My 125g build, from scratch!

[Nccneville]

Hey guys, here is my build thread, with a brief backstory!
I traded a 1989 Nissan 240SX for my 125g tank, that was mostly complete. It was used as a display/holding tank at a local mom and pop fish store, owned by the mother of the new owner of my old 240sx. So I got the tank, sump, two heaters, a light, and most of the plumbing parts I needed for my old beater car. Good deal. I’ve wanted a big saltwater tank for as long as I can remember. So I finally got around to setting it up after several years of threatening do it, and here we are!!

This is my first tank using a sump, so I had to learn how all of the plumbing needed to work, which was extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around for some reason. Now that it’s all done, I realize it’s super simple. Hooray for learning new things!

Here is my photo progress, starting with a bare tank, on a homemade stand. Stand progress not documented, sorry.

These came with the tank, already assembled

Step one, build the drains

Then, set the stand pipes in.

And plumb the pump

I didn’t have the proper size PVC pipe on the top of the sump, so after I get some new bits for that tomorrow, I’ll update more! Looking forward to any advice everyone might have for me based on what you see so far!

-Cody

 

[Brycnz]

Looks good be sure to sand joins before using the glue fill with fresh water before mixing up salt to make sure there’s no leaks would hate to dump all the water that cost.

 

[Nccneville]

Thanks!! I definitely plan to fill it with freshwater first. Waiting for Ace Hardware open this morning to get a pipe reducer for the pipes on top of the sump. They’re way bigger than the fittings coming out of the tank. More pictures to come later today!

 

[Nccneville]

Day two!
I finished up the plumbing, after a handful of trips to ACE Hardware.

And then, at last, it was time for the most exciting and nerve activating test!!!! Fill ‘er up!!!!!

I am extremely pleased to announce, we have NO LEAKS!!! As of right now everything has been running for about 45minutes. Pretty exciting!
Tomorrow we will drain the tank, and stain/paint the stand, fashion some doors to it, and wait for the RODI unit to arrive.

 

[Brycnz]

Looks good I would be putting hose clamps on all pipes if one kinks or somthing goes wrong and build pressure in pipes you don’t won’t one coming off and pumping water onto your floor haha

 

[Nccneville]

Looks good I would be putting hose clamps on all pipes if one kinks or somthing goes wrong and build pressure in pipes you don’t won’t one coming off and pumping water onto your floor haha

good advice!! I put hose clamps on everything after pictures were taken. I should have mentioned that, but they’re on there I promise
-Cody

 

[dbowman5]

Curious. when it is circulating are the drains full siphon? How noisy?

 

[Nccneville]

Curious. when it is circulating are the drains full siphon? How noisy?

The drains do not get full siphon, the way it is now. I’ll have to tinker with the drains a little bit, and how it is now, it is noisy. Seems like the right side pulses almost, is the best way I can describe it. Do I need my drains to be a little shorter, so the pipe work in the boxes is completely below water level, or should I try larger “breather holes” first? It functions, now but definitely needs a little fine tuning.
-Cody

 

[dbowman5]

The drains do not get full siphon, the way it is now. I’ll have to tinker with the drains a little bit, and how it is now, it is noisy. Seems like the right side pulses almost, is the best way I can describe it. Do I need my drains to be a little shorter, so the pipe work in the boxes is completely below water level, or should I try larger “breather holes” first? It functions, now but definitely needs a little fine tuning.
-Cody

the noise that occurs due to the fall into the drain chambers is reduced by the height of the water in the chamber. there is another noise created in the plumbing as air gets sucked in and gurgles. the pulsing is the drain trying to maintain full siphon and sucking air when it loses siphon, flow speeds up then slows down rinse and repeat. the best way to stop this is to valve the drain with a gate valve so that a full siphon is maintained in one drain at a slower flow rate with the other chamber being a partial siphon/ emergency drain. Basically creating a herbie using your two boxes. in my overflow i have a bean animal with the full siphon a strainer mounted in the bottom, no stand pipe at all, the partial is a stand pipe such as yours. a hole drilled into the top of the elbow as a breather this keeps the intake below water level, a siphon is pulled if the breather is covered with water and an emergency standpipe is slightly higher than the top of the elbows yet below the top of the chamber. when starting the return pump the flow is not a full siphon and the flow goes through both drains. the breather gets covered and the partial goes full siphon then stops as the breather is exposed, as the air gets purged through the full siphon it drains the overflow box and after a minute it all settles down and all is quiet. For this to work for you i think that only one of the pipes needs to be valved. i would use the one directly above the sump. that would be the easiest to purge the air from. the other pipe would be a little taller than the full siphon. My stand pipes and filter are dry fitted so i can remove them for adjustment or cleaning. good luck.

 

[Nccneville]

the noise that occurs due to the fall into the drain chambers is reduced by the height of the water in the chamber. there is another noise created in the plumbing as air gets sucked in and gurgles. the pulsing is the drain trying to maintain full siphon and sucking air when it loses siphon, flow speeds up then slows down rinse and repeat. the best way to stop this is to valve the drain with a gate valve so that a full siphon is maintained in one drain at a slower flow rate with the other chamber being a partial siphon/ emergency drain. Basically creating a herbie using your two boxes. in my overflow i have a bean animal with the full siphon a strainer mounted in the bottom, no stand pipe at all, the partial is a stand pipe such as yours. a hole drilled into the top of the elbow as a breather this keeps the intake below water level, a siphon is pulled if the breather is covered with water and an emergency standpipe is slightly higher than the top of the elbows yet below the top of the chamber. when starting the return pump the flow is not a full siphon and the flow goes through both drains. the breather gets covered and the partial goes full siphon then stops as the breather is exposed, as the air gets purged through the full siphon it drains the overflow box and after a minute it all settles down and all is quiet. For this to work for you i think that only one of the pipes needs to be valved. i would use the one directly above the sump. that would be the easiest to purge the air from. the other pipe would be a little taller than the full siphon. My stand pipes and filter are dry fitted so i can remove them for adjustment or cleaning. good luck.

Thanks a ton!!
So, should I redrill a new 90* with a breather hole slightly higher, for the one on the right? Or change the height of that stand pipe? Tank is dry now, so easy to tinker with plumbing. It was only filled to check for leaks, and functionality.

-Cody

 

[dbowman5]

Thanks a ton!!
So, should I redrill a new 90* with a breather hole slightly higher, for the one on the right? Or change the height of that stand pipe? Tank is dry now, so easy to tinker with plumbing. It was only filled to check for leaks, and functionality.

-Cody

Where do you have the breather holes? If i understand the science you would not need anything on the top of the standpipe for the valved full siphon except a strainer to prevent snails or other debris from clogging the line above the valve. The height of the partial would control the height of the water in the box that it is in, and on the skimmer slots leading to both boxes. The flow through the full side should be valved so that the boxes stay full enough to prevent the cascade noise you get if the skimmed water has to fall very far. The full side would possibly fill to the height of the aquarium. Dry fitting instead of gluing the stand pipes allows you to tinker with this after you fill the tank.

 

[Nccneville]

My Stand pipes are not glued either. wasn’t sure what you meant by dry fit haha.

Here is what I’m working with currently.

 

[dbowman5]

i scrolled through to confirm your pipe sizing. 1" the breather hole is definitely big enough. You have one pic of the standpipe showing how high the elbows are in relation to the skim slots. hard to see but the center red pipe is the emergency overflow. the far side has the strainer on top of the open hole full siphon. if i had your deep boxes i would mount the strainer on top of a standpipe that brought it up high enough to grab when i needed to. the elbows are the partial siphon with a little breather. you can see that the top of the elbow is about at the same level as the emergency pipe height. i would leave the partial at that height for now.

 

[dbowman5]

FYI, you may already know this, but, because of the height of your stand pipes detritus will build up in the overflow bottoms. One of your maintenance tasks will be to pull the standpipes occasionally to flush out the bottoms.

 

[Nccneville]

Great! Thank you!!! I assumed cleaning the overflow boxes would need to be done, but definitely good to have some confirmation!!

-Cody

 

[Nccneville]

I haven’t forgotten, don’t worry! The past couple weeks have been dedicated to setting up and figuring out the RODI unit(and waiting for new filters to show up in the mail). It’s set up in the garage , now, with all new filters and DI resin (bought the unit used) and it works! Woohoo!! I’ve got 40g made so far with 0TDS. I’ve mixed a couple gallons of saltwater to make sure I can make a large batch later, accurately. I’ve got 120lbs of live sand, and somewhere around 130lbs of dry rock to organize and set up. I’ve also moved and replumbed the sump, so that it’s centered under the tank, instead of off to one side. Hopefully that helps it to not gurgle as much, on the right side, since that was the “long haul” side. It should be full of saltwater, and cycling by this weekend! Pretty exciting!!

-Cody

 

[Nccneville]

Alright!! Now we wait!! I tried my best to stack the rocks so that there is space between each “layer” so that whoever ends up living in here has plenty of places to choose

In the mean time, I’ll be making some doors for the stand, and a canopy of some sort.

-Cody

 

[Nccneville]

Update!! A friend of mine decided his 220 needed to be a freshwater tank, instead of saltwater(which had been running for 5ish years) so we worked out a swap trade deal, and I got all of his live rock, his filter media, a protein skimmer, and a backup pump. I took most of the rock pictured above out and replaced it with his live rock, which has a few bright green mushrooms on it, along with a little bit of green hair algae.
Last weekend was dedicated to the “new” setup and here is the end result!