Antegon
New member
After years of making mistakes on my 55g tank, I'm finally building out my first real, well done (hopefully), big-kid tank. There's certainly a budget, so please take the "Dream Build" term with some salt, haha.
So far, I've got the tank, standard 75g size, with corner overflow. I'm DIYing an old 29g into a sump, and starting to collect the pieces all together. I am coming up with 100s of questions all over the board, but I thought I might try initiating the conversation with some of the larger ones that are on the "next steps" pile.
My lighting question is simple. I'm doing LEDs. Reading through the annals of these forums, I came across this particular light - http://www.viparspectra.com/goods.php?id=62 -
I was thinking 2 165w chinese something-or-other black boxes, as I can see how inexpensive they are, and have read that many people have had great success with them. I know that not all LEDs in any given catogory are the same, and wanted to know if those vipars were the "right kind" of cheaper LED black boxes. If not, what would you recommend, keeping in mind that if I could afford 2 Kessils, I wouldn't have asked lol.
My questions in regards to building the 29g sump are just of design. I'm currently thinking around 7-8 inches for the first compartment, to include the drain, a 4" sock, and the skimmer. It's a Seaclone 150 w/Maxi 1200, (don't hate me. It was new, free, and I have begun the needed mods). I would like to run it in-sump, but am concerned with the depth of the pump vs. the height of the skimmer. I was thinking about DIYing some different piping than what it comes with for the out-of-sump application, but operating the same, so that I could just build a small stand to raise the pump but not have to raise the skimmer. Would this work?
Then a bubble baffle into the center section of the sump, the return pump area. I was thinking 7-8 inches for this section as well, in the 29g, that gives me just under 4 1/2g in that center section (assuming the baffle is around 10 inches. This being the section that will take the evaporation, is it ok to have just 4 or so gallons, or would you want/need more to combat the evaporation?
The third section would be the refugium. It will be fed from a line coming off of the return line, with a valve for flow control. How does one come up with how much that flow through the fuge should be? It will pour over a toothed wall, with an inch drop into the return center section. I was thinking of running the pvc that fed the fuge from the return line all the way down to the bottom of the tank, then 90 degree elbow and pipe across the width of the tank, with small holes along it, to create some more flow than just surface fed to surface drain, but I don't know if that's a good idea/important or not.
My question with the corner overflow is in regards to the overflow drain pipe. The tank is pre-drilled, and only comes with one drain and one return. I would like to avoid learning how to drill glass on this tank I already bought, haha, but I have read a lot of horror stories from tanks without proper redundancies in place. The pipe is big, and I believe of the durso design. (Curved-over, downward-facing main intake, with airline coming out an inch at the top, and a 1/2" hole drilled in the pipe directly below the airline, about an inch down, and about an inch above the main intake opening level.) It's 1 1/2" pipe, down to an inch at the bulkhead. Can I get away with this, or is it absolutely nessassary to drill another line or 2 for a herbie/bean animal set up?
Ok, I have 9000 more questions, but this is my innagural post, and I'm very excited, so I'll leave it here for now.
Hooray!
So far, I've got the tank, standard 75g size, with corner overflow. I'm DIYing an old 29g into a sump, and starting to collect the pieces all together. I am coming up with 100s of questions all over the board, but I thought I might try initiating the conversation with some of the larger ones that are on the "next steps" pile.
My lighting question is simple. I'm doing LEDs. Reading through the annals of these forums, I came across this particular light - http://www.viparspectra.com/goods.php?id=62 -
I was thinking 2 165w chinese something-or-other black boxes, as I can see how inexpensive they are, and have read that many people have had great success with them. I know that not all LEDs in any given catogory are the same, and wanted to know if those vipars were the "right kind" of cheaper LED black boxes. If not, what would you recommend, keeping in mind that if I could afford 2 Kessils, I wouldn't have asked lol.
My questions in regards to building the 29g sump are just of design. I'm currently thinking around 7-8 inches for the first compartment, to include the drain, a 4" sock, and the skimmer. It's a Seaclone 150 w/Maxi 1200, (don't hate me. It was new, free, and I have begun the needed mods). I would like to run it in-sump, but am concerned with the depth of the pump vs. the height of the skimmer. I was thinking about DIYing some different piping than what it comes with for the out-of-sump application, but operating the same, so that I could just build a small stand to raise the pump but not have to raise the skimmer. Would this work?
Then a bubble baffle into the center section of the sump, the return pump area. I was thinking 7-8 inches for this section as well, in the 29g, that gives me just under 4 1/2g in that center section (assuming the baffle is around 10 inches. This being the section that will take the evaporation, is it ok to have just 4 or so gallons, or would you want/need more to combat the evaporation?
The third section would be the refugium. It will be fed from a line coming off of the return line, with a valve for flow control. How does one come up with how much that flow through the fuge should be? It will pour over a toothed wall, with an inch drop into the return center section. I was thinking of running the pvc that fed the fuge from the return line all the way down to the bottom of the tank, then 90 degree elbow and pipe across the width of the tank, with small holes along it, to create some more flow than just surface fed to surface drain, but I don't know if that's a good idea/important or not.
My question with the corner overflow is in regards to the overflow drain pipe. The tank is pre-drilled, and only comes with one drain and one return. I would like to avoid learning how to drill glass on this tank I already bought, haha, but I have read a lot of horror stories from tanks without proper redundancies in place. The pipe is big, and I believe of the durso design. (Curved-over, downward-facing main intake, with airline coming out an inch at the top, and a 1/2" hole drilled in the pipe directly below the airline, about an inch down, and about an inch above the main intake opening level.) It's 1 1/2" pipe, down to an inch at the bulkhead. Can I get away with this, or is it absolutely nessassary to drill another line or 2 for a herbie/bean animal set up?
Ok, I have 9000 more questions, but this is my innagural post, and I'm very excited, so I'll leave it here for now.
Hooray!
and from my understanding (I could be mistaken) the other features of the more expensive lights are for the viewers of the tank not the inhabitants 
