JRunyon21

Please let me know if this belongs somewhere else.

Hey Everyone. I’m sort of a newbie to the forum in terms of big projects/tanks. Right now I am in the process of putting together a 75 gallon freshwater tank that will SLOWLY be converted to brackish as the fish grow. The picture below is a simple version of what everything is going to look like. Almost all of this stuff is DIY in some way.

sump: I will be using my old 29 gallon tank as a SUMP. Today I am going to the glass cutter and picking up my glass to put in the walls/baffles. I will probably start tonight and put up a couple of the pieces of glass. For the next couple days I will be assembling the SUMP. I will try to post pics the best I can. My phone camera is pretty lame(2.5MP) but it should get the job done.

Stand: This Friday I go to pick up the tank and bring it back to my house. After that I will start the construction for the tank stand. I took some ideas from a lot of different stands and came up with one that will fit my SUMP in the bottom while still giving me a tiny bit of shelf room. This will be my second stand I have built so I think it should come out nice. This one is larger though so we will see. Again I will be posting pics.

Overflow: After that I will be putting together the PVC overflow(1" which should be able to handle ~600gph). I will be using the design on this forum to get this done. Seems like a good design. After that is done it will be time to test it. I got an 800gph pump from ebay that has already arrived at home that I will use to return water from the SUMP. Having to push a 3-4ft head and make a few 90 deg turns will tune down the 800gph to somewhere around 400-500gph, which is a great turnover. I think?

Substrate and Decorations: I acquired sand extremely cheap on ebay. I got 80 pounds of Black aquarium sand for $38. I will start out using plastic plants b/c the last time I went for live I ended up with dead plants and a huge bio load sitting on the bottom of my tank. With such a big project for me I think it will be good to stay with plastic at first. I will use a few plastic submarine models from WWII as decorations that I will be painting with Krylon Fusion paint. Did this with my 29g and it looked awesome. I also will be painting the back of the tank. I am in need of color suggestions. I am going for doom and gloom so black is my choice now.

Canopy and Lights: I will be using a basic setup for my canopy w/ lid. The lights inside will basic fluorescent lights from Lowes and I will probably have 1wpg at 6700K. Seems good for no live plants. The moon lights idea I will be stealing from another forum. This is a very basic setup using 8 LEDs, some resistors, and a simple 12V wall wart.

The reasons for posting all this are two fold. One I would like everyone to be able to learn from what I am doing just as did from other posts. I am basically using a lot of other peoples ideas combined into my one project. Another is so people will be able to see any upcoming headaches I might incur(something I overlooked). Please give advice.

Attached Images

Sump.bmp (239.6 KB, 49 views)

GreenMan13

Paint for the back of the tank, you could go with a dark blue. It will not absorb as much of the light as a black paint would allowing for more light from the bulbs if you ever go to live plants and it will be more natural to the color you would find in deep water which gives a kinda doom and gloom feel.

With the overflow, you might want to test the pump through your piping first before finalizing on the overflow diameter so that you are sure it will not pump more then 800gph. Easy way to do this is set up your return pump in the sump on the stand with the outlet being in the tank like it will be once finalized. With the main tank empty, turn on the pump and time it to see how long it will take to fill up the main tank. You will need to keep adding water to the sump so it does not empty the sump before it fills the main tank.

JRunyon21

I will deff give Dark Blue a thought. It should give the water more of a natural color as u said while keeping it dark.

On the overflow. I will have a ball valve on the return line to the aquarium so if the Pump in fact was too much I could back it off with the valve. Great idea on how to figure out GPH. I will probably use this idea anyways just to learn my turnover ratio.