Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I will have to stick to something similar to that :)

http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/...ps124ce2be.jpg

I vote for a4:lol:

TANK IS IN!

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps39102fa6.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psc394e7fb.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps08f8054d.jpg

And made my own stand (needs some more pieces screwed but the drill machine ran out of battery and never knew it would take ages to charge!)

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5ae8142f.jpg

Anyway, since this is my first DIY stand, there are some faults and I was just wondering whether it will be of any problem:

1. The tank with rim is actually 40.5" and 20.5" but I made the stand as 40" and 20"; will that be any issue?

2. Some of the woods at the corner are not totally smooth and on same plane like this (in the bottom pic). Will that be any issue?

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps412121f6.jpg

3. And what about this?

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps93883c41.jpg

Hoping to get some insights from DIY gurus :)

Tomorrow is plumbing day.

Last (but not the least), I would like to thank Dave and Denny for their tremendous support and hours and hours of explaining stuffs. Really appreciate all the efforts :) And thanks to Matt (mattjoly I believe) for his insights too :) And ofcourse to those who have posted in this thread and will keep on posting, giving suggestions and flaming ;)

Is it still funny when your the only one laughing? Kirk vrs Gorn is a classic it reminded me of your aqua scape. Anyway are you planing on using a epoxy or somthing to hold your rocks together ? If I was starting from scratch I would . I was working on the rock today it all looked good and than I had a major rock slide making a few unwanted sps frags .

I am not planning to use any epoxy since if I want to reaquascape (which I will :P), it will be a PITA. Will just use the theory of center of mass to balance everything :D

Time for some updates ;)

So yesterday (30th March, 2013), I made the stand a little more sturdy and posh and the outcome was this:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psdcf40a90.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7134c7ef.jpg

Will be putting doors infront once everything is together :)

Also got most of the plumbing parts from concept:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1f86fafa.jpg

Was hold back yesterday since concept didn't have few of the parts needed so no more progress yesterday.

Today was a very very hectic day for me. From time to time, I do realize how essential owning a car is and today was no different. Took me 4+ hours to go here and there to grab the plumbing parts while, with a car, I could have done it within an hour. On the bright side, I got some exercise :D

Anyway, I have finally completed the plumbing today :D Since this was my first plumbing of any sort; I was more of tiring than challenging. Dry fitting and measuring was the hardest part since I lacked the muscle to take those off so had to hammer them to loosen up (without breaking). But overall, it was fun :D So here's the plumbing:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psfc36d155.jpg

Not anything fancy but I really liked my own work :D

And it livesssssssssssssssssssssssss!

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps853b060c.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9eaa8ba4.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps979e96ec.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psd78b496f.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps53dc1357.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psc001c7a2.jpg

Filled this baby up with fresh water to test for licking and everything was perfect :D Forgot to cement one union which was licking but it was a quick fix. But it was really really happy that everything turned out alright since I was testing everything on a carpet!!!!

Kept the nozzles of the return higher than water level so that no back suction occurs. Had a check valve but forgot to place it :redface: The flow is very smooth even at the highest speed and so there's no water splashing noise.

Tuning the overflow seems to be a bit challenging but I guess I will get used to it :)

Lastly, I simply can't thank Denny enough to teach me how to plumb and giving me the exact amount of things required. Its because of his help that I accomplished (yes a accomplishment for me :D) the plumbing in one go!

Lookin' good! Always a good feeling doing stuff like this yourself and having it work the first time. Congrats.
Not sure by the pics, but just a teeny suggestion: You may want to provide some support for some of that plumbing. Install support blocks under the return plumbing so that the weight of the piping full of water isn't torquing on the bulk heads. For the drains a hangar strap across the piping where they elbow under the stand would be easy too.
Other than that, well done.

Thanks for the suggestion :D I will add some supports for the pipe but will have to figure out how.

Have you installed the check valve? If not, then are you planning to? Looking at your sump there doesn't look like a lot of room for back flow in the event of a power failure? Hard to see in the pic to determine for sure though. Did you design the sump with room for back flow in the event of a power failure or were you going to rely entirely on the check valve?

Nop not installing check valves. I won't be getting any sort of back siphon since the return nozzles remains above the water level while running; it gives a very pleasant waterfall sound (not the irritating one). And I have simulated many power failures till now and the maximum level (after like 30mins of keeping the pump off) is like this:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps78d5e387.jpg

So there's still room for around 2/3 gallons I presume. The DT looks like this after power failure:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psccd4a151.jpg

Have you tested the powerfail with your skimmer running? The skimmer will hold some water that will dump back into the sump as well. As will any reactors that you might run (carbon, gfo, etc).

While that does appear to be working well in terms of flood resistance, I myself would lose sleep over trusting that those return nozzles stay at that level forever and always. Here's what Murphy could possibly do to you one day...

You are in the tank and decide to move the nozzles away temporarily so you point them down while you are working in the tank. Or maybe you bumped them down by accident. Or maybe I guest was playing around and moved your nozzle. You are done working in the tank and forget to return the nozzles back to their upright position. Power fails while you are away from the tank. FLOOD.

I suspect you will be keeping a close eye on those nozzles for a while but if they get moved while you are not home that could be disaster waiting to happen. Or you may be tired one day and forget to check on the tank to make sure those nozzles have not moved either by accident or on purpose.

At any rate, I would lose sleep over those nozzles :-) With a check valve you would give yourself a larger margin for error here and since you already have the check valve, why not install it?

Or if you really want peace of mind without the check valves, install all your equipment, point the nozzles down all the way (this being the position that they could accidentally be placed in even if you don't intend for them to run this way during normal operations) and do a power fail to see if your sump holds the water. If not, drop the level of your refugium enough so that your sump does hold all the water in the event of a power fail.

Just my two cents :-)

Thanks for the heads up :) I am getting ready to get the skimmer in and test how things are. I will also try the power failure with nozzle pointed down too. Things are not going very smoothly like I wanted it to be :(

Part of the fun are the challenges that we face and overcome :-)

Look at it this way, it's better to find a problem now when there is no livestock in the tank and you are at home to immediately identify and resolve any found problems, rather than have the problem spontaneously occur later down the road when you are not home and you have a tank full of inhabitants. So ya, it's a bit of a pain now and I know you're just itching to fire it all up, get that rock in there, start adding livestock, etc, but if there is something that you can feasibly do to mitigate Murphy's influences you should invest the time (and possibly money) up front to do them.

I guess :)

Tuning the overflow is killing me!

There could be worse things to be worrying about though (and you will eventually worry about those too -LOL0, trust me :-)

With regards to the herbie, do you have your ATO yet? Are you testing the herbie with the skimmer running? Those things will affect your herbie as well so trying to get it perfect right now might simply be a fun time killing exercise at the moment :-) Honestly I would not worry about getting it just right. That can come later. Instead, dial it so that the water level is low and near the main drain or high and near the emergency drain. You'll get some gurgle but who cares right now. You're not done with all the other stuff that needs to go into the sump (ATO, skimmer, refugium media, filter socks, etc). All that stuff can affect your herbie and it is when all that stuff is installed that you should really worry about trying to dial it in just right. Or you can keep playing with it and frustrating yourself ad nauseam :-)

Tested the sump capacity with skimmer and the nozzles dipped to the same level as the return hole. There's just too much water (possibly around 10+ gallons) till the water level goes below the return line so my sump cannot hold the water :(

This is the 2nd sump I got. For some reason; I am having really bad luck with this thing too :twised:

Keep the sump and get a check valve :-) .. oh wait, there's one sitting on your table over there ----> :wink:

Or re-do the sump. Up to you :-)

I was browsing through some threads in reefcentral and people seem to literally "hate" it like putting a tang in 2gallon overly crowed mixed reef tank with little to no maintenance!!

Yes, I would be one of those people LOL.. BUT, I also know that a lot of people are using them with great success. The key is to have them easily removable with unions on either side so you can take them up and dunk them in vinegar on a regular basis to keep crud from building up inside. To me that's not an ideal solution but it's workable and people are working their systems that way today. If it were me I would just redo the sump since it's not currently being used yet.

And again, look on the bright side. It's good that you discovered this now so you can address it now rather than a few months down the road on a day where you had some people over and moved the nozzles around for show-and-tell and completely forgot to move them back to their up position. Murphy would have laughed at you and cut the power to your house on that day probably. He's a bastard like that..

You love Murphy don't you ;)

if by "love" you mean I want to embrace him in a suffocating and crushing hug whilst squeezing the life out of him? Then yes.

Murphy is the guy who spills gallons of RO water on your floor even though you told everyone that will never happen to you because you will always pay attention to it and you will always set a timer to remind yourself to turn it off.

Murphy is the guy who makes your fish jump out of your tank that one time you forgot to put the mesh top back on your tank.

Murphy is the guy you will give you flat worms that one time you didn't dip that tiny 1" frag that you got thinking the guy you got it from must have dipped his corals and you dipped EVERY SINGLE CORAL prior to this one.

Who doesn't love Murphy? :lol:

:twised:

If my sump can accommodate 3 more gallons; it would be flood safe. I am thinking of lowering the first baffle (which is almost to the top of the rim). How would that work?

i would lower both your first and your bubble trap as well. assuming you are able to with the depth requirements of the skimmer. you could also run with your return section lower just add a max water level mark

Water level at the return chamber is currently staying around half the depth of the current baffle so I guess I can lower it too.

Should be fairly simply. Drain sump, cut out the pain of glass that's your refugium. Have concepts make you a new pain of glass or cut one yourself out of acrylic. Figure out how high (or low) it should be by doing some math to subtract 3 or 4 gallons from the refugium. Volume is LxWxH right? 'H' being the height of the refugium baffle taking into account the extra dead space above the refugium to allow for that extra 3g/4g of back siphon.

Question of the day: how to cut off the baffles? :razz:

I want everything to be bulletproof. Already spent a lot so a few more $$$ shouldn't be a problem if that helps me enjoy the tank without any worries.

I'd use a hammer :biggrin:

You mean how do you cut them out or cut them down to size? To cut them out just use a utility knife/razor blade and cut out the silicone that's holding the baffle. If you mean cutting it down to size, you'll have to take it to a glass shop if it is glass. If it is acrylic you can buy an acrylic cutting tool at a hardware store. Or just take it to the Double-Ds at Concepts :-)

Well I thought about that but it would be too messy :razz:

Yap just separating the baffles so that I can take the pieces to concept and get them shaped without carrying the whole tank. Advantage of NOT owning a car :twised:

Denny's girlfriend has a name Kiener :razz:.

Looking good so far, been creeping in the back ground like usual... so ya. Carry on.

On the subject why even use baffles? Run the sump as just an open tank. Most skimmers these days don't spit out bubbles like the old days and a herbie overflow also doesn't make bubbles. You'd be surprised how sometimes the easiest solution is best solution.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1.../Oct2009_2.jpg

You could also just use some eggcrate to fence of a refugium.

Thanks :) Do throw in your suggestions though ;)

That's a very neat idea! But won't macros like chaeto creep inside the pumps and stuffs to cause trouble? And on a side note, I am going to use vertex in80 and heard that they can throw out some pretty good amount of bubbles. Maybe put a bubble trap before return and have the skimmer and refugium sit in one chamber?

You could use eggcrate to hold cheato in place. Didn't notice you were using an old vertex, maybe try it out at a few different heights and see if the bubbles stay in the skimmer.

What about water level change due to evaporation (although I will have an ATO)? Wouldn't that effect the performance of the skimmer?

ATO will keep the water level constant

So I am guessing the slight change will not have any issue till ATO top it off...interesting. That's gonna save a lot of time for me. Thanks Steve :)

My Bubble Magus skimmer spits out a lot of bubbles :( Bubble trap FTW! :lol:

That's OK buddy, matches your halides.