opinions needed on Sump material

[JammyBirch]

OK, i had a leak in my home made sump and have been doing some research around my area to build another one.

I can find 3/8" acrylic sheets cut to size and square so that i can construct another sump tank.

I also found a locate glass plate shop that can do the same.

What would you guys recommend, i liked the acrylic because it's a chemical bond but i guess i suck at it or i wouldn't have had a leak on the first one.

In my defense though the acrylic i used was 1/4" thick from HD and was not flat at all...this stuff will all be flat and cut to size...

Let me know for my sake, my wife is about to kill me if anymore water gets on the floor or we loose any fish...

Thanks.

 

[mcgyvr]

Not sure what opinions you are looking for..
Sumps can be made with glass or acrylic,etc...

Why not pick up a regular glass aquarium and just add glass baffles to it from the glass shop?
Takes quite a bit more skill to construct the whole thing yourself vs using an existing tank and adding baffles.

 

[phenom5]

What size are you looking at?
Maybe pick up a small tank and covert it into a sump?

That's what I would do, especially if it helped avoid the ire of the wife. :furious:

 

[JammyBirch]

the problem is that i have a very tiny space in my stand. I cannot have the sump sticking out of the back of it. The space is 16x16 inches, i have a lot of equipment in there as well so it's really tight.

This tank is the highliner display in my living room, it's a piece of my furniture and needs to look nice, else the wife will explode.

Because i run a refugium my original sump was split down the middle, this was also part of the design for leak response and emergency volume for any plumbing issues.

The design worked great in that i could drain half of the sump to make a quick repair and still have skimmer and return systems going. I'd like to keep that functinoality if possible.

I'm asking opinions on what to make it out of, acrylic i've done and i'm not good at it, glass i have not done but it looks like a tube of marine silicone should do the trick...

So what would you guys build, glass or acrylic?

 

[fishgate]

Is your sump all acrylic (weld-on) or all glass (silicone)? You should not mix the two materials.

 

[JammyBirch]

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[JammyBirch]

Is your sump all acrylic (weld-on) or all glass (silicone)? You should not mix the two materials.

Right now it's all acrylic (weld-on). the new sump will be all the same material also...i agree mixing is not good.

 

[goncharkina]

Acrylic is the way to go, mine is light and it wont crack that easily, however it will scratch, but if it is a sump - it doesn't matter, no one can see it.

 

[phenom5]

I would go with acrylic. Just leak test it thoroughly.

Here's a thread with a TON on info on working with acrylic, in case you haven't come across it.
Acrylic Fabrication Questions