Hey Rosti, welcome back to the threads. Haven’t heard from you in a while and thanks for stoping by. Hope the tank is doing well. Thank you for your honest opinion. I myself love the natural look of a reef tank as you would see out in the ocean with sand and all. And I would like to mimic my tank as close to the ocean as posible. With that being said, this is where my venture begins.
I know I will have lots of questions for you down the line but, right now I’m still getting things and putting things together. So pretty soon I will pick your brain. Thanks Rosti.
I made little bit more progress over my weekend. Got all the old silicone out for resealing and also got the old top frame off to be replace with a new one. Once the resealing and the top are done I will continue with replacement of the bottom frame.
Did research on what silicone was the best to use for the job and it seems this GE RTV 108 is it, we’ll see.
Got 2 of the 3 glass drill bit in. Hope the 1 will be here soon, I’m ready to drill the tank and the sump!
Cleaned up and ready for the silicone
Also, a little but more progress on the sump as well.
Rocket J. Squirrel: “Bullwinkle, do you know what an A-bomb is?”
Bullwinkle: “Sure. A bomb is what some people call our show.”
Rocky:“I don’t think that’s very funny.”
Bullwinkle: “Neither do they, apparently.”
Don’t worry A., We like your show! Your new tank wont be a bomb. It will be “Da Bomb”!!!
Can’t wait to see you pull the new reef tank out of your hat!
More progress today. While waiting for the new resealing on the tank to cure. Since there has been lots of moisture in the air I decided to wait a little longer to do water test. Also, I recommend using RTV 108 for any silicone use for tank build or resealing; great stuff, very strong.
Drilled the 20gH that will be my refugium (thanks John, saltcreep). I built a stand for it to elevate it so that I don’t have to drill into the other one to where it will just over flow into the return part of the sump.
I’m also considering doing ATS (algae turf scrubber) to go with the refugium. Not sure if that is needed, what you guys think? The water would come in from a tee off the return pump on to the screen for ATS, which dumps into the refugium then overflow into the return compartment. Advise please!
Hey I’m in the process of finishing my 300g basement sump, I will have 2 150g rubbermaid totes and a 75g refugium,30g frag tank and I will be installing an algee scrubber,haven’t gotten that far yet,just filled the sump and have it cycling as we speak.im hoping to have the tank all tied in by the weekend.i will post some pics when I’m done.
Sorry didn’t mean to change the subject! The progress is looking good A. Also plumbers putty works well for keeping water around the area you are drilling your hole,build yourself a small dam around the area and fill it with water and drill away
No problem Jason. I guess you’ve found a pump to pump up that high?
I went everywhere looking for plumber putty and couldn’t find any. So, had to use my head and came up with this contraption by using flapper o ring and duck tape. Works like a charm.
Now I gotta come up with something to hold water while I drill the big tank horizontally. I would like to be able to drill it vertically, but the tank is too heavy to lift and I don’t think it will hold the weight while it standing up vertically. So, I’ll do with what I got.
Just get some plumbers putty, lowes really should have it in stock at all times.
and create a “v” channel that runs to a bucket with a small powerhead in it and then tape the hose where you need it, the channel should direct most of the water back to the bucket for minimal mess.
Well, it’s been a week and the silicone seems to be cured and holding up very well. I decided to go ahead and fill the tank up with water and do leak test. So far so good no wet spot anywhere. I’m gonna leave the water in till next weekend so that I know for sure that it will not leak or any other problem may occur.
Once it completely leak proof, I’ll silicone the top frame on. Then the heavy part; turning the tank upside down to replace the bottom frame, this should be fun! The tank is about 600 lbs empty.
Feels like 600lbs Ken, with out flounder ::. Don’t know if its really is, but I do know it’s fricken heavy for one person to lift. Almost broke my back trying to get it out of the guy basement with only 3 person and the 3rd kindda stood there and direct ::bs::.
More update. 75g sump is finally done. It has 4 simple partitioned compartments. 1st compartment is the drain from the DT then it over flow into the mechanical filter which is part of the 2nd skimmer compartment. From there it flows into the 3rd which is the water changing compartment. I drill 2†hole to accommodate 1 ½†bulkhead that has a 1 ½†bypass pipe and ball valve. I’m able to do about 30g water change without having to turn off the return pump. All I have to do is open the ball valve and the water from the 2nd compartment bypass the 3rd and drains into the 4th for continuing water flow.
I then have another pump to pump out the old water from the 3rd compartment and pump new salt water in from the mixing container. Once that is done I just close the valve and the water in the 2nd compartment continue to fill and continue over flow into the 3rd and 4th.
Hope it’s not too confusing to figure out, here’s some pics and video if it is.
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[URL=http://s987.photobucket.com/albums/ae357/reefman66/?action=view¤t=6371fd4e.mp4]
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