View Full Version : First pic of my new tank build
It'll have a 34 gallon capacity but only hold 30 gallons. There's still a lot of work to be done.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/002-1.jpg?t=1311213198
Cool..wish I had the skills to build my own tank
A lot of water has gone over the weir since that post. Side walls are 1/4 inch and the base is 3/8 inch. Probably overkill but I didn't want anyone to say "I told you so" .
JTL is coming over and we're assembling the tank. We'll be using GE Momentive silicone adhesive. This is not your general silicone caulk, it's a heavy duty adhesive that just happens to be reef safe silicone.
Got the overflow from Geo too, a thank you is in order.
After months of planning it's coming together. After several years on auto pilot I'm enjoying pushing myself and challenging my abilities as an aquarist.
Here's prep for assembly.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/013.jpg
Assembled ..white strips are spacers for a floating bottom.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/018-1.jpg
Curing with tape removed...
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/023.jpg
ange062
08/31/2011, 08:42 AM
Looks like it's coming along well! Lookin forward to seeing it stocked!
mcmyeye
08/31/2011, 12:48 PM
nice build so far. cant wait to see the progress. keep us up to date. thanks for sharing
KafudaFish
08/31/2011, 02:13 PM
I bet I know what it looks like filled up.
That really is a sweet tank.
Dimensions are 24 X 24 X 13.625 =7848 / 231 = 33.974025 gallons.(Technically it's a nano ) Because it's rimless water level will be about 12" which figures out to about 30 gallons.
I forgot to compensate for thicker glass (3/8") on the base and a 1/4 recess to make it a floating bottom so the overflow was too tall . I just cut the teeth off the overflow (sorry George). I'm going to put a lid on the overflow with a 3/8 gap to keep critters out of the overflow instead.
So now the tank is sitting on the dining room table where we assembled it. The Mrs was really understanding when I told her the tank had to stay there for at least 24 hours and preferably two or three days.
The sump baffles didn't go as planned .
Since I had a partial tube of the super silicone I decided to install the baffles in the sump. I've built a couple of sumps before with no problems so it didn't seem like a big deal. John warned me the adhesive silicone sets up fast and it's faster than I thought. Taped off the edges so I'd have a nice/pretty caulk line in the sump that nobody but I was going to see. Installed the under baffle with a piece of 2X4 under it as a spacer. Waited ten minutes so the under baffle was secure, pulled the 2X4, and installed the over baffles. When I went to remove the tape it wouldn't come out because the silicone was already setting up.
I was able to remove the baffles and scraped as much silicone/tape from all surfaces as I could. Probably have a good hour of clean up before I can do it again.
And I thought I had everything planned out .
TheReeferer
08/31/2011, 09:53 PM
I'm wondering if the seams will hold? Have you done the math behind it, especially with dimensions like that?
I'm wondering if the seams will hold? Have you done the math behind it, especially with dimensions like that?
Used a tank calculator (http://www.theaquatools.com/building-your-aquarium) to determine glass thickness and RTV 108 (http://www.momentive.com/momentiveInternetDoc/MPM/Static%20Files/Documents/Data%20Sheets/2047.html) silicone adhesive. 1/4" glass on the sides and 3/8" on the base more than exceeds the safety factor and proves plenty of area to bond the glass. The silicone I used is not your typical aquarium silicone, it's a heavy duty industrial adhesive.
That said I was pretty darn nervous when the tank was test filled. Set it up in the garage just inside the garage door and for the next two days when I came home from work the first thing I checked was for water running out under the garage door ;).
Neoferdina
09/01/2011, 06:06 PM
Hey Agu, nice build. I'm actually building a new tank (50G rimless cube) this weekend and was looking for some building tips on the ol' google and stumbled on this thread.
I have a few quick questions for you...
1. I've heard mixed opinions on how to do the floating bottom; some say the bottom can be laid flat with the tank edges, some say to recess 1/4" like you have. Why did you go with the recess? My stand can support the whole bottom evenly, so I don't think it matters, do you?
2. Did you use spacers between the edges being glued when gluing the whole thing together?
3. Did you put silicon on the vertical panes and then stick them to the bottom, or vice versa?
I have a few quick questions for you...
1. I've heard mixed opinions on how to do the floating bottom; some say the bottom can be laid flat with the tank edges, some say to recess 1/4" like you have. Why did you go with the recess? My stand can support the whole bottom evenly, so I don't think it matters, do you?
I went floating because if the stand has one high spot it can put pressure on the bottom glass. That can be dealt with using styrofoam but I didn't want to do that.
2. Did you use spacers between the edges being glued when gluing the whole thing together?
No spacers
3. Did you put silicon on the vertical panes and then stick them to the bottom, or vice versa?
Put the silicone on the vertical panes.
One thing I learned is that you will smear silicone on your hands and then on the glass. The silicone I used is very adhesive and a pain to remove. It took a couple of hours with a razor blade followed by 0000 steel wool and acetone to clean it off. If I do a future build I'll tape off the edges and then use contact paper on the rest of the glass as a preventative measure.
Future stand, it's an industrial strength piece of office furniture, all my stands are repurposed furniture.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/020.jpg?t=1311205478
Doors closed ..
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/022-1.jpg?t=1311205594
I know it's plain but that's what I wanted.
Plan is tank on the left gets moved across the room temporarily and new tank goes there. Stand is only 6" wider and will only stick out and additional 4".
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/030.jpg?t=1311206089
Contents of this LPS tank will be transferred into the new tank along with LPS in my Junk Tank , a maze brain in the sump, and a Derasa clam in the tank that's getting moved.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/011.jpg?t=1311206496
Then the softies in the moved tank will go into the old LPS tank. (BTW that stand is supposed to be a bathroom vanity.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/008.jpg?t=1311206615
Sump is done and overflow is installed. I'll be working on/planning plumbing while the silicone cures.
Have to place an order for substrate. I've used super fine Southdown in most prior tanks, but I can't get that cheap anymore. Thinking of using a shallow sandbed of Seaflor special grade substrate (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+9805+7326&pcatid=7326). advantage is that I can use a gravel vac during water changes without sucking up half the substrate.
Also decided on a float valve (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=20412) for top off. Looked into electronic topoff and even have half the equipment on hand, but decided to keep it as simple as possible. I like this unit because it's easily removed to be cleaned. Since topoff will be with kalk, easy removal and cleaning is a major point.
Calculations are about 200gph through each of two dual rotating returns (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=11363) so I need supplemental/redundant flow. So far this looks like the best option (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=21970). Would be using the 425 gph powerhead.
CollegeTyler
09/01/2011, 08:48 PM
Nice tank! Is that a purple firefish in the sump?
evsalty
09/01/2011, 09:11 PM
So is this now your largest tank LOL? I am glad I came across this thread as I am about to build a tank myself.
No fish in the sump, those flower anemones are very aggressive and will eat anything they can catch. The sump used to be a mantis tank until the anemones ate the mantis.
Yeah, I've substantially upsized. Got tired of having to frag my corals every couple of months.
Painted the back of the tank with plasti dip. It's really weird stuff. Painted it on with a brush and from the back it looks like heck. From the front the entire back wall looks like it's shiny acrylic.
Also primed/painted parts of the interior of the stand ( and drilled holes) and exposed wood/particleboard just to be safe. Probably didn't have to prime and paint exposed wood/particleboard but it just felt like the right thing to do.
Still working on the lighting plan. My LFS has some LED fixtures from China that look interesting and he's giving me one 24" unit as payment for the multitude of frags I've dropped in his tanks.
With any luck I'll finish the plumbing tomorrow and will be running a fresh water test. If that happens and there are no major problems new pics will be up soon. If there are problems I obviously won't advertise them .
endrju84
09/02/2011, 09:15 AM
Looks good :) Good Luck!
Tank in the garage with water...
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/004-3.jpg
Overflow with Hydors, gap is about 3/8" ,enough to keep fish and snails out....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/005-3.jpg
Preliminary sump set up ....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/003-4.jpg
Moved in place ....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/010-2.jpg
Old tank slid across the room to a temporary parking place....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/009-4.jpg
Checking level ..............
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/012-1.jpg
Sump with plumbing and electrical. I'll be rewiring the GFCI with a longer cord.Plan is to use an 8' extension cord hard wired to the the GFCI. I don't like having a plug directly over the sump. I'm also going to put a water resistant cover over the GFCI. It's too close to open water for me to feel comfortable.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/013-1.jpg
Filling the tank, good thing I have a 90GPD RO/DI ..
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/004-4.jpg
Sump with float valve and reservoir......
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/006-4.jpg
Like my intake screen on the Mag 5 ?
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/003-5.jpg
Obligatory cloudy tank pic after adding sand ...
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/005-4.jpg
And sump capacity test after adding sand .....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/008-2.jpg
ange062
09/04/2011, 08:58 PM
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/011.jpg?t=1311206496
That's gotta be the most impressive candy cane I have ever seen!!
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/008-2.jpg
Looks awesome, can't believe the progress has come along that quickly, well done!! Can't wait to see stocking start.
Looks awesome, can't believe the progress has come along that quickly, well done!! Can't wait to see stocking start.
To be honest tank is already up and stocked, posts are based on the actual time frame I kept record of. Didn't want to start a thread where my home made tank blew out and trashed my home. ;)
However I'm saving the aquascaping for the live portion of this thread.
A couple of minor setbacks "sigh" .....
Kept dialing back the Mag 5 but it was just too much pump for a ten gallon sump. All the micro bubbles in the sump also deposited a bunch of salt creep inside the stand. Pulled the sump, wiped down the inside of the stand and dried it thoroughly. While I was at it decided to try a Maxi Jet 1200 as a return pump. Although I wasn't optimistic it's working great. Guess the Hydors don't create as much back pressure as people think.
Stand was dead on level when I set it up. It still is side to side but it now has an 1/8th inch lean towards the front, and no I didn't set the back part of the stand on the tackless strip for the carpet. (I've done that in the past and now know better .) Tomorrow I get to siphon out a bunch of water, jack up the stand, and put shims under the front of the stand.
Jacked up the tank and got it shimmed to level.
But now I've developed a slow leak in the drain line. Not enough to get a wash cloth more than mildly damp in 24 hours but a leak none the less. I
drained the tank, pulled the plumbing and removed the drain line bulkhead (not an easy task). Cleaned everything up, checked for damages (crossed threads or cracked bulkhead) reassembled very carefully with lots of teflon tape, and I still had a tiny leak .
Removed the 1" pipe nipple from Lowes and replaced it with a nipple from Ace Hardware. Just installing the new nipple I could feel the difference in thread tolerances. My conclusion is it was a defective pipe nipple. Turns out my experience with PVC pipe nipples isn't unusual. Several threads in DIY address the same issue.
Put one piece of rock, one coral and one bristle worm in the tank a few days ago, here's what lt looked like.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/006-5.jpg
View from my desk now ....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/023-1.jpg
Front view .....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/021-1.jpg
Still have to aquascape and add the clam.
Just did the math on my newly set up a 30 gallon tank and use less than 100 watts of power to run the tank. LED lighting takes 54 watts, powerheads 13.5 watts, and return pump 20 watts. That's a measly 87.5 watts to run my tank. Granted I'll have to add a heater in winter in Florida for four months but it'll still average out to less than a 100 watts per day to run my tank.
Reaquascaped yesterday and will post pics once the corals have settled in.
evsalty
09/14/2011, 09:05 PM
Jacked up the tank and got it shimmed to level.
But now I've developed a slow leak in the drain line. Not enough to get a wash cloth more than mildly damp in 24 hours but a leak none the less. I
drained the tank, pulled the plumbing and removed the drain line bulkhead (not an easy task). Cleaned everything up, checked for damages (crossed threads or cracked bulkhead) reassembled very carefully with lots of teflon tape, and I still had a tiny leak .
Removed the 1" pipe nipple from Lowes and replaced it with a nipple from Ace Hardware. Just installing the new nipple I could feel the difference in thread tolerances. My conclusion is it was a defective pipe nipple. Turns out my experience with PVC pipe nipples isn't unusual. Several threads in DIY address the same issue.
I just replaced a BH that I could not get to seal. It has been running for almost 2 years with a tiny leak in the inside threads like yours. It would not even get a towel wet over that entire time but salt buildup was occuring. I was lucky enough to have another BH laying around so I swaped it out and now I have no more leak either. :)
ange062
09/14/2011, 09:40 PM
Lookin good Agu, you crack me up with the bristle worms all the time!
Lookin good Agu, you crack me up with the bristle worms all the time!
At the risk of hijacking my own thread here's my best bristle worm shot. It's a few years old but still unusual.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2DSCN1851.jpg
If that's not clear here's a closeup of the Euphyllia Paradivisa (aka frogspawn) pooping out a bristle worm skeleton.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2DSCN1855.jpg
Misled
09/15/2011, 06:39 PM
Way Cool!!!!!
Re-aquascaped...
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/024-3.jpg
Actinics, you can barely see the two bangaii cardinals, they're shy of the paparazzi....
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/023-2.jpg
Looks great!
What light are you using? Is it the Marineland Reef LED?
john miller
10/25/2011, 11:12 AM
What happened to the clowns?
ange062
10/25/2011, 12:05 PM
At the risk of hijacking my own thread here's my best bristle worm shot. It's a few years old but still unusual.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2DSCN1851.jpg
If that's not clear here's a closeup of the Euphyllia Paradivisa (aka frogspawn) pooping out a bristle worm skeleton.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2DSCN1855.jpg
Whaaat thaaa??? Did the frogspawn really eat a bristle worm?? LOL
I like the deresa you added!
pscott99
10/25/2011, 02:15 PM
Great thread. Great ideas. Elegant and clean. Nice growth. How old are some of those corals ?
Looks great!
What light are you using? Is it the Marineland Reef LED?
Two Marineland reef LEDs and a generic reef actinic from my LFS. He gave it to me to try out and it's adequate for my purposes. The marineland lights need to be raised about 3" to get better coverage, I'm still working on that.
Whaaat thaaa??? Did the frogspawn really eat a bristle worm?? LOL
I like the deresa you added!
I wasn't there for the eating part, just saw it getting pooped out. I can only assume that since it was pooped out at some point it was eaten.
Had the derasa in the old tank where it doubled in size. I'm concerned that the bysall was damaged in the move as it doesn't open near as much as it did in the prior tank. Hopefully it'll be fine as Derasas can survive damage to their bysall gland.
Thanks for the compliment.
Great thread. Great ideas. Elegant and clean. Nice growth. How old are some of those corals ?
The clam is the newest at about 18 months, the center lower euphyllia I've had since 1998.(That's the one pooping out a bristleworm earlier in this thread, and my Avatar.) Shipped it to a friend in Fl when I relocated. The rest are 3 to 5 years old. Don't look it because in the previous ten gallon tank I had to frag every two or three months. Now there's enough space to let them get big.
What happened to the clowns?
That's a very strange and bizarre story. Got the black oscellaris from a breeder in early '03 from a breeder in Miami. At the time they were a rare clown morph. The first week of Feb this year the female hid in the rockwork and died. A week later the male did the same thing. No sign of disease or infection, they just died. [confused]
The tank sat fishless until the new tank was set up ....
Impossible
10/26/2011, 10:14 PM
Wow stellar tank man :D
ill3k
10/26/2011, 10:30 PM
great job! Looks awesome.
walnuts24
10/27/2011, 06:28 AM
Great looking tank! How do you like the Marineland LED's? I am looking into getting one 36"-48" model for my 40 Breeder but since my tank is 18" wide I was worried about the horizontal coverage. Do you think one would be suitable for 18" wide?
Thanks
Most people don't care for the Marineland reef LEDs. The optics are too narrow, it's not powerful enough and the blue LEDs aren't on a separate plug. All valid points.
Since I knew the limitations and already had one fixture the tank was aquascaped to take those issues into account. You can't tell from the pic but there are two rows of corals to optimize the light from two LED lights. In addition there's an additional blue LED fixture to even out the lighting and provide the actinic appearance after the two main lights shut down. Finally, it's an LPS tank and the Marineland fixtures are more than adequate for LPS, esp in a shallow tank.
To cover 18" front to back you'd have to raise the light 3 to 5 inches.
Wow stellar tank man :D
Thank You ....
ange062
10/27/2011, 10:15 PM
I wasn't there for the eating part, just saw it getting pooped out. I can only assume that since it was pooped out at some point it was eaten.
Pretty wild, but I don't doubt it after seeing what my frogspawn did to my clown. Ended up having to give away a beautiful 19-head to the LFS to keep the clown alive, and thankfully the is at least still lookin nice and kickin.
kylebeano
10/28/2011, 10:12 AM
Put one piece of rock, one coral and one bristle worm in the tank a few days ago, here's what lt looked like.
http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/ALukk/006-5.jpg
Best update ever!
Nicely executed LPS dominated simple reef. It looks like a serengeti savanna ubder water now. Oh, and congrats on getting to only 100w, nicely done! My tank uses 16w, but its 1/6 the size of yours lol
fronty
12/11/2011, 04:53 PM
How much did the cut glass cost you? I have been getting quotes from local glass shops, and the price for the glass alone is really close to just buying a rimless tank. I have been getting quotes for the glass with machine polished edges.
How much did the cut glass cost you? I have been getting quotes from local glass shops, and the price for the glass alone is really close to just buying a rimless tank. I have been getting quotes for the glass with machine polished edges.
Glass was $125 cut, polished edges and two holes drilled. Silicone was another $20 with shipping from Grainger. Overflow was cheap because I have a friend who does acrylic fabrication. Satisfaction of finally building my own tank was worth way more than the time and labor.
BTW, the glass company wasn't like your usual local glass shop. They produce shower doors and other specialty glass items. My order was below their "minimum" but they'll take jobs like mine because it's good public relations. Doesn't hurt that there's a reefer working there although I didn't know it at the time.
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