free 125 Gal Aquarium need advice

[pokesquid]

i accepted a free 125 gallon aquarium ala carte nothing else included and when it was dropped off at my house I noticed something I had never seen before. The previous owner had plumbed PVC pipe on the bottom of the aquarium but he is now deceased and no one else in his family knows how it was run.

If its not a complete fubar setup i'd like to start building a stand for it, clean it up and get it running again.

Can anyone figure out what he did by looking at these pictures? Thanks in advance.

[hillscp]

What does it look like inside? Any stand pipes?

[pokesquid]

The first picture is the tank lying sideways, the pvc fittings are on the bottom.

This second picture is from the top looking inside at the bottom

[bluestarfish]

are they rusty metal pipes or does it just look that way. If you decide to use it you could have 2 pipes being gravity fed to a sump, ball valve recommended for adjusting the flow, and then have a pump and y off from it to the other 2 fitting for the return. From the pics I can't tell if you would be able to connect any pipe or tubing on the inside so you're not sucking and blowing substrate from the bottom. gl with w/e you do with it.

[hillscp]

Maybe it was a peninsula tank? Is it made of glass or acrylic?

At any rate, if you are going to use those holes for a drain/return you will need to put stand pipes inside the tank and replace those old fittings. Think about what would happen if the power went out (Empty tank wet floor) without stand pipes. Such a system is not optimal from a surface skimming point of view. I suppose you could make a weir in the middle of the tank to solve that problem but it would take up a lot of space and look really weird if you are going to put the tank against a wall.

Maybe you would be better off plugging them or using them for a closed loop. Then you could make a coast to coast on the back with a Bean Animal drain/return.

just my 02 ;)

[Palting]

I would just remove those bulkheads and patch/plug it. The work you'll put in to use it is the same amount of work you'll need to put in for a good drilled set-up.

Why does the tank look opaque?

[James404]

Is that tank made out of metal? Never seen one like that before...

[pokesquid]

Is that tank made out of metal? Never seen one like that before...

Just dirty, gotta get motivated and clean it up...

[pokesquid]

I would just remove those bulkheads and patch/plug it. The work you'll put in to use it is the same amount of work you'll need to put in for a good drilled set-up.

Why does the tank look opaque?

I think that's going to be the plan. The BeanAnimal setup looks good but I dont see how this tank is any easier to setup with those holes than by just plugging them up. Ill try to clean it up and start a tank build thread soon. Thanks everybody! :beer:

[MCary]

Looks like he may have had a center overflow. You can cap the bulkheads if you don't want to do the same thing.