25g Cube, 5g Frag Tank, 20g Sump DIY

[NewReefer455]

Hi everyone,

After a 6 year hiatus from the fish game while moving around in college I'm getting back into it. I used to keep a number of freshwater planted tanks, but have finally decided to move over to saltwater for this build. The main goal of this tank is to dip into saltwater slowly while simultaneously building a setup that will hopefully keep me occupied for the next few years until I am really able to upgrade to something larger, but I want to start small, simple, and 'portable' in the event of a move down the line.

Equipment:

--Display
--25 gal Mr.Aqua rimless cube
--Fiji Cube 600 gph external overflow
--Ehiem 1250 return pump
--Ai-Prime HD
--MP10
--Koralis 425

--Frag
--5gal UNS Rimless (45S)
--Fiji Cube 400 gph external overflow
--Ai-Prime (non-HD)

--Sump
--20 gal rimmed aqueon
--DIY 1/4" glass baffles
--Kessil H80 Fuge Light
--SCA-301 Skimmer
--Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO
--Ranco temp controller (300W Finnex Titanium element)

--Inhabitants:
--Mated pair of snowflake Clowns
--Cleaner Shrimp
--2 Blood Shrimp
--Porcelain Crab
--3 Trochus, 3 Nassarius, 10 Dwarf-Cerith snails
--Blue Tuxedo Urchin
--A goby or blenny to finish it off (Once I purchase a lid)

Current Picture:

 

[NewReefer455]

Already started ordering and setting things up. I got my ranco in yesterday and wired it up with a 3 outlet output. I will probably run 2 elements at once so if one goes ill have backup capable of heating the entire tank.

Also my tank and overflow arrived during the week. The overflow is great quality and came with everything I needed to drill it. Just got it drilled today and water tested the display tank. I threw the return pump in a bucket and let everything run just to see how the overflow performed. The water level is just a little higher than I would like while the pump is running, which I like over it being too low, so I will be filing out the weir teeth a little deeper. I won't do this until all the plumbing is in order because I want to see if the pump head loss changes anything. I'm shooting for 3/4" water line below the edge of the tank while running. I am now waiting for my 35mm diamond bit and 1/2" bulkheads to come in from brs so i can drill my dual returns and install the loc-line and nozzles.

 

[Billldg]

Congrats on the new tank set up. Welcome to the salty side.

 

[TriggersAmuck]

Setup is looking good so far!

 

[NewReefer455]

Congrats on the new tank set up. Welcome to the salty side.

Setup is looking good so far!

Thank you! I can't wait to really get into it. Petco was having a sale on their tank stands so I picked one up for cheap. It's not the best quality but it will work for what I need it to do. I inverted the top and bottom cross bars and will weld the supports into place, I don't trust the crappy hardware they supplied or the 2 threads each bolt threads into. I also just got back from home depot and picked up a 3/4" piece of birch plywood. I'm just going to cut 2 pieces the size of the top and bottom deck surfaces, stain, and poly them to get nice flat surfaces. I'm pretty confident that once I fuse all the tubes that having the tank in the middle of the stand, unsupported, won't be an issue.

 

[JoshO]

Love the efforts so far. Really enjoy the threads where people are posting from the start! So good to see the level of effort people go to for that perfect set up! Good luck!

 

[NewReefer455]

Love the efforts so far. Really enjoy the threads where people are posting from the start! So good to see the level of effort people go to for that perfect set up! Good luck!

Thanks! it's a bit difficult finding information on similar-ish first time builds, so I figured starting from the very beginning might help others down the line, especially when things inevitably go a bit wrong lol. It's a simple build compared to a lot of what I see on here, but I am trying to tie in all the complexities in a budget package and hopefully it all works out well.

I finally got my wood cut to size and I'm currently waiting on the last round of poly to dry before I can get it permanently mated to the stand. I also decided to forgo welding around all the seams; I'll simply bolt 1/8" angle in all the weak points to help support the cross bars. Installing riv-nuts under these braces will allow me to take the stand apart as needed while adding the support I believe is necessary.

I also just finished up drilling the final holes in the tank for the returns and installed the bulkheads and loc-line. These holes went even easier than the first, with close to no chip out at all. The cheap 10 dollar bits off of amazon really killed it. As long as my pump flows decently I think I may be able to get away with not needing a powerhead. My pump should flow more than enough water to keep the turnover rate high, and having 2 returns should allow me to position them in such a way as to kill dead spots in the tank, but I'll find out for sure once I have water moving though.

I also just got done with my plan for the remainder of my plumbing and got it all ordered today. I'll have 1" rigid pvc from the overflow down to the stand; the main drain will have a gate valve installed just below the overflow. Right at the base of the stand the rigid will be tied into the stand with clamps and I'll then convert to a hose barb and run black vinyl tubing to the sump. For the return I will run two 1/2" 90* threaded to barb fittings from the bulkheads, then 1/2" black vinyl tubing to two 1/2" barbs joined into a rigid 1/2" Tee fitting. The bottom of the T will feed into a short run of 1/2" rigid pvc clamped to stand. That will feed into another gate valve which will be barbed on the bottom and have more vinyl tubing to a fitting on the pump. I see alot of people suggest 3/4" for the return, but I'm only running around 40 gallons of total volume at less than a 5' head height with an oversized return, so I figure it won't be a problem at all. I should be getting more than 300 gph out of the return at this height through 1/2" so I'll be at around a 7x turnover rate per hour.

While I was there I finally ordered my heating element as well as 20 lbs of Fiji-Pink and a supply of red sea mix for 55gallons.

 

[NewReefer455]

After independently water testing both tanks in the garage the stand and tanks are sitting in their final resting place, unfortunately on carpet, but in the office it will get the most enjoyment as I'm at my desk for half the day doing work after I come home from class. I was able to pick up a lightly used non-hd prime off of facebook for close to nothing, but I already need to make a new mount for it; the flexible mount from ai is absolute garbage and too easily rotates on the glass.

All of my plumbing should be here by Friday night so I will be getting everything plumbed up by mid-day saturday. I also will be stopping by home depot, yet again, to grab some plate glass to cut some dividers for the sump. If all goes well I will be running fresh water through the whole system and testing by sunday.

I have a question that I cannot seem to get a straight answer on. Do I need a mat under the tank between it and the plywood? I am finding conflicting information every single link I look on. The poly was sanded smooth to 2000 grit and there are no high/low spots that are measurable, but I don't want 25 gallons of water ending up on my floor if this thing blows out. Does anyone have input on the necessity of a mat?

 

[NewReefer455]

I didn't get quite as much done this weekend as I expected as the racecar comes first. I did, however, get the majority of my piping situation planned out. Here is a rough idea, I still need to tie some unions into all the pipes and get another tube mount for the return line, but otherwise this is how it will pan out. I also picked up a 425 gph koralis powerhead, as one return will be much weaker than the other, and I found a deal on a used 5 stage rodi unit. I'll be out of town later this week and the weekend, but hopefully I will be running salt-water and starting the cycling process early next week.

 

[NewReefer455]

Due to the virus as well as a huge change up in school has kept me away from updating. The tank has been wet from the night of April 1st and is already showing promise. The past few weeks I painted the back of the tank, finished up the piping, and got the tank running.

On April 2nd I picked up some base rock as well as some live rock to seed it, I currently have another 15 lbs of dry marco rock coming this week. I also added the live sand and half of a table shrimp to see what would happen with a cycle.

So far salinity has been perfect at 1.025, ph has been steady at 8.15 (adding 4 cups a day for evap), and ammonia has been non-existant. Just this morning I got my first reading of nitrate at somewhere just under 1ppm. I have also been running a regular light cycle to minimize die-off on the live rock. No algae is to be seen on the dry rock yet, but I've been waiting for it. I cant seem to find to much information on cycling with half live/half dry, but hopefully within the next few weeks I'll be able to start adding livestock. I'll be monitoring the nitrate levels daily or twice daily to see what happens.

 

[NewReefer455]

Well, its been a little over a month since I got the tank wet and all the new inhabitants seem to be doing very well. With help from live rock and sand I skipped the cycle completely and was able to add livestock early on. My first addition was a pair of clowns, followed by a cleaner shrimp the following week. Two weeks after that I added 2 small blood shrimp, a porcelain crab, 4 nassarius snails, and 10 dwarf cerith snails. I also recently added a small assortment of my first corals. I plan on keeping the tank strictly for softies, as they seem to be the easiest to keep alive, and the girlfriend seems to like them more than sps/lps varieties. Unfortunately I can't keep her away from pulsing xenia, so I compromised and it'll be starting as a small frag in the sump and we'll see what happens with it.

I also found a cheap HD prime and ended up swapping it out with my non-hd on the display and put the non-hd into the refugium section of the sump. It should be more than enough to grow chaeto, and it'll be lit at night, off-cycle of the display.

My only complaint about the tank so far is the cheap skimmer, the sca-301 is doing its job well, but even after a month worth of running it continues to produce a crazy amount of microbubbles which is annoyingly producing salt creep in the sump. It's not a huge issue, but hopefully it eventually slows down. I also am getting tired of adding rodi everyday and have been looking into ato's. The tunze 3155 seems like a safe go-to at this point and I'll probably just make up an 5-10 gallon acrylic reservoir that I can keep behind the sump tank on the back of the stand.

I was hesitant at first having a bit of a "display" sump, for lack of a better term, but I am growing to like seeing everything a bit deconstructed. The return pump is essentially noiseless and the overflow is dead silent, so I don't hear a thing aside from the annoying soda bubble sound from the skimmer. Eventually the refugium will be filled with chaeto and xenia so at least there will be something to look at down there.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

I like your setup and am headed in the same direction. Where did you get your pvc plumbing parts at? Did you have glass made for the sump?

 

[NewReefer455]

I like your setup and am headed in the same direction. Where did you get your pvc plumbing parts at? Did you have glass made for the sump?

I got all of my plumbing parts from bulk reef supply, I could have done it a lot cheaper just going to home depot or lowes, but with how I only needed a little bit of pipe and not too many fittings, I just decided to spend a little more on something that would be more aesthetically pleasing. The glass I had cut at a local shop, its standard 1/4" plate glass and I only had the exposed tops of the pieces polished to keep the price down. I think, in all, my sump cost about 50 bucks including tank, glass, and silicone.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Gosh, that is a bargain. My 20 gal tank was $27 at Petco on sale. How much was your glass?

 

[NewReefer455]

Gosh, that is a bargain. My 20 gal tank was $27 at Petco on sale. How much was your glass?

The tank was 22, silicone was about 8, and the glass was right around 20. I called 6 different glass shops and they all had varying prices. One place wanted over 70 dollars which I though was ridiculous.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

The tank was 22, silicone was about 8, and the glass was right around 20. I called 6 different glass shops and they all had varying prices. One place wanted over 70 dollars which I though was ridiculous.

Do you still have the measurements of each piece that you got done? What about the filter basket?

 

[NewReefer455]

Do you still have the measurements of each piece that you got done? What about the filter basket?

The filter basket is just a "clip on" plastic unit from an online supplier. The glass pieces were, I believe, 11 5/8" wide, as for heights it will all depend on your other equpitment. I made my first one 9" tall, so that I had extra space in case I needed my skimmer in deeper or shallower water, the next 2 were 8" tall and the final was 7.5". I spaced the baffles 3/4" apart and the second baffle is 3/4" higher than the first. If i were to do it again I would leave more room in between the baffles for cleaning.

 

[NewReefer455]

I finally got around to adding an ato to the tank. I went with a tunze osmolator 3155 simply due to the great track record they have around here and other forums. Right now I just have it plumbed into a 5gal bucket next to the tank, but I have current plans for a pretty dramatic change to the entire setup.

Since I will be growing primarily fast-growing softies, I want to incorporate a small satellite frag tank into the system for when I inevitably have to start cutting back xenia/anthelia/gsp/etc from the display. I plan on moving the display tank over to the far right side of the stand and, on the other side, adding a 5 gal frag tank. The frag tank will also be a rimless setup, but will be much smaller. I found a tank that measures 17.8"x11"x7" (LxWxH) and it will be the perfect small/shallow tank for the setup. It will also leave around 8" of space between the tanks for viewing and cleaning while maintaining the same stand and overall footprint. I plan on just purchasing another smaller return pump, as I have room for one in the sump, and running separate pumps for both tanks. I'm also looking into making my own external overflow box, as the ones available all seem too large for what I want to do.

My current refugium section in the sump will now be dedicated to xenia and different forms of macroalgea. I'm going to fill it with codium, fire fern, red gracilaria, and ulva. I have a pretty low bio-load so I'd rather have something attractive in the sump, rather than the regular chaeto. We'll see how these algae do, hopefully they proliferate well, but only time will tell.

To hide everything, I want to add and modify a file cabinet next to the stand. The bottom drawer will contain a pull-out 5gal bucket for top off water, and the top shelf will be modified to house all my wiring. I'll notch the side of the cabinet for a 10 outlet 1U rack mount PDU and hide everything else inside. This tank is in my home office that already has 3 other identical cabinets, so it won't look out of place at all. I also still have enough plywood left over that I will be able to add a wood top to the cabinet as well, to match the stand, and it will bring it up to the identical height as the stand.

TL/DR:
-Added a tunze 3155 ato
-Adding a 5 gal frag tank to the system with its own return pump
-Refugium now exclusively for display macroalgea and xenia
-Adding a filecabinet for ato reservoir, and PDU with individual switches for all electronics
-

 

[NewReefer455]

I'm finally starting to get in all the pieces for the frag tank build. And I am really only one delivery away from plumbing it into the sump.

Specs for the tank are as follows:
-UNS 5gal rimless
-Fiji 400gph overflow box
-Lit with the Ai prime on the fuge (found a used kessil h80 for the fuge)
-eheim 1250 pump with a single return line
-3/4 drains with a gate valve and then black vinyl to the sump
-Black egg crate frag rack, otherwise bare bottom

I had the majority of the stuff laying around to plumb it, minus the overflow box which I thought would have been here by now. Once that arrives I'll drill the overflow/return and get the back painted black to match the display. Draining and moving the display tank to make room for this was a huge hassle, everything had to come out into various 5g buckets, but it only took about an hour, so it wasn't too bad.

I also ended up finding a used mp10 for cheap. The bearings are shot but the motor and controller are mint, its noisy but works flawlessly. I already have it apart and cleaned up, just waiting on the bearings to come in. I'll put the mp10 on the display and move the koralis to the frag tank if needed.

I also decided to kill the file cabinet idea and I'm going to make up a pull-out drawer for the stand using some plywood I have left over. I'll put the various wiring in there along with the 1U pdu rack mount in the front for various switches. Luckily my apartment is wired for 20A service independent in all the bedrooms, I should have no issues with any of this equipment throwing a breaker as the only other thing in this room is my computer.

Please excuse the wiring and plumbing mess on the floor and the sump. I'm waiting to get everything situated after the other tank is going. The measuring cup is also replacing the skimmer cup for now as I'm not skimming in order to help with dinos.

 

[NewReefer455]

The overflow box came in early yesterday and I got the tank drilled within the hour, I then painted the back black to match the display and started piping. I got it all done within about 2 hours and just had to wait out the pvc glue dry time until this morning. In the meantime I made up some quick multi-level frag stands out of egg-crate and some leftover pvc. So far I'm really happy with the turnout and I should be done with everything but maintenance and adding corals for a few years. So far so good with no leaks from any fittings, I also fail tested it and even with both pumps going out I have plenty of room in the sump for overflow water from the frag tank and display.