Crussett's 120g build

[crussett]

Tonight I mocked up most of the plumbing. Nothing is glued, just slipped together. I found out I'm short 1 - 3/4" 45 degree elbow

Here is a full length shot of what I accomplished. You can see the external beananimal overflow with the full siphon on the far right, the open drain in the middle and the emergency on the left. All drains are 1". The full siphon and the open drain are plumbed into the drain section of the sump while the emergency is just plumbed into the return section. I also need to add the last few pieces so the drains almost reach the bottom of the sump. The two return lines join together and are plumbed into the return section where it will connect to my mag12. I still need to add another 45 degree elbow and a "T" to split the return off into the fuge.


This is just a closer shot of top section of plumbing.

[crussett]

So tonight I finished mocking up the plumbing. I've added the return all the way to the mag12 as well as the part that splits off to the fuge. I have also added my rock back into saltwater and yuck! Myka was probably right as the amount of dead stuff coming off this rock now is disgusting. I did the first water change on it tonight but it still stinks. I will likely be doing major water changes for a number of nights to come.

Plumbing


Close up of the fuge plumbing


120lbs of Sugar sand


And a JBJ ATO. I have a DIY one on my current tank. I used two float switches and a relay to connect to a Toms aqualifter, but for the new tank I wanted to have an off the shelf solution.

[crussett]

Not much for updates as I've had to split my spare time between working on the nursery and the new tank. I've had a few problems with the plumbing.

1. The drains would not siphon, they would just drain very very slowly. I did a little research and found that others had the same problem when their drains went too far under the water in the sump. I cut all the drains out as I had glued them all. I then shortened them to be around 1-2 inches under the water. I then mocked them back up and tested and the siphon worked great! I also added in unions to all 3 drains to make them easy to remove if I ever need to.

2. There was a leak in the return plumbing after I glued everything. I ended up having to cut out the section that had all the plumbing going over to the fuge and redo it. Once it was redone I added 2 unions to make it easier to remove.

Tonight I re-glued everything but it is all still curing. Tomorrow night we have prenatal class, so Tuesday night I will do another test to ensure everything is good. I'm hoping to get all the sand rinsed this week as well start making some salt water so I can add the sand and aquascape this weekend

Here is a pic I took of the tank tonight with the 3 actinic and 1 fiji purple turned on.

[waynefish]

Great looking tank project you have going. I'm just getting back into the hobby and was planning a tank similar to yours with the bean overflow as well. What lighting fixture do you have there? It looks very nice.

[crussett]

The tank and sump are full of freshwater and have been running all night. So far no leaks . There is a fair bit of noise which I need to fix. There is a significant trickling sound coming from the water flowing into the overflow as well as the water trickling over into the filter socks. For the filter socks I'm going to get an acrylic cover as there is a bit of splashing as well. I think I might try raising the water level in the overflow a bit which might help.

The lights are not a major brand. I bought them off ebay from a company in Ontario. They were very inexpensive, but I'm hoping do the trick. The package cost around $330 plus tax with free shipping and included ballasts, fixture and bulbs. I'm sure the bulbs aren't great, but I can replace those. Here is a link to the ebay page.

Here's a couple pics of where things are at. I'm going to start making RO/DI and rinsing sand tomorrow night in hopes of having some water and sand and possibly rock in this weekend.

[crussett]

There have been many issues so far, but here is a brief update. The scape is done, and the fuge light is in. I still need to install the power bars and get the cycle going. I also need to figure out how to get water pumping from the sump to the fuge as I had to remove the section I built into the return plumbing due to issues.

Full Tank


Rock work