my diy tank

[buleetu]

hi all

this is the first post of my nano tank thread

what do u think of the tank i built from scratch

hood tank stand sump durso & plumbing

the tank is 18" x 18"x 18"

i built the tank with out a brace but as per usual when i do stuff like this i always miss out on something in planning and i didnt count in the cost of a overtank luminere so i ended up making a hood so i could hang my lights and MH light all from the one inexpensive place

so this is it, it is easy to make a fish tank, everyone should do it rather than paying extortionate amounts of money for tanks that are quiet simply glass and silicone at the end of the day

i bought my glass in a local glass cutting factory for 34 euros the hole for the overflow cost 5 euros so all in all this glass tank cost 45 euros for glass and silicone, ye cant beat that at all, i would however recommend that u do a lot of research and make a lot of practice tanks before u decide ur good enough to have one of ur tanks in a room in ur house because at the end of the day water is really heavy and if u havent got the right thickness of glass u wil probably have a mini disaster on ur hands

 

[buleetu]

this stand is completly overbuilt

i didnt wanna have any accidents so i just went on the net and got some ideas then modified them a little bit so i would have a strong stand with a sump compartment that would be sound proof

it worked out really well in the end, this was my first attempt at making a stand and im really proud of how it finally turned out

 

[buleetu]

weir

when i was planning this weir everyone told me it was just trial and error when doing them in general, but i didnt want to have to make the thing and fill the tank try it out and then find that it was no good, so i went with what everyone else done with a similar size tank to mine and it worked very well if i do say so myself,,

i asked somepeople on this site and the uk version what they thouhgt and the numbers i ended up with were as follows 110 mm high 100 out from back and 20 mm for the bottom peice, i cut the glass myself and stuck the weir in place with some cellotape, the top of the weir would be the level of the surface of the water, so i had the top of it just below where i want the surface to be, the height of the gaps in the comb are what sets the height of the water so when i was making the comb holder i cut a small strip of glass to sit in the gap that would bring the height of the comb up if it needed to go up

i still have to get some more comb for the side of the weir and ill get that very soon before i got the clown fish probably, i dont want them to end up in my sump

i just piled the dvd boxes into the tank and siliconed the bottom peice of the weir into place, it is important to tape it all together and then mark on the out side of the tank where everything will finally sit, when the bottom peice of the weir was cured the day after i piled more dvd cases in and siliconed the angled peice in,

the whole procress was very easy, and anyone can do it with the right research

 

[buleetu]

durso stand pipe and chamber

when i was planning tis tank i wanted it to be as quiet as possible, im living in my parents house and alll they done was complain about my last tank, they said it was too noisey, and that didnt even have a sump,

when i went to look at other tanks in all the lfs i noticed that they were all really loud, i didnt know anything about durso at that stage so when i asked people for ideas on how to make an overflow quiet the first thing that came up was a durso stand pipe,

i was directed to richard dursos website

http://www.dursostandpipes.com/

i printed out the directions to making ur own durso standpipe and i took the print out to a local plumbers providers, when i showed them the peice of paper with the plans on they hadnt a clue what a durso stand pipe was, i did however buy all the stuff i needed to make my own,,

u will probably use the proper reef safe piping, but as far as i can tell the reef safe stuff is exactly the same as the white stuff, just make sure its u pvc and not the common waste pipe stuff, theres loads of colors but i think the white is the best


my tank is a nano so i didnt want to have the ordinary durso box on the inside of the tank, so after a load of posting on this and an other english reef site, i decided to go with a weir box on the outside of the tank, i made it nice and big for the extra water capacity, but u can make urs as small or as big as u like, as long as u have space for the street elbow and tee peice, i actually had to cut mine down to size for a better fit in my durso chamber

basically a durso works by bringing the height of the water in the overflow chamber up closer to the bulkhead on ur tank, it stops the water having to fall all the way to the bottom of ur overflow chamber giving u a waterfall sound coming from the tank

this chamber and durso was the first one ive ever made and it was really easy to put together, i used a 1 " bulkhead and a reducer to attach my 32mm durso stand pipe to the bottom of the chamber, by doing it this way i can easily remove the stand pipe from the chamber to clean it out,

the only noise i hear from my durso is the water running down through the pipe i use for my overflow, i have a jug with loads of holes drilled in on the inside of my sump, theres some filterfloss in there to help stop the noise of the water coming into the sump, my fish tank is in my bedroom and i can sleep in here, so it must be quiet

thanks to

trido & richard durso for there help in building the durso chamber and stand pipe

 

[buleetu]

sump

updated shortly

 

[buleetu]

lighting

updated shortly

 

[buleetu]

scaping

updated shortly

 

[bleedingthought]

Updated pics?