20L frag tank build

TavisB · #1 08/04/2007, 04:30 PM

I'm putting together a 20L frag tank thats going to share a 30gal sump with my 46 bow display.

I practiced drilling on an old scratched 15 gal

Came out good so I drilled the new 20

Next up...paint the back/bottom of the tank and weld up a rig to hold the lighting...

kmacartney · #2 08/04/2007, 04:32 PM

That looks quite nice!

danoreef · #3 08/04/2007, 04:51 PM

looks good I did the same thing. make sure you use proper bulkheade and not those DIY ones made from PVC adaptors, I used the Latter and cracked the tank when I screwed them down, I only tightened it hand tight. good luck.

TavisB · #4 08/04/2007, 06:26 PM

This rickety looking thing is going to hold up the light fixture.

Now that I'm done welding/grinding, I can start painting.

TavisB · #5 08/04/2007, 08:25 PM

Down to just the plumbing and water to go!

lvpd186 · #6 08/04/2007, 09:02 PM

Looks good. I have been talking myself in to starting a dedicated frag tank, maybe a 20g long like that would work good in the space I have.

TavisB · #7 08/04/2007, 09:50 PM

Got the plumbing pretty much finished. Tank has some water in it. Guess I'm done for the night, gotta wait for the glue and paint to dry then Ill finish filling her up and hook up the return pump then I'm pretty much done!

TavisB · #8 08/05/2007, 03:21 PM

Added some shelving.

TavisB · #9 08/05/2007, 04:06 PM

Fired up the return pump and discovered a few things (luckily not a leak).

1. The drain is noisy

2. I had to move the return pump to the other side of the sump (the same side where it drains). There was too much flow thru the fuge the original way.

So I'm going to have to play around with the drain plumbing a bit more to get it where I want it.

TavisB · #10 08/05/2007, 06:21 PM

figured out that the noise at the top of the drain was because of one to many holes in a pvc cap. Getting a lot of bubbles (and corresponding noise) at the sump end of the drain though.

TavisB · #11 08/07/2007, 10:45 PM

I got rid of 99% of the bubbles in the sump thru the use of a Rube Goldberg-like set of PVC pipe bubble trap apparatii...I don't even want to post a pic...its crazy

Doing some logging of temp changes with the additional pump/lighting before I call it done. Stay tuned...

b0bby1 · #12 08/08/2007, 09:51 PM

might have missed it, but what is your lighting system?

TavisB · #13 08/08/2007, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by b0bby1
might have missed it, but what is your lighting system?

Thanks, guess I forgot to mention the lighting

Its a 250W XM10K SE bulb.

TavisB · #14 08/09/2007, 12:06 AM

Ok, here's what I have going on with the temperature:

The T5's are running 11:30 am to 11:30 pm. MH ran from 3 pm to 10 pm.

I wired up a 120mm DC fan blowing down on the sump and put it on a timer to run from 11am to 11pm . I'll try to check the temps tomorrow as much as I can and see if it helps. Adding a fan really helped even out the temperture swings on my nano...hope I get the same results here.

kmacartney · #15 08/09/2007, 06:50 AM

Yeah, I just discovered that my tank was a little over ninety when my biggest acro colony started to bleach. I put a pedestal fan on the display and that took care of the problem.

TavisB · #16 08/10/2007, 10:04 PM

Had some issues today because of a power outage

so I didn't get to log the temps with the fan going. I'll try again tomorrow.

Moved some of my frags and some extra live rock into the tank yesterday, I'll put up some new pics soon.

TavisB · #17 08/13/2007, 08:17 AM

Have the fan dialed in I think:

FTS soon.

yellowslayer13 · #18 08/13/2007, 02:25 PM

WILL JUST A HIGH POWER FAN WORK TO COOL OFF M 15 GAL FRAG TANK IT IS GOING TO HAVE A 100 MH

TavisB · #19 08/13/2007, 02:29 PM

If a little 120mm computer fan works for a 250W over a 20, I'm thinking you will be ok

Crackerballer · #20 11/04/2007, 04:00 PM

Updates???

ActinopteryGuy · #21 11/04/2007, 09:16 PM

Sweet build, gives me ideas for my sump...

TavisB · #22 11/06/2007, 07:03 PM

Ok...here's a crappy pic from my crappy camera (I really need a new one)

Not much going on at the moment, half the room in the tank is just holding some LR for my school nano. That will be going back to school tomorrow...then I can move in some larger frags from my display. So far I'm a little dissappointed with the amount of growth I'm seeing...but my system has had a few issues recently so I'm hoping things will get better now that I have things worked out.

Daemonfly · #23 11/07/2007, 01:18 AM

Looks good. I just bought a 20L today and drilled it, but ran out of time to do anything more. Constant power outages most of the day didn't help either (freak slush storm). It will have a 10g sump.