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Originally Posted by Osric
I'd love to see an update. I recently bought a very similar tank from Miracles and so we'll probably wind up facing many of the same choices throughout setup.
FWIW what worked well for me was to get a drawing from Derek in advance and my tank came through almost 100% as I expected it to. Only thing I'll need to get changed is that I don't want teeth on my coast-to-coast overflow, which is just a matter of a new sheet of acrylic.
One difference between our tanks is that it looks like the glass in your overflow is black. Mine is clear and needs the black acrylic installed to look the way I want it to.
Lastly I'd say your stand looks good - I wouldn't want the edge of my sand to show and that overlap will give you a nice clean look in my opinion. Maybe before you change it you need to figure out what depth of sand bed you want to have? Or do you want to see the sand through the glass?
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Thanks for the interest in an update. It has been a while. I had been holding off until I can show some pictures as the fruits of my labor. I'll share those this weekend.
I had a slight delay because the sump I had custom built from Advanced Acrylics had a small chip in it. We believe this chip was cosmetic, but with Sherylinn's encouragement (they were reimbursed by the carrier) John rebuilt the sump for me. I had to wait about 3 weeks which tested my patience, but in that time I ran as much plumbing as possible.
Plumbing engineering isn't my strong suit so there was a lot of dry fitting and trial/error. I wanted as much hard plumbed as possible. I do have some spaflex but kept that to a minimum, only when angles needed to be other than 45 or 90. I made sure the return plumbing was equal distant. Stepping down from 1.5" return pipe to a 3/4" bulkhead was challenging. It would have been nice if there was a premade 1.5" female slip to 3/4" thread male adapter, but there isn't. I used a 3/4" sch80 pipe with thread on the end, cementing it into a female 3/4" slip to 1.5" slip adapter. That went to sweeping 90s down to a 120 wye in the middle, then to another sweeping 90 into the fish/sump room. I only have one actual 90 in the return run. Each drain also only has one 90 with the rest of the angles being 45s.
I wanted the drain lines to be at a continuous downward slope, even if that slope was slight. That proved challenging and hopefully there isn't too much pressure at the overflow bulkheads because of that angle. Because I chose to place the aquarium in the basement I no longer had the vertical from the first floor. The sump is 20" high which gave me only 16" of vertical to go from the overflow into the sump room and into the sump drain bulkheads. Keeping a downward slope for that length with that little vertical allowed for a very slight slope along the three drain runs.
I ended up removing the PVC liner from under the stand. We had some concern that it wouldn't allow the carpet to breathe which would result in trapped condensation and eventually mold. I used this liner under the sump on concrete instead.
The overflow is black on all sides with a black top. This will help prevent unwanted algae growth. In my sump rebuild I had Advanced Acrylics make the back and sides black for the same reason. The bottom was already black. The covers and front are clear.
The sandbed in my current 120 DT is 2-3". I was planning on making it slightly more shallow; 1.5-2". The hope is easier cleaning and less chance of diatoms or cyano. I do not want the skirt covering all of the sand. I want to be able to see about an inch from the front. Once I get the sand in and everything's settled I'll measure how much to trim from the bottom.
I already know the skirt will be too high. This is something I should have thought through more and discussed with Derek in depth. As you mention, a drawing is good. We had a drawing, but had not detailed out every aspect. There is a lot we discussed verbally which I should have had in writing. One thing I've learned is that no matter if you think you're being a pain in the arse by going over every little detail, and getting that in writing, it's better to do it than have something like this built incorrectly. Derek is no exception. I had the same issue with John at Advanced Acrylics. These guys are very busy and do not want to spend time talking about your aquarium, no matter how nice they sound on the phone. They want to get your requirements and move on. Leave no room for chance or discrepancy. If you've ever built a house it's the same thing. The construction workers will do it the way they want and even if you make things very clear they may still do it their way.