I promised my nephew a tank build for his birthday so this project was started. I wanted to make maintenance easy and self sufficient as possible. I also didn't want any plumbing and for it to be as attractive as possible because his mother is very picky and thinks tanks are dangerous. 2 months ago I may have jumped the gun a bit but I saw a steal on here for over 100 pounds of LR with 2 clowns, emperor angel, foxface and hippo tang. Luckily I had an extra tank and this would make cycling later much easier. After looking at several all in one tanks such as the Red Sea and Nuvo tanks I came up with a plan. An all in one custom build. I thought I would buy a used tank on here but after looking I found the perfect acrylic tank on sale at petco.com with discounts the seaclear tank was only $149. Quality was top notch for a beautiful acrylic tank, now the modifications. I've worked with acrylic before with several other unrelated projects. At first I wanted the sump in the tank but changed my mind because it would take up too much room and look really ugly. So I decided to put it in the back, problem one was I wanted a full size cone skimmer . At $79 the SCA - 301 skimmer is an amazing deal that's only 4.25 inches wide . After doing a lot of research I found out about the Herbie overflow and I wanted to incorporate that for a completely silent operation. I found a great design for a low profile overflow and modified that with a coast to coast extension. Herbie box 5.25" x 6.5" w/extension only 1.75" height and1. 25" depth it disappears in the background. Between a great deal on Craigslist and leftover acrylic from Canal Plastic in Chinatown total cost on sump and overflow was about $30. I'm using 1" bulkheads on the overflow and 3/4" loc line return. I also picked up the new jebao DCT-4000 adjustable flow DC pump, silent and ridiculously strong. I wanted maintenance to be as easy as possible so I made the sump baffles into removable media trays. I plan on putting purigen and chemipure in these. There will still be room for a small refugium but undecided what to put there some suggestions were miracle mud or extra rubble rock or if even necessary.
More to come...
More to come...
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