Fluval Edge with 15 Gallon sump

[FishyFishy!]

I recently aquired a pewter colored 7 Gallon Fluval Edge Nano from a friend (for free...yay!). I decided to go for a nano setup since my 155 build is going terribly slow. I've also decided to go with LED's for lighting, and a 15 Gallon (water volume, not dimensions) 20" X 16" X 15" sump. So that will put the total water volume at roughly 22 gallons. I think it will make for a more stable evironment for the edge.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing a suspended fuge above the sump that would be either drain line or pump fed. More on that one when it's all set up and I see how much room I have to play with inside the stand.

Here is the tank as it came to me:


Current equipment that I have lying around -

150W Jager heater
Tunze 9002 Protein Skimmer
20 X 16 X 15 glass sump
TLF 150 phosban reactor for Chemi-pure elite
Tunze ATO
2 Koralia Nano powerheads (upgrading to Vortec MP10 asap)
Oceanic BioCube 29 stock return pump
Oddysea 150W 14 Halide with 2 X 24W actinic T5 Pendant (until LED's arrive)

When LED's arrive it will be 6 cree royal blues and 6 cree cool white with dimmable drivers. I'm ordering from Rapid LED, so from what I heard everything should go well.

Stock -
Not sure! pom poms, porcelains, sexy shrimp?
shrimp/goby combo?
pair of misbar clowns?

Buncha florida and yuma rics, birdsnest SPS, torch and frog spawn for sure... and whatever else comes along.

[FishyFishy!]

Remove the rear filter cover portion of the tanks stand and remove the backing. Cut a piece of acrylic to fit the bottom. There is a bunch of slats that sit inside the cover, I used the second from bottom to rest the acrylic on.

[FishyFishy!]

The small cover that sits against the glass of the aquarium is too tall for the overflow section. I trimmed it down to the edge where the plastic lip of the aquarium meets the glass.

Trim area


Cover back together

[FishyFishy!]

I decided to go with 1" for the drain, 3/4" for the emergency, and 1/2" for the return... why??? Because thats what I had laying around for bulkheads and plumbing! haha.

Here are the holes drilled in the acrylic


Test fit inside the overflow again -


Bulkheads in for test fit

[Nano]

HAHA neat this will be a cool build for sure

[FishyFishy!]

So, the next thing to do it make the rear overflow section water tight. I used some crazy acrylic glue to seal all the parts together, and after for safety I also siliconed the entire inner perimeter.

(warning... don't open the can and stick your nose in to see what it smells like....burnt my lungs in a bad way)




Acrylic weld is seen here -


And now all together with the silicone in place



And bulkheads installed

[FishyFishy!]

Luckily, the top edge of the tank is plastic, making it easily modifiable. Since I did not want to glue/silicone the stand/cover and the tank together to allow water to flow directly into the back chamber, I decided to go with this:


Now, water will flow over the crack between the tank and stand, without worrying about leakage. I can also direct flow to add a layer of floss to pre-filter the water going into the drain. I don't have to worry about overflowing the overflow box with the emergency drain either.

Few more pictures



I have yet to decide how I want to do the tank side overflow. I'm going to either drill a bunch of holes, dremel slats (comb style) or cut it out completely and silicone some egg crate in there.