New Build, 150 gallon w/ Sump

Looking good!!

 

As far as the pump vibrating; I have seen folks use silicone baking mats (Pyramid Pad on Amazon, roughly 5 bucks) to put under pump to dampen the vibration.  Might be worth a shot.

 

Good advice with the siphon breaks, my returns sit about 1.5" under the water currently, but I may move the loc lines to set up current or hit dead spots as I see fit in the future.  I drilled siphon breaks just in case the returns and am glad I did (although I had to reduce the flow of my drains so that the water level in my overflow was higher, else it sounded like someone was peeing into the water 24/7   )

 

I may have missed it in the thread but what it your proposed stocking?

CA cichlids-- for now.  Just before I broke it down it was a chilled, stream tank loaded with darters and shiners.  Of course I never made a thread about it.  At least this time the build part is out of the way so that when I switch back to N.A. natives I can just chronicle the fish themselves. 

Nice!!, CA cichlids are my wheelhouse.  What are you thinking of going with?

 

Before I landed on local natives, I was going to setup my 135 as a Costa Rican stream biotope with smaller CAs.  I was going to attempt to have pairs of Convict cichlids (fudging the biotope a little bit, A.Nigrofasciata aren't native in Costa Rica, but A.Siquia are, and there seems to be much debate on if the separation of the species in 2007 is correct.  Additionally I already had a breeding pair of convicts) T-bar Cichlids Cryptoheros Sajica and Rainbow Cichlids Herotilapia Multispinosa.  

 

It would have been interesting to see if I could pull this off, chances are it would have led to tons of aggression during spawning, but I maintain hope that it could be accomplished in a 6ft aquarium.

 

A 150 would be a good size for some of the Vieja sp or to try to get a breeding pair of Festae out of 9 or so young.  A lot of options! 

Nice!

 

You wrote: "The last elbow is not glued in the event I need to change the direction of flow into the filter socks-or-replace the elbow with a 45"

 

How far does the water shoot if that last elbow decides to go walk-about?

 

I've never set up a sump, but I'd be very tempted to glue it securely now, and if a change is later needed, cut the horizontal pipe and put in a union to allow for future flexibility.

Yeah, Doug brings up a good point, even though it's a drain line and not under pressure, if gravity shoots water past the sump, you could lose a lot of water before the DT drains below the overflows

Youd swear the connection was glued as tightly as I jammed the elbow on there. You bring up a very valid point but that outcome is slim with the minimal force of the falling water. In a professional setting, it would be worth glueing. Certainly for the customer and their property. It doesnt shoot out too far without the elbowmaybe 6 or so? It is centered so there would be a little splashing out of the sump if it hit a baffle.

I was going to add another union there but there simply wasnt enough space on that short horizontal run without raising the height of that last elbow. And I intended to have the water fall as short of a distance as possible (onto the sock plate) to reduce splashing and water-related noises.

Humble pie is one of my favorites so Ill keep everyone in mind should I have just jinxed myself.

Nice!!, CA cichlids are my wheelhouse.  What are you thinking of going with?

 

 

Tyler, I PM'd you a response.

Looks awesome so far.  Where are you today with this tank?

As a matter of fact, just last night I moved some of the water, fish, sand, and decor over from the 125 holding tank to the 150. Its still being maintained by the sponge and canister filters. Heaters are in the tank too. Very sloppy looking, actually. But, its a step forward.

The 125 can go by-by. Anyone want to drive to Northern Va for a nice addition to their fish room? Free to a up to date on their dues NANFA member!

Hope to finally get baffled cut and installed this weekend. Then I can start the system up. But the sponges and canister will remain for a few weeks while the bio balls mature in the sump.

     I added caps to each of the overflows and drilled a small hole in the top of each to allow air in.  This will reduce the volume of the falling water.  The caps are removable.

 

By volume, do you mean sound level or the amount of water? 

Sorry, sound.

Thought so--just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

Awesome! Ill be following this build. I may have missed it, what species are you going with?

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Central American Cichlids and livebearers.

And to fuel my super slow build, just tonight I realized I used a silicone with a mold inhibitor around the 4 bulkheads. Fortunately the system hasnt been up and running, therefore no leaching of chemicals into the water to hurt the fish. But now, as I was just making so progress on installing the baffles I took a step back.

Ill likely scrape what I can off and reseal them with 795.

Anyways, pics to follow....

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Two key words near the middle that destroyed my motivation and progress.

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No reason for all the fancy, aligned holes. Got cocky and wanted to make something nice only to have an oops! Moment shortly after using the correct sealant for the baffles.

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In place. Its a piece of HDPE.

Very nice work despite the set back!  

Well, the fun continued.  

VERY IMPORTANT:  Check the expiration date on your sealants.  I used a Jan/16' tube of 795 to affix the baffles.  After two weeks they did not cure.  (There have been successful applications of expired 795.  But mere months expired, not years).  I was able to peal the old 795 off easily.  So on top of having to remove the old silicone from around the 4 bulkheads, I had to redo both baffles.  I got a jolt of energy last night and scraped everything off and resealed them.  This all with a 7-out-of-10 case of tennis elbow. 

 

I'm much closer now and have a tad bit more motivation to finish.  Now all I need is for a fish to jump out on 'Commissioning Night' whenever that happens to be.  It would be unfortunate but par for the course.

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous silicone, or to take arms against a CA biome of troubles and, by opposing, end them?

I say, as your humble Yorick, lay on McLittle!

(Yeah, I butchered and blended two classics in two sentences. But twas too much fun to resist...)

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Sump comleteled, finally. The baffles were removed and cleaned off. Then reinstalled with a fresh tube of 100% GE Silicone. The same with the bulkheads. The filter dock plate is in. Im going to let it cure through the weekend and then start it up.

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Here is a full shot of the sump before the sock plate was installed.

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(Far left, not pictured) water will return to the sump and be forced to go through the bottom of the first baffle and will flow upwards through the floating bioballs. Then through the top holes on the second baffle and out through the bottom bulkhead on the bottom right (not pictured). The holes in the top of the left baffle are there in the event the socks get clogged and the sock plate fills up it wont flood out of the sump.


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Sock plate. 1 of 3 socks in place. Close up of the overflow holes. Top of the blue tape will be the max fill line while the system is running.

Hopefully many of you are not reading this right now and are in the middle of a snorkel session in your local stream!