Hammerheads New Tank Build

After more than 3yrs of being out of the hobby (FOWLR) I have decided to start afresh on a mixed reef. Took me ages to come up with with what I presume to be a perfect setup for me, borrowing from ideas I have read in the threads over the past couple of weeks.

Tank Specs:
1300 X 650 X 600 (H) 550 (WL) 10mm Glass Euro Braced, currently on hold as I cant seem to find Den Braven Aqua Black Silicone in Durban. Tank will have a C2C with a bean animal overflow (thanks Dallas) (Still to meet with AOR on the workings of this).

Sump Specs:
1200 X 550 X 450 (H) 300 (WL) 6mm Glass and a huge DSB. My experience with marines is rather old school and after reading up on tank builds such as Adees who has gone back to DSB's has somewhat reassured me that I may not be doing things too old fashioned. I was considering a LR filled sump but my understanding is that I will have LR in my DT to do some filtration. Sump will be a standard three compartment sump (thanks Riaan) that will hold a NW200 Reef Octupus Skimmer, DSB with macros or an algea scrubber (pending GHA problems), 4800l/h Lifetech pump and Reef Octupus Phosban Reactor (I had issues with GHA in the past, traced it back to poor maintenace and odd tap water top offs. New system will be toped of with R.O. Kalk Stirrer on hold pendind setup.

Lighting:
2 X Dual 4ft Oddysea Light fixtures, didnt go quad as I planned on adding 2 150w MH from previous tank if I required. May get my hands on a complete light fixture with MH and a chiller, will see in the near future.

Circulation:
1 X MP10 which after seeing operate am rather skitish if this will be enough flow, if not will order another MP10W and a bluetooth kit for the MP10 to sync them or possibly a wave box. (thanks Afsal for allowing me to view your setup)

I am aiming at an easy to maintain mixed reef with easy to keep softies and LPS (will be going through Dallas's beginner corral list agian when im ready.

I consider myself a newb as I have no understanding on dosing trace elements and will be bugging you guys on every litle aspect from choice of fish to corals to dosing etc.

My must have's i.t.o of fish is a Powder Blue Tang , Bangai Cardinals, Clowns (nemo) and possibly a Regal, if the pros feel my tank is too small or my equipment is ineffieceint please shoot me down now before I make any mistakes.

To date I have built the sump and pics will follow shortly.

Exciting setup and a good size to maintain comfortably. I hope you're going to look for captive bred Baggai's

Would the MP40's not be a better option?

In terms of dosing and I stand to be corrected here, regular water changes should replace most if not all en trace elements for a mixed softie/lps setup, thus reducing expense and further simplifying the setup. Thumbsup for deciding on a RO unit - I made the mistake of topping up with tap water over the past year and only tecently started having problems, now I also only ise RO. A schlep to go buy every weekbut worth it until I can get my own RO setup.

Pics of build to date, tools required for a build (can be done without claps but makes it so much easier), all panes masked to get a clean line on the silicone (remove immedieatley after siliconing as it will get stuck under. Pics of Skimmer and rturn to get a feel of size of sump.

Hey Chas, im glad I found MASA and hope never to repeat some of the stupid mistakes I did in the past. Dont have an RO unit but I do have a few LFS's close by so I can collect RO no hasle.

MP40's I was told will be too strong for such small tank, i presume poor advise from LFS but then again i will asess when setup and add as required. Im guesing another MP10 will be ok for my size stup.

Borrowed this idea from Adee's thread, easy to get silicone under this area now.

Nice neat job you are doing there.

For Black Den Braven silicon - have you tried the main branch in Springfield . Only problem is you will have to buy a box of it. Otherwise, maybe ask Gelmar to order for you?

nice progress..keep the pics rolling...

Yip checked with Gelamr, not willing to order for me as it is not one of their lines as they do order the universal black from DB and find no need to keep other blacks. I did source from a local tank builder, just need to find time to go and pick up and cough up the ridiculous R 75.00 they asking per tube. So if all else fails i will have to pay the price for it.

Where did u get the 3/8" NPT John Quest fitting for the bean animal overflow, or what equivalent r u using, heading up your way on the weekend and would love to take you up with that offer.

Hammerhead said:

Yip checked with Gelamr, not willing to order for me as it is not one of their lines as they do order the universal black from DB and find no need to keep other blacks. I did source from a local tank builder, just need to find time to go and pick up and cough up the ridiculous R 75.00 they asking per tube. So if all else fails i will have to pay the price for it.

Where did u get the 3/8" NPT John Quest fitting for the bean animal overflow, or what equivalent r u using, heading up your way on the weekend and would love to take you up with that offer.

Click to expand...

yep i paid as much as R100 per tube when it was in short supply.. so i used it sparingly and mainly focussed if for structural bonds.

as for john guest valves try Marco (the waterboy)

I dont know the John Quest valves to which you refer?

I bought all my pipe fitting from Astore (71 Columbine Place).
Used bulk head fittings, had them machined open slightly so I could slide the pipes into them - this for the pipes going through the bottom of the overflow box.

Unfortunatley I'm in Lesotho this weekend.
Back next week onwards, so we could set something up from then on.

Its the grey fiting to which the red pipe is connected to in the picture. this creates a full siphon in the event the over flow cannot manage. Thanks Leslie will check with Marco if I dont come right.

Just came from an LFS he says bostic blacr CAR silicone is safe for use in tanks, any thoughts on that?

Ah, okay.

I just drilled and siliconed the red pipe into the pipe fitting.
Marco should have those if you want to go that route.

Dont use Bostic, rather stay with the known Den Braven marine spec quality.
I'm sure you dont want to be a guinea pig in this matter.

thanks guys, yup def do not want to be the guinea pig.

Things have been a bit slow but managed to get DB black silicone and started to put the tank together, wanted to take loads more pics during the build but wow is black hard to work with, that sounds awefully familiar.

Tanks taking shape slowly just one more bracing to go tonight as I only had 2 G-Clamps.





The holes drilled for the bean overflow



Still gots lots of cleaning up to do and put one additional base brace aginst front glass. Supplier didnt supply this piece, grrrrrr.

Stand being welded currently (free jobby so cant rush the dude) and not certain if i'll make it to get it galvanised this year as they close shortly. No rush , I believe patience is the name of the game in this hobby. So planning to setup early next year.....too bad i starded so late I guess.

very well done so far..

Tagging

So finally did the last brace and allowed it to set for about three days.

Then I tested and was dishartened to find a leak. On closer inspection i noticed a void in the silicone as the bead was not compressed against the glass.

Is it better to strip this edge of silicone and resilicone or add silicone over this?

Finally got around to sorting out the leak, put on a black vynl on the tank.

Couldnt wait for my neighbor to weld up my stand so trekd up to PMB and borrowed my uncles to do it myself.






Just a few more welds to be done this weekend and it will be ready for galvanising.

Progressing slowly....

Not much to update apart from a small problem which I need to get some advice on. I should have asked you guys befor sending the stand for galvanising.

Stand complete and ready for galvanising.



Stand came back from galvanising, during wich time i completed the overflow and plumbing.



Put tank on stand for final water test.



Problem is I bumped the tank intentionally and the stand does not look stable at all. It caused a huge ripple in the tank and im afraid that it will cause me heartache down the line if someone bumps into it by mistake. I know I should have ran the stand design past you guys before I sent it for galvanising.

Any ideas how I could strengthen the stand. My idea is to bolt some plating to the corners, will this help or should I rather grind off the galvanising and rather weld on angle supports and hammerite it. Do u get galvanising paint in a can?

Hammerhead said:

It caused a huge ripple in the tank

Click to expand...

Did you bump the tank or the glass?