crazyfishlady
Aquarium Advice Regular
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2008
- Messages
- 51
Warning: This is the most stupid post you will probably read today! hahah! Hope you learn from our mistakes...
To begin this story...I have purchased a 72 bowfront that I've been trying to set up for the past two months. I have done much research on the saltwater filters and in my opinion, the refugium sump seems the most natural and best filter out there. Instead of purchasing a unit, I decided to get "crafty" and make one myself. I bought a 20 gallon long glass tank from Petsmart, 5- 12"x12" acrylic pieces, a 600gph quiet-flo CPR overflow box, an 850gph return pump, a one-way valve for the return tubing, clamps, more tubing, and so on...
We began cutting the pieces of acrylic so the water flows through a filter media, through the bio-balls, underneath the first baffle and over the top of the next into the refugium then, into the return pump area. (I will post pictures soon) Everything looked great so far. I decided to use foam weather stripping around the pieces of acrylic and fit the baffles in using pressure. Seemed like a good idea at the time, at least I could move the baffles if I didin't like where they were. As it turns out the pressure seals don't work all that well...the water is evenly distributed through the whole sump...Lots of trial and error here but, this is only the beginning...hope you learn from our dumb errors...
We live in a mobile home, (it is actually a lot nicer than any apartment I have ever been in, heheh) anywho, the floor isn't as stable as you would think and I believe I set the tank up directly over a support beam... Let's see 72 gallons, 8lbs a gallon and live rock and sand? Yeah, that's pretty heavy. The tank seems to lean forward a bit. Right now it's filled to the top with water and about another 100lbs of live rock and sand, oh, and two eels. When we step anywhere directly infront of the tank it seems to sway a little bit...making me VERY nervous...we're gonna have to put some more support underneath the mobile home and perhaps a board to distribute the weight underneath the tank.
Getting back to the Refugium Sump...I filled it with water, started the siphon in the overflow box and turned on the pump. Other than the faulty seals between the baffles, everything seemed to be working alright. We then cut the power to the pump. Little did we realize the siphon from the overflow box didn't break for a while because I didn't figure out where the water line needed to end so we didn't wind up overflowing on the floor. hahahha!!! So I hear running water and realize the sump is overflowing with water from the overflow box! ::Crap, this tank is gonna fall through the floor or tip over on me!:: So I try to absorb as much water as I can, break the siphon to the overflow box, and turn on the pump. Well...we left that on too long and then the actual aquarium started overflowing! OMG! We're idiots! hahhaha! So we drain some water back into the sump, kill the pump, and break the siphon. We think everything is suffice and leave the room.
AGAIN, we hear water rushing out! We run back into the room and for whatever reason the one way valve hooked up in the return tubing to the aquarium isn't working! AGAIN, the sump is overflowing! We clean everything up and just give up for the night...Everything that can go wrong was going wrong...
We set up the weight bench so it's propped up against the tank so we could get a goodnight's rest without the worry the tank was going to tip. Now I need to make some sealed baffles, figure out how to break the seal on the siphon in a power outage or figure out where the water level needs to be, make sure the seal doesn't break in a non-power outage, and figure out what to do about the one way valve that was suppose to stop the back flow of water...UUUGH! This is soooo frustrating!
Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. As long as it's not mocking my intelligence, hahahah!
Thank you.
To begin this story...I have purchased a 72 bowfront that I've been trying to set up for the past two months. I have done much research on the saltwater filters and in my opinion, the refugium sump seems the most natural and best filter out there. Instead of purchasing a unit, I decided to get "crafty" and make one myself. I bought a 20 gallon long glass tank from Petsmart, 5- 12"x12" acrylic pieces, a 600gph quiet-flo CPR overflow box, an 850gph return pump, a one-way valve for the return tubing, clamps, more tubing, and so on...
We began cutting the pieces of acrylic so the water flows through a filter media, through the bio-balls, underneath the first baffle and over the top of the next into the refugium then, into the return pump area. (I will post pictures soon) Everything looked great so far. I decided to use foam weather stripping around the pieces of acrylic and fit the baffles in using pressure. Seemed like a good idea at the time, at least I could move the baffles if I didin't like where they were. As it turns out the pressure seals don't work all that well...the water is evenly distributed through the whole sump...Lots of trial and error here but, this is only the beginning...hope you learn from our dumb errors...
We live in a mobile home, (it is actually a lot nicer than any apartment I have ever been in, heheh) anywho, the floor isn't as stable as you would think and I believe I set the tank up directly over a support beam... Let's see 72 gallons, 8lbs a gallon and live rock and sand? Yeah, that's pretty heavy. The tank seems to lean forward a bit. Right now it's filled to the top with water and about another 100lbs of live rock and sand, oh, and two eels. When we step anywhere directly infront of the tank it seems to sway a little bit...making me VERY nervous...we're gonna have to put some more support underneath the mobile home and perhaps a board to distribute the weight underneath the tank.
Getting back to the Refugium Sump...I filled it with water, started the siphon in the overflow box and turned on the pump. Other than the faulty seals between the baffles, everything seemed to be working alright. We then cut the power to the pump. Little did we realize the siphon from the overflow box didn't break for a while because I didn't figure out where the water line needed to end so we didn't wind up overflowing on the floor. hahahha!!! So I hear running water and realize the sump is overflowing with water from the overflow box! ::Crap, this tank is gonna fall through the floor or tip over on me!:: So I try to absorb as much water as I can, break the siphon to the overflow box, and turn on the pump. Well...we left that on too long and then the actual aquarium started overflowing! OMG! We're idiots! hahhaha! So we drain some water back into the sump, kill the pump, and break the siphon. We think everything is suffice and leave the room.
AGAIN, we hear water rushing out! We run back into the room and for whatever reason the one way valve hooked up in the return tubing to the aquarium isn't working! AGAIN, the sump is overflowing! We clean everything up and just give up for the night...Everything that can go wrong was going wrong...
We set up the weight bench so it's propped up against the tank so we could get a goodnight's rest without the worry the tank was going to tip. Now I need to make some sealed baffles, figure out how to break the seal on the siphon in a power outage or figure out where the water level needs to be, make sure the seal doesn't break in a non-power outage, and figure out what to do about the one way valve that was suppose to stop the back flow of water...UUUGH! This is soooo frustrating!
Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. As long as it's not mocking my intelligence, hahahah!
Thank you.
