasn't an issue. Maybe I'll set up a little experiment and see how much the 1200 warms water vs 900 and 400. I have all but the 900's laying around.

[wiggie89]

They wont heat it up that bad and u might be lucky just turn the heater save electricity

[Rosseau]

I'm going to have at least 150 watts of MH and 50 watts of T5, under a canopy. I'm getting worried about heat. We'll see.

[ronreef]

Any heat problems?

[CSUPUEBLOTIM]

Beer and building overflows, is that a good combination? lol

[Rosseau]

Woah, back from the dead!

Good thing I troll RC after the bar.... I wasn't subscribed to this.

I don't have any heat problems... I also run a chiller.

When it was closed canopy (2 x 70W MH and 48W T5 HO) my chiller ran a lot - 2-3 x per hour.

Now, I have an open canopy (and it's winter, my room is around 21degrees C) and I haven't heard my chiller come on in a few weeks.

\

And yes.. beer and overflows, maybe not a good combination. I may post on RC after a few drinks but I make sure to keep my dirty paws off of my tank.

[JAHGYDI]

THAT BEER LOOKS GOOD