And the nano build begins again...

JonTarutis

JonTarutis

New member
Well after not being terribly pleased with my "in tank" sump I made for my 26 bow I decided to start fresh. This time.... add a 15 gallon sump behind the tank and really beef up the skimming. Never having had to drill glass before I figured it was about time. A few holes later as well as some acrylic work and I am this far in the game...just thought I'd share!

new26.jpg



Please excuse the mess you see both through the tank and in the reflection! Like my feet?
Jon
 
What will you be putting in it once it's done? Just curious since I have a 30 gallon now and I'm not sure what I can do with a small tank. Also, what is your lighting and filtration, if you don't mind sharing.
 
Christine-
All of the contents of this...
3to1.jpg

Will go into that tank. Same tank just swapping the new one out for the old!
Lighting is a 4 x24W SLS TekLight. Filtration will be a combination of a 8" x 24" airdriven skimmer and a micron sock. That will go into the 15 gallon that will sit behind the tank. BTW this all goes on our kitchen counter.
Jas-
I'll have some pics up later.

Jon
 
Wow, that looks amazing. I think I see three fish, but can only make out the clown for sure. What other types do you have in there? I'm not great w/ coral ids but it looks like mainly soft, LPS and zoos, is that correct? That's what I eventually want in my tank, plus lots of mushrooms a clam and carpet anemone. I'm trying to figure out what type of lighting is best for those types of corals/inverts. Are you happy with your light choice?

Thanks!
 
Thanks Christine! In the pic there are 2 fish... one black occellaris clown and one patternless clown. We lost the patternless one to what looked like Brookynella (sp?)... dipped the black one in time and she has been doing great since then. It's a mix of just about everything... the tank started out as a "leftovers" tank and has since grown tremendously.
I couldn't be happier with my lighting choice. I can keep pretty much anything I want and there are no heat issues and little electricity used.
 
There we go thats a little easier to see . Nice work , I like the calfo overflow , Ill be using one on my next tank . Let us know how you like it .
 
Figured I try out one of the "calfo" style overflows...I was a little nervous about snails going down into the drains so when I fitted the overflow I made it 1/2" below the lowest portion of the top trim. Place a piece of eggcrate on the trim above the overflow should now leave a 1/2" "weir" opening. I'll keep everyone posted!
 
How do you define pretty easy? Def. not like boring through acrylic!!!! To make my life easier I took a 1/4" piece of MDF and used my normal holesaw set to drill a "template" the same size as the diamond bit. Little smear of plumber's putty, a pair of spring clamps and I was ready to get to business. Fill the hole in the template with some water and start drilling. No need to start the hole at an angle as the bit can't jump around. Problem I found was that the bit I was using had been used 4 times before I got it... so by my 3rd hole it was really slow going!!! Aside from setting aside an hour of my life... it wasn't all that bad!
 
Well I've finally managed to get the time to plumb up the sump and leak test everything. FW run for 24 hours and it passes with flying colors!

Top down...
26complete.jpg


From the side...
26completeside.jpg


Jon
 
Thanks! I tried to make use of what I had laying around. For the skimmer it came down to 6" diameter with 4 air ports or a 3" diameter with one air port. I wanted to gravity feed the skimmer (one less pump to deal with!) and I was leary about the little one being able a good deal of flow while still functioning. More flow more turbulance ineffective air driven skimmer in my book. I'll only be using 2 of the air intakes and as of yet I am undecided on 2 stones or 4. I'm making use of some Schwego (sp?) air pumps and they are VERY effective at one stone and marginal at 2. I'd like to put a SuperLuft pump on it and call it a day but that kind of ruins the energy efficient and el-cheapo thought process that went into this tank from day one. Another hour it will be back up and running again....
Jon
 
no noise at all! The overflows ultimately (either direct or through the skimmer) go through a piece of 3" pipe with a 3-4" coupler that has a 4" gutter drain in the bottom. Each piece of 3" pipe is packed with bonded pad with some EheimSynth. Water is sparkling this morning and skimmer already has a nice head of foam.
The one thing I notice with the Calfo overflow is there is no visible surface movement. I imagine this is due to it spanning the whole tank... I was expecting a tornado in the tank with the Eheim 1060 as a return pump.
 
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