Help me plan under my tank

[Eb0la11]

Hey guys,

So I'm building a 165G and have a metal stand so plenty of room under it.

I have 6 feet to use. I am planning on having the sump under there, which is 30 gallon 3 foot x 1 foot tank and also a QT tank which is a 10 G. I also will need a bit of room behind the sump for an out of sump skimmer.

What else should I plan to leave room for under there? I wont need to put food or nets or anything like that under there, really, as I'll have a cabinet designated.

I need a place to store the 3 ballasts for my light, but I dont want any chance of them getting wet so Im thinking more beside the tank.

What do you guys think? What else should I plan for or at least plan to leave room for?

[MikeP]

Off the top of my head I would say reactors (phosban and/or calcuim), UV sterilizer, powerbars, lighting for your sump (I assume you'll have a fuge in the sump).

HTH :)

[Eb0la11]

Prob a dumb question, whats HTH stand for?

Lighting for sump, yes I'll need to get that as there will be a fuge. I should have room for phosban and calcium reactors if/when I get them on one half of the under the tank behind the sump.

Anything else you guys think I should plan for from the get go so I dont limit myself down the road?

[hummer]

HTH probably stands for Hope That Helps.

HTH :biggrin:

[lastlight]

I'd mount the ballasts to the back of the tank if you have room. When I removed mine from my canopy (dumb move) and then stand, it made a huge difference in temp.

If this tank is on the main floor why not put a drain in it that heads to a floor drain. Or a sealed drip tray at least.

[kien]

Leave room for a fresh water auto top off reservoir. That is unless you are going to plumb your sump right into a RO/DI unit or something like that. I wouldn't mind doing that except that my tank is on my main floor and my RO/DI unit is in the basement. Anyway, a tank that big will evaporate A LOT of water. Evaporated water will raise your salinity over time because salt does not evaporate. My current 90 gallon tank (48" by 24" by 18") evaporates roughly 7 gallons a week. That's a gallon of fresh water a day almost that I had to manually dump into my sump before I got an auto top off system. Now I just refill my fresh water reservoir every sunday evening. When I did it manually it was easy to forget sometimes, or sometimes life in general gets in the way of tank chores.

K.

[Eb0la11]

Thats a good call Kien. I do have an auto top off kit that I plan on having running so I'll definitely need to leave room for a reservoir. Not gonna be much room left under my tank haha.

Lastlight, I am not sure I want my ballasts all that close to the tank so theres no chance of them getting wet.

[kien]

Just be sure to periodically check the float switch (assuming that's what you're using). If a snail or gunk gets in there the switch can fail and you will fill your sump (and the floor) with top off water :-) Hasn't happened to me yet, but I fear the day might come.. hehe. My top off switch has a safety switch too though so if it gets too high the second switch activates and turns off the pump.

The other setup hurdle that I ran into with the top off system was how to avoid a siphon. when I first set it up and tested it I accidentally create a siphon between the top off water and the sump. Because of this the sump would continue to fill with top off water even after the pump turned off. Yikes! To avoid the siphon what I did was make sure the outlet of the top off water was well above any water line. My top off line is 1/2 an inch (diameter) and I just inserted that into a larger 1.5 inch tube and inserted that into the sump. 1/2 inch outlet sits above the sump and shoots water into the 1.5 inch tube which directs the water down into the sump. I'm sure there are more glamorous ways to do this but it works.

You can get food safe garbage bins that are really narrow that will hold a lot of water. I got one from the superstore. it is only 8 inches wide by 12 inches long by 18 inches tall ( roughly).

K.

[mark]

a viewable fuge (Dez's old tank)

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h316/das75/ref-1.jpg