awesome read, thanks for your step by step! Will read again with a closer eye when I get home, seeing that I am at work and haven't done anything for over an hour, thinking of doing something along these lines myself.
DIY down and dirty 90g/40b sump on the cheap (ballin' on a budget)
- Thread starter mudbuttjones
- Start date
Thanks for your kind words. I always felt the best builds on here were documented the worst. So why not have the worst build documented the best? Lol.
More updates soon
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Tested my system with all plumbing glued and my open channel drain on the back.
Its very quiet. Infact the mag 9.5 is louder than the drains / overflow. Im disappointed with how loud the pump is. And its sitting on silicone pads.
The open channel durso style pipe will handle 100% of the flow if I close my siphon gate valve. Which leads me to believe flow through the tank is about 600gph or less. The 3/4" slip bulkhead has schedule 20 pvc in it, thats .90 inches inner diamater at the narrowest point. The rest is 1" spaflex. The small tube over the rim of the tank will start a siphon if the water level raises too high. It will flush up and down, but never make it to the emergency drain.
I oversized the emergency to 1.5" onto the 1" bulkhead. The emergency will also handle 100% of the flowing water.
Im very impressed. I doubt I will encounter any issues down the road with flooding.
This weeknlend I should be picking up my 793gph aqueon pump. That'll increase my flow by 1.5x overall.
I have a video ill try to upload
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Its very quiet. Infact the mag 9.5 is louder than the drains / overflow. Im disappointed with how loud the pump is. And its sitting on silicone pads.
The open channel durso style pipe will handle 100% of the flow if I close my siphon gate valve. Which leads me to believe flow through the tank is about 600gph or less. The 3/4" slip bulkhead has schedule 20 pvc in it, thats .90 inches inner diamater at the narrowest point. The rest is 1" spaflex. The small tube over the rim of the tank will start a siphon if the water level raises too high. It will flush up and down, but never make it to the emergency drain.
I oversized the emergency to 1.5" onto the 1" bulkhead. The emergency will also handle 100% of the flowing water.
Im very impressed. I doubt I will encounter any issues down the road with flooding.
This weeknlend I should be picking up my 793gph aqueon pump. That'll increase my flow by 1.5x overall.
I have a video ill try to upload
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The silicone I used was a corrugated piece I found sold as a pot holder at wally world
Heres a pic of it under the straps that hold my main return to the stand. Also have a double stacked chunk of silicone rubber under the pump too
I painted and insulated the plumbing.
used Krylon Fusion satin black.
I know pipe insulation is primarily for copper pipes as pvc tends to retain heat better. I had an echoing noise from inside the pipes, with the insulation installed the mag9.5 is much more quiet.
This is the diy slate background on my 75g. I decided to replicate it on the 90g but with some minor adjustments
I split all of the tiles in half with a ballpeen hammer and small flathead screwdriver. Because hey, you know precision is key with this craftsman. On my 75g I used 3/8" thick tile, I experienced no ill effects although it was heavy, and the tank was resealed once.
I got all of this out of 2 tiles, enough to do almost the entire background. Not bad, <20 lbs all said and done. Much lighter than my first slate background.
There are always naysayers with everything.... the facts- my original background has held up for 3 years, not losing a single piece. Im not concerned with an extra dozen or so lbs on the back pane when this thing will have nearly 1000lbs of water in it. Ive seen lots of backgrounds like this, even with 1.5" fieldstone. I'm not worried.
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Heres a pic of it under the straps that hold my main return to the stand. Also have a double stacked chunk of silicone rubber under the pump too
I painted and insulated the plumbing.
used Krylon Fusion satin black.
I know pipe insulation is primarily for copper pipes as pvc tends to retain heat better. I had an echoing noise from inside the pipes, with the insulation installed the mag9.5 is much more quiet.
This is the diy slate background on my 75g. I decided to replicate it on the 90g but with some minor adjustments
I split all of the tiles in half with a ballpeen hammer and small flathead screwdriver. Because hey, you know precision is key with this craftsman. On my 75g I used 3/8" thick tile, I experienced no ill effects although it was heavy, and the tank was resealed once.
I got all of this out of 2 tiles, enough to do almost the entire background. Not bad, <20 lbs all said and done. Much lighter than my first slate background.
There are always naysayers with everything.... the facts- my original background has held up for 3 years, not losing a single piece. Im not concerned with an extra dozen or so lbs on the back pane when this thing will have nearly 1000lbs of water in it. Ive seen lots of backgrounds like this, even with 1.5" fieldstone. I'm not worried.
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Scuffed the overflow with 60g and 220. Followed by rubbing alcohol.
My only concern is the silicone adherence to the plastic tower, however the tower is merely siliconed to the tank anyway. Some digging revealed that AGA and Oceanic just use a black rtv silicone, nothing fancy. The force of water pushes it on the back pane and keeps everything kosher.
Acrylic to glass bonds are decent enough for custom overflows, im thinking it'll deal with some thin pieces of slate no problems
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I purchased these fake plants for $12 at hobby lobby. On my old 75g I had anubias wedged in the background but my fish ate it.
Coming together. Adherence to the overflow seems good so far. Im applying liberal amounts and overlapping pieces to the back pane and bottom pane.
Only time will tell, but I feel extremely confident about the slate sticking to the overflow
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Stopped by the LFS on my way to work. Picked up my secondary return pump to run with my mag9.5
Looks to be a solid pump. Build quality is good, the impeller assembly is robust and solid.
It has an adjustable flow dial. With it wide open it only draws water from the bottom glass of the sump. The inlet is pointed straight down.
Hopefully it'll help with debris build up.
I would have bought a jabeo dc pump for the secondary pump, but I had a $100 gift card to the lfs. 793gph @ 58 watts isnt the worst.
Cant wait to get home and play with it.
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Slate city
Making slate caves/structures while I wait for the silicone in the tank to fully cure.
Really excited about having an aquascape or hardscape that is permanent and matches my background and everything. Itll give it that biotope kind of look I'm going for
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