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asylumdown
02-05-2013, 04:18 AM
What would you do differently?

10 months in and there's things about my tank I wish I could change, and if I were to somehow be blessed with the opportunity to build another tank in to another house, I'd make some major design changes.

#1 - no internal overflow boxes. Man I hate them. They cause serious channeling of the vortechs and they take up so much bloody space.

#2 - longer tank. If you're in for a penny, you may as well be in for a pound

#3 - rigid quarantine procedure from day one. No making excuses about how much space and time it takes up. Getting something out of a tank is about 9 million times harder than keeping it out in the first place.

#4 - slightly different sump design. Right now micro bubbles can easily make it in to the display tank. oops.

The Codfather
02-05-2013, 04:20 AM
Oh, man. Your tanks new! Better not let the better half read this.......

asylumdown
02-05-2013, 04:23 AM
hehe, well we're already talking about selling this house, as it looked smaller on paper. So I'm trying to get ideas together for what the next one might look like.

scubadawg
02-05-2013, 04:32 AM
I would keep my tank build the same but different dimensions, instead of original size, 60" X 30" X 24" Deep

I would go 72" x 26" high x 26" Deep, if I knew Tangs wanted the extra length

The Grizz
02-05-2013, 04:37 AM
Working on my do over already :lol:

ScubaSteve
02-05-2013, 04:41 AM
New sump. Oh god, I want a different sump. Frustrates me to no end. My current tank is my do over, so I got most things sorted when I built this tank. However, I ran out of time to build a custom sump and had to use a 15G Tall tank as my sump. Never had time since to make a new one and it's ****ed me off since day one.

Mike-fish
02-05-2013, 04:44 AM
Buy a new custom built tank rather than makeing a used one work for me. Biggest problem with the current one a pair of huge glass cross braces if go with a proper euro brace system. That and of course bigger 72x36x30 with external coast to coast with herbie drain. Might do closed loop as well.

ensquire
02-05-2013, 05:00 AM
Definitely bigger. Should have went with the 120 gallon this time instead of the 90.

If I had a bigger place it would be 400 gallons LOL

lastlight
02-05-2013, 05:16 AM
More builds. Feels like I'm always missing out on the fun.

Xadieu
02-05-2013, 06:04 AM
What would you do differently?

10 months in and there's things about my tank I wish I could change, and if I were to somehow be blessed with the opportunity to build another tank in to another house, I'd make some major design changes.

#1 - no internal overflow boxes. Man I hate them. They cause serious channeling of the vortechs and they take up so much bloody space.

#2 - longer tank. If you're in for a penny, you may as well be in for a pound

#3 - rigid quarantine procedure from day one. No making excuses about how much space and time it takes up. Getting something out of a tank is about 9 million times harder than keeping it out in the first place.

#4 - slightly different sump design. Right now micro bubbles can easily make it in to the display tank. oops.

Noted, I will consider all the following for my next tank :D

Madmak
02-05-2013, 06:11 AM
#1 is my pet peeve in my tank. I could also improve at #3...

spit.fire
02-05-2013, 06:36 AM
I'd build a nicer stand

MMAX
02-05-2013, 11:35 AM
Do more research before throwing a tank design together in a few minutes. Go with 1 more foot of length (60") and a bit less height(18-20" max). External overflow and finally go with a different tank builder.

FishyFishy!
02-05-2013, 01:35 PM
More builds. Feels like I'm always missing out on the fun.


LOL

I wish that I just did the build i'm doing now in the beginning instead of going through 20+ setups and takedowns. I was never happy with anything, because I knew that I wanted a fish room and a big 6ft + tank. Just never got around to it until now. Would have saved a lot of time and money if I just bit the bullet and did the big build right away.

Parker
02-05-2013, 01:43 PM
I'm starting my rebuild as we speak, just drained the tank last night. I'm happy with my tank size and equipment, I'm not happy with the way I laid a couple things out so it's time to make those changes.

asylumdown
02-05-2013, 03:00 PM
LOL

I wish that I just did the build i'm doing now in the beginning instead of going through 20+ setups and takedowns. I was never happy with anything, because I knew that I wanted a fish room and a big 6ft + tank. Just never got around to it until now. Would have saved a lot of time and money if I just bit the bullet and did the big build right away.

No kidding, I wanted a tank room really badly with this one but we knew we would sell this house sooner than later so I was given a hard no. Not having a dedicated fish room was one of the reasons why I was so lax on QT at first, as there was no where in the house that I could really co-opt for a QT system. Months of frustration dealing with ich later, and I've taken over half the laundry room. I won't run a tank without a QT system again. In a future version I want a room with a full, proper QT set up on one wall (two small tanks for the tank transfer method, drilled so they can be drained with a valve, and one larger, cycled bare bottom tank for de-worming); R/O and fresh salt mix containers, plumbed with pumps and hosing so that water changes on the QT and display tanks can be done with the flip of a switch; the sump and all it's equipment; and working space with an industrial sink.

straightrazorguy
02-05-2013, 03:10 PM
hehe, well we're already talking about selling this house, as it looked smaller on paper. So I'm trying to get ideas together for what the next one might look like.

Does this mean we get to enjoy another wicked build thread? :biggrin:

Dez
02-05-2013, 03:10 PM
Only thing I would do differently is to start with a new tank instead if modding a used $150 one. The scratches from the previous owner still bugs me. I am completely satisfied with everything else.

Trevor W
02-05-2013, 03:18 PM
I am trying with my current build to weed out all the "what would I do over" questions I have asked myself through out previous tanks and as far as the technical and mechanical aspects I am slowly trying to cover all those.

But one of the biggest things (to me) is not a technical or mechanical thing at all, and it is simply reminding myself to take my time and get the equipment I want before hand or early on in the tanks cycle, as well as continually reminding myself that it is not a race and there is no time restraint or penalty for not getting it running as fast as possible.

However I do realize that in certain circumstances it may very well be a question of getting it running as soon as possible such as having to move an existing tank to a new build or other obstacles in life, but for the most part it generally comes down to excitment and lack of patience.

Delphinus
02-05-2013, 05:12 PM
I wish I had gone for 8' instead of 6'. It totally would have fit, but at the time I had my tank built the tank builder options were limited and it would have been too costly.

I wish I had insisted on an external overflow. I have an internal corner overflow and it's beyond massive. I asked for an external overflow, the tank builder (Mitch and co.) wasn't interested, made the price for adding it too much and told me "don't worry it's a fad." Look at any reef tank made today. A fad, my ###. I'm so mad at myself for not insisting. not only does it take away a significant chunk of real estate in the tank, creating complications with aquascape and flow, just getting under the tank to deal with plumbing problems is a nightmare. With an external overflow, a leaky bulkhead is just something you fix. With the internal overflow I have to drain my sump, slide it out, risk breakage, and work under the stand in awkward conditions.

I'm sort of on the fence about restricting my access on the front of the tank. As an inwall tank, I wanted QUIET and I saw doors in the front as potentially taking away from noise reduction. But the problem is my light frame that slides out of the way in the back, the rollers do not roll in the track. I have no idea what the problem is, but the consequence is it takes an ENORMOUS effort to slide the 25lb light box out of the way. The idea worked better on paper.

Filter socks. Again, I listened to the advice of others against my own personal judgement and it's been a regrettable decision the whole time. I got talked into using 4" socks instead of 8" socks. What a mistake that was.

Also shoehorning the sump under the stand as nice as it is for reducing space concerns, makes everything difficult about it. My old tank had the sump out on the open, I had no idea how much I'd miss having access. Still seems a shame to lose out all that space under the display tank though, so I'm not sure how I'd do it all over again. I'd be tempted to leave it under the tank but have a portion of it stick out from under the tank into the tank room for the socks and/or zeovit handles or whatever.

Proteus
02-05-2013, 05:18 PM
New sump. New sump new sump

I need to find a 22" long tank though

lastlight
02-05-2013, 05:29 PM
Also shoehorning the sump under the stand as nice as it is for reducing space concerns, makes everything difficult about it.

i loved the access my old tank had and would do it again but without a dedicated fishroom. the space under the stand is great for storing salt and BRS chems etc.

asylumdown
02-05-2013, 05:39 PM
I should also add that if i were to plumb a new tank, I would make sure that both overflows had their own totally separate plumbing. Right now my overflow plumbing runs meet in a t-union, then drop through a 3 way valve. If the valve is set to the right, water enters the skimmer chamber and flows through the whole sump. If the valve is set to the left, water drops out a pipe in the first part of the bubble trap, bypassing the skimmer, fuge, and water change chamber (3/4 of the sump), so that I can do semi-automated water changes in the water change chamber.

Because I know nothing about physics, I didn't realize that having the two pipe runs plumbed together in one outlet would make using a herbie basically impossible. Even though the gate valves for the herbies are right underneath the bulkheads, being plumbed together downstream makes them behave as one highly unstable system. I'd get the levels set just right in the overflow chambers, then if the return pump shut off, or if I sneezed too loudly in the next room, one of the overflow boxes would fill up to overflowing (often triggering the emergency overflow if that was the one that filled up), while the other would drain so much that it sounded like a water fall in my tank. This wreaked havoc on the auto-top off as the level in the return chamber would fluctuate over the course of the day, and sometimes led to so much fresh water being added that the salinity would fall a couple thousandths and the tank would be near overflowing.

Because of that I've had to ditch the herbies and go back to using a durso, which is noisy and produces so many micro-bubbles. If the filter socks start overflowing at all (with a durso, that happens every 24 hours), the U shape design of my sump takes the micro-bubbles right up to the display.

Moral of the story - to use herbies or a herbie style design in which flow from the tank in to the sump is restricted in some way, each drain needs to be plumbed from bulkhead to sump in isolation.

Trevor W
02-05-2013, 05:41 PM
Filter socks. Again, I listened to the advice of others against my own personal judgement and it's been a regrettable decision the whole time. I got talked into using 4" socks instead of 8" socks. What a mistake that was.
Besides the obvious difference in diameter what is the biggest draw back of the 4" socks? do they just simply get dirtier faster requiring constant changing? Or is there other draw backs aswell.

FishyFishy!
02-05-2013, 06:02 PM
Besides the obvious difference in diameter what is the biggest draw back of the 4" socks? do they just simply get dirtier faster requiring constant changing? Or is there other draw backs aswell.

+1 Tony. Why are you regretting the 4" filter socks? I just made my sump to have 2 X 4" filter socks lol.

Baldy
02-05-2013, 06:18 PM
The only thing I regret is using the stand I got with the tank. Its short which is nice because I can sit in my office chair in front of it and its at the perfect level and I cawork in it without a step (helps being 6'4" tall too :P), but the floor underneath the stand sits about 4 inches off the floor and I don't have much headroom in the sump. From the top of the sump to the bottom of the opening is only 7" and I have 17" of height for the skimmer. Very difficult to find a skimmer that short :(

intarsiabox
02-05-2013, 06:54 PM
I've always had my sump stuffed in the stand under the tank. For my last tank I went with an external overflow and had the sump behind the tank with lots of room all around it. I couldn't be happier with that set up as I had unlimited access and wasn't restricted on the size of the sump so no comprimises had to be made for skimmers, pumps, etc.

lastlight
02-05-2013, 07:03 PM
not an issue with the mesh socks but with the others it's really tough to flip them inside out to clean. easier with 8" tho still tough sometimes.

BlueWorldAquatic
02-05-2013, 07:33 PM
heh, If what I am currently working on.

I'll get a chance to re-do all my tanks at the store. :mrgreen:

Baldy
02-05-2013, 08:10 PM
heh, If what I am currently working on.

I'll get a chance to re-do all my tanks at the store. :mrgreen:

That's been in the works for a while now Ken! I'm still impatiently waiting :D

tim the toolman
02-05-2013, 10:19 PM
I would have gone with external overflows for sure and definitely would have gone with a bigger tank. I have a 180 now but I would like to have gone 10'. I will hopefully get to do this very soon. Also I would have gone with a different selection of fish. I currently have many common fish and would like to have done some rarer specimens. The bigger tank should allow me to do this.

Xadieu
02-06-2013, 01:34 AM
I would have gone with external overflows for sure and definitely would have gone with a bigger tank. I have a 180 now but I would like to have gone 10'. I will hopefully get to do this very soon. Also I would have gone with a different selection of fish. I currently have many common fish and would like to have done some rarer specimens. The bigger tank should allow me to do this.

I'd like to see a FTS of you aquarium tim :D you should pm me!

Douglas
02-06-2013, 01:55 AM
I agree....an external overflow, will be a "Must" for my next display.

madchild
02-07-2013, 12:10 AM
Holy crap, where to start

1. Did more research before buying (Classic rookie mistake Im told)
2. Spent more at first, instead of spending more and more as I get more involved
3. Custom tank w/ external Herbie overflow
4. BIGGER.. went 75G, should have done 150+
5. Did more research (yup I regret that twice)
6. NOT listened to my LFS... Sump, skimmer an light were all wrong for what I realized I wanted after I setup
7. Spent more time figuring out my plumbing setup.

daniella3d
02-07-2013, 02:28 AM
I wish I would have go with the 90 gallons Osaka instead of the 70 gallons, but then if I had gone with the 90 gallons tank I would be wishing for a 120 gallons tank today...

and if I had a 120 gallons I would be wishing for a 200 gallons...you get the idea...