[flgoose]

This project has been moving slow. Below are some pictures of where I am so far. It was a bear to put the tank together as the glass is heavy. The next obsticle was finding big boys to lift the thing off the ground, I figure it weigh about 350 or so. To give you an idea of the size, I'm 5'10" 180lb.

The question is: I'm deciding on the pump for this. there are 2 1" outs from the display and 2 2/3" coming back to it. I'm debating between 1 meg-drive 1800 gal or 2 meg-drive 700 gal. 2 pumps would give me a safety margin (if one quits) but also more noise and heat. What would you do?

[Reefland]

I would go with one larger pump personally. What else do you plan to do for flow in the tank?

[Samper]

You can always have powerheads for more movement and safety in case your main quits. You will be needing more water movement in the display than your bulkheads can handle so they'll be a worthy investment. A good external pump won't produce much heat or noise if that's a worry of yours. The sequence pump I just got is extremely quiet and generates very little heat.

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by flgoose

I'm debating between 1 meg-drive 1800 gal or 2 meg-drive 700 gal. 2 pumps would give me a safety margin (if one quits) but also more noise and heat. What would you do?

Hey Goose

Pros and Cons

If money wasnt the issue then I would spend a bit more money on 1 pump but make sure it was a very reliable pump w/a good report/history. Mags are great pumps IMO but I do believe there are better pumps out there....Mags are plug and play which can be convenient, but if you are just gonna use it as a submersible then your heat issue is more prevalant. An external inline pump may take a little bit more work to get tweaked and inline but they are worth it IMO.

However....I love the idea of 2 pumps, like you said redundancy is king! but why would you have 2 - 700's versus an 1800 mag? so if you had 2 pumps you would have 1400gph versus one pump @ 1800gph? Did I compute that right? If you did decide to go w/2 pumps that I would redo your plans, and if at all possible make a closed loop into the main display as your secondary pump...and I would make your intake holes as big as possible.....How big is this tank? are you planning acros? If not you may want them in the future...so upgradable features is something to think about now not then! Have the option to put more flow if need be later on but only utilize what you need now....Ok thats the end of my opinion....slice it, butch it, throw it away or do wat you want w/it

[flgoose]

Scubadude, thanks for the comments.
I've been building with upgradable features always in mind. Yes you are right 2 700 would give me less than 1 1800. I think my mistake was to only put 1" drains on the tank Which is now impossible to reverse. After looking at pump specs closely, I think i will go with the 1800. I have to go up about 5 feet from the sump and at that hight a 1800 should give me rougly 1300 Gal hr the 1" drains will drain 600 gal each max so it seems that the 1800 is the way to go here. I try to stay away from the external pumps as i don't want to drill the sump at this point.

FYI the tank is 268 gal and the sump is 60 total.

Heat is going to be a concern here. after looking, reading and calculating my brain off, it comes down to that the tank is going to require 3 450 helide. The depth of the tank is 27" so anything less than 450's won't do. the lenght is 82" so to evenly distribute light i'll have to go with 3 of them.

I have no idea what is this closed loop you mentioned. Would you care to elaborate? At this point i am trying to figure out how much lower the overflow has to be from the water surface to give me 600 gal per down pipe minimum. I'm trying to avoid being adjustable there but i might have to.

[scubadude]

Originally Posted by flgoose

after looking, reading and calculating my brain off, it comes down to that the tank is going to require 3 450 helide.

Do you mean 3 - 400watt halides? Im guessing thats wat you meant

Originally Posted by flgoose

I have no idea what is this closed loop you mentioned. Would you care to elaborate?

Sure...here ya go :P
Closed Loop System & Sumps

And heres a few pics of a closed loop that ciruclated through a chiller outside of the house (through the wall)

[flgoose]

Yes i did mean 400 watts. Thanks, i now understand the close loop. Does any one uses the old octipus method to circulate water where you want it any more?

[Ratpack]

Nice tank. What type of glass did you use and in what thickness? The reason I ask, is I am thinking of building a tank myself since I work for a major window manufacturer and can get glass for pennies. I was about to post a thread about it today to get feedback to determine if I want to tanke this on or not. Seeing your tank gives me inspiration.

[flgoose]

I wish I could get glass for penney's.
to answer your question, The glass thickness is 1/2" At first i taught it wasn't thick enough trough my calculations but it turned out to be right. 1/2" sould be good for up to 300 gal. I'm just short of that so I'm safe.

The side panels are tempered to resist scratches but my bottom isn't. After talking to a major glass company in my town and my local fish store, there was no advantage to temper the bottom. Saved some bucks that way, it's not cheap to temper. The local fish store I go to built a lot of huge tanks themseves and they've been around forever so I took they're word for it.

The trim is not really necessary but makes the tank look good. I made mine out poplar as i like the color. I made it with 3 cross braces on the bottom and 2 on the top. I used water proof glue and biscuits in all the joints and drove some stapples trought the biscuits. Finished with poly on the outside and a coat of fiberglass rosin on all the wet edges.

Putting it together was not an easy task. first of all the glass is heavy and trying to hold the last panel by its top edge was quite hard. I chose to put the glass in the bottom frame one at a time and place the top in the next day. I should have put the glass together without the frame first, it would have been much easier that way. Anyway, if you decide to build your own tank, make sure you have bar clamps to sqeeze the glass togeter. Even though the silicone is pliable, it took some squeezing to get it right.

[Ratpack]

Thanks for the info, I still have to do some reading to make sure I know how the glass is supposed to be put together, but I may very attempt this. I had even thought of building a plywood tank where the stand would also be the tank and just line it with glass instead of epoxy as a lot are doing, but I think that would be very heavy. Is there a good place on the net you could point me to about building glass tanks?

[flgoose]

I got my info from various sites and or forums like this one. In a nutshell here is how to put a tank together.

1 Place the bottom on a flat surface.
2 put a healthy bead of silicone on the back side where the back panel supposed to lay on.
3 lay the back panel on the silicone making sure it lines up with the outside edge of the bottom
4 Lay a bead of silicone on the bottom and on the back panel where a side will attach to.
5 place the side panel, again making sure it lines up with the bottom edge and the back panel edge,
6 repeat for the other side panel
7 put a bead of silicone on the bottom front edge and on the side panels edges.
8 place the front panel in place and make sure all the edges line up ( they might slip around a bit while your working with this)

9 put a couple of bar clamps to hold and squeeze the silicon out of the sides ( see my picture on this post.) You don't want to squeeze all the silicone out but rather leave a thin even film where the glass meet.
10 put a very healty beed of silicone on any inside bottom corners and smooth it out with a piece of wood or a tung depressor. I used a piece of lattice wood and rounded the corner on the grinder. Work from one end to the other to leave an thick even smooth beed on the corner of each panel.
keep on repeating this step till all the corners hae a beed of silicone on it.

11 let the silicone cure for 24 to 48 hours.
remove the excess and or spills ( it happens) with a razor blade.

12 turn the tank upside down

13 put a thin bead of silicone on the edge side of the bottom trim and a healthy one on the bottom where it meets the bottom glass of the tank.

14 put the trim over the glass and turn the tank over
15 put a thin bead of silicone on the side eges of the top trim
16 put a good bead of silicone on the top edge of the glass tank
17 place the top trim on to the glass tank and push down with hands to seat it all the way around.
18 let the silicone cure for at least 24 hours than remove any excess with a razor blade.

there you have it.

you can also do it the way i did it which is bead the bottom trim and place the bottom glass on it than follow the rest of the instructions as above and end it with the top trim.
problem with that is that by the time you put the front panel, there is little room to play with and you could risk craking the glass. I almost did.

depending on the size tank you plan on building, you might need one or two extra helping hands. those glass panels are heavy and you need someone to hold them while you glue the next panel.

regardless of the method you use, you need to work at a good pace as you don't want the silicone to start drying up on you. Which by the way, i used ge silicone 1 (it doesn't have the antifungal stuff.) ge silicone 2 does). it's just as good as the ones made for aquariums and cheaper. I've used that for years and never had any problems with it. Also make sure you have plenty tubes on hand, you don't want to run out in the process of assembling the tank. You can always return what you don't use.

on a final note, plywood tanks are ok i guess but if you can get the glass cheap, why bother with the plywood.

[Ratpack]

I have requested the price on the glass to build my future tank, 120 gal 4'x2'x2'. The sides, back and front will be tempered 1/2" glass and the bottom regular annealed 3/4" glass. Just wanted a little more security on the bottom. I probably won't build a frame on the bottom and just trim my stand to cover the first couple inches of the bottom of the tank. However, I would like a close up shot of your frame on top to see how that was put together. I will probably trim the top since it will most likely be visible with no hood of it.

So if I get your reply right, you put all the panels together at one sitting? I have heard to do the back panel, let it cure, then do a side, let i cure and so forth.

Did you drill the bottom yourself or have it done?

[flgoose]

If you ask me, 3/4" bottom for your size is way overdone. 1/2" would have been more than enough.
Here are a couple close up pictures for you. After putting the frame together and while it was clamed, i drove a couple of stapples from the bottom to catch each side of the biscuit. it was probably not necessary but it was just added security for me.

Yes i did put it together in one sitting. Yes i read to put it together in several sitting as well but i didn't see the need for that. I read people put braces and fixtures to keep the parts square to each others but in my opinion it was best to do it all at once that way everything fits right and where it supposed to be the first time. My other consideration was that silicone does not adhere as well to cured silicone so i felt that putting it together in one sitting would give me the best seal as possible as the silicone would cure as one piece.


flgoose's photodump
flgoose's photodump

[Ratpack]

Well, as it turns out, they do not do 3/4" glass so I am getting a quote on the 1/2". Of course it depends on what they come back with for a price as to whether I continue looking at it this way. My other possible way of building it would be to build the plywood version where the stand on the tank are all one unit and instead of lining it with epoxy, I line it with glass which I can get for free. But it is only 3/16" thinck which why I can't use it for a regular aquarium. It would be fine in a plywood tank since the wood would be the support and the glass just to hold water.

For your frame, it appears you put it together and routed it to fit over the glass, is that correct?

[Ratpack]

Well, just got the price back for the glass - $54 for all pieces and that is for all of them to be tempered as well and predrilled for my drains and returns. Only hurdle now is the Plant Manager letting me order it through the company and reimbursing them, but that shouldn't be an issue. But now I have another question, how large should the holes be? I am thinking 1" pipe should be fine, just need to know what the hole size is for a 1" bulkhead. And is there a preferred layout for the holes needed.

Thanks for all your help. I think I will post this in another thread as well to get more ideas on the hole placement and size.

[flgoose]

I guess it really depends on your preference for the holes location.

I chose 2 holes about 16" from each side for a total of 4 holes. 2 drains 2 returns. My brother has a tank about the same dimension you are planning on to and he has similar configuration than mine. You could put the holes on each corner if you wish. I preferred staying away from the corner so when you look at the display from the side you don't see the overflows right there. They're not too pretty once you have the tank running for awhile. Either way i would put 2 overflows and 2 returms on that tank. 2 1" drains should give you about 1200 gal overflow which would be ideal.

Here is a chart for the holes you need for the bulkheads.
SizeHole Dia.1/2"1-1/8"3/4"1-1/2"1"1-3/4"

frankly if you can get glass that cheap, why would you consider plywood? I paid over 200 for my bottom alone. But if you choose plywood construction, than glass for lining is not a must. I've seen a tank made out of plywood covered with formica and the corners sealed with silicone. it worked well.

On my frame: no i constructed the frame by itself and than placed it on the tank. The router marks you see were done during construction. Basically, i glued the frame together, than i routed a little lip around the openings. I was thinking of cover it with glass but it turns out that if i do that, i will have problem with heat retention.

Have you taught about a sump yet? Of course with my size, i didn't need to worry about a big sump. since i have a lot of room on the stand i made a big sump anyway. My sump holds about 60 gal. You might want to consider a good size sump. The more total water you have, the esier it is to mantain the environment.

[flgoose]

Sorry the chart didn't disply correctly. here it is again

bulkhead size hole size
1/2" 1 1/8"
3/4" 1 1/2"
1" 1 3/4"

[Ratpack]

It's a no brainer if the plant manager will let me do it. In fact I tossed the plywood tank idea out the door yesterday. Either I get this glass (hopefully) or I just buy the tank later. I am in no real hurry. I looked at our house yesterday and I would have to totally move a room around to get a bigger tank in there and the wife would not allow that at this point. So if my plant manager says he will not allow me to buy the glass through the company, then my project goes on hold. I may still start accumulating the stuff I need to set it up though and just have it ready when I do get the chance for the new tank, be it now or in the future.

Thanks for the bulkhead info, Samper also replied to another thread I had about it but he suggested 2" drains and 1" returns and then a set of 1" holes for a closed loop. I am leaning towards wht you did though, I think twin 1" drains would be a plenty for a 120 gal tank. Anyway, I am also looking at putting the overflows in the back glass as well as the returns. I can make the overflow boxes her at work not nothing and then just attch them to the back glass. That way I don't lose any real estate on the bottom, but again just thinking right now.

How far off the back edge of the glass di you drill the holes?

[flgoose]

Oh the wife! they just don't understand do they? I think it's because the like to move furniture often and a tank is pretty much permanent. I did away with mine so i don't have any problems with tank size or furniture arrangement.

anyway here is the sketch i supplied the glass company to get my bottom cut and drilled. Hope it helps.

I made my overflows out of 1/4" glass 4" deep x 9" wide to cover the holes. They gave me plenty room for the stand pipes and also for linear drainage.
Click to enlarge

[flgoose]

here is a picture of the overflow

Click picture to enlarge