The story of a boys childhood dream come true

JacoD01

JacoD01

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11 Dec 2010
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Johannesburg / Brits
Well, I have been on this forum for a while now without being to active, picking up all the information going around.

In April I decided to let my 4ft tropical tank go and started to peruse my childhood dream... Owning a marine tank.

I got a second-hand tank from somebody. But there were a lot of things that needed to change as this tank had a hang on skimmer, poor lights ext...

Thus, the big journey started...


tank2.JPG
 
Welcome..post some more photo's as you going along !!!
 
First thing first, I had to upgrade the filtering system big time, as this tank was seriousely under performing in the filter department... It was running on a hang on skimmer and canister filter only.
The nitrates ran at the 20ppms and water changes in conjunction to NOPOX had to be effected at regular intervals in the effort to keep the NO3 below 40ppm...

I got a TS2 skimmer, but the problem was to get the space to to house a skimmer. So I opted to built it in the existing stand...

Cabinet before.jpg


Sump layout 1.jpg
 
JacoD01 said:
The plan was to build three seperate small tanks, one in eatch compartment, and devise an over flow/ flow between these individual tanks.
Click to expand...

good luck bud! design looks good so far!

if i can add something though, when i first started out i did pretty much the same as you are doing. however i forgot to budget for evaporation in the sump area and due to this my entire cabinet/stand rotted and had to eventually be turfed.

an easy fix! get a old Cell Charger and a PC fan, wire the two together and you have a working fan.
now, if there is a large drilled hole in the cabinet install the fan over the hole and you have a cheap extraction fan!

these fans can also be used to help bring down tank temp if you ever struggle with it. - it will however increase evaporation in the process!

good luck!
 
nice work... would you have enough space on top of each sump compartment to be able to clean inside?
you got some good DIY skills there
 
Made one major mistake.... Newby mistake...
The return plumbing did go above the DT water line, so every time the power went off, There were some serious water hammer. After discussion with @Bob the (reef)builder, I changed the return so that the pipe is elevated above the water line and installed a "air break"...

Note the extra support that I needed to install in order to stabilise the cabinet.

22.jpg


16.jpg
 
looking good! nice DIY skills
 
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