Anyone DIY Plywood Sump?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
That'll be one of the best parts to my DIY Sump and Aquarium, Making the build thread! Thinking about maybe going out and buying the plywood sometime this week when I get freetime, or possibly next weekend.. and Birch plywood is the "top of the line" plywood at my local hardware store anyways and that's what I planned on going with for all of my builds.. But could you by any chance link me the supplies I'd need for fiberglass? I can't seem to find any help on here about fiberglassing /: And idk what exactly I planned on sealing the sump with.. possibly this... http://www.homedepot.com/Paint-Exte...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 ... If link does not work, then it's just DRYLOK White Masonry Waterproofer from Home Depot.. and I would really like to get some advice/help for fiberglass because I wanna fiberglass the corners to practice because I'll be fiberglassing the corners on my DIY plywood aquarium

Do I just buy fiberglass cloth and then buy the fiberglass resin?
Kinda like use the cloth and stick it where I need it to be, and then kinda "paint" over it with the resin?
^ with these materials.... http://www.lowes.com/pd_331525-98-20128_?PL=1&productId=3228210
http://www.lowes.com/pd_331529-98-2...rrentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=bondo+resin&facetInfo=
 
Yep, cloth and resin that is all there is to it. I fiber glassed the floor and bottom few inches of the stand I just built for my little sister. My 7 yo daughter helped me an had a blast (We did it outside with a nice breeze as I was a little hesitant about the fumes and young lungs!) It was my first fiber glass project and kind of practice for my stand.

You can buy the cloth in sheets/rolls or as small cut up pieces that may make doing seams easier. I got mine from Home Depot but they were a little pricey on the fiber glass fabric. I believe the goal with fiberglass it to use as little resin as possible to thoroughly soak the material and not have any bubbles under the material.

EDIT: Actually your links were the exact items I bought from Lowes for my fiber glass job.
 
Good deal.. would you recommend using like a 4" piece that is as tall as the aquarium/sump, and just pushing it into the corner so it's kinda like there's about 2 inches of fiberglass cloth on each wall? If that makes sense..
 
There are some great youtube videos on fiberglassing. Mostly car guys building stuff for stereo equipment.

I had a hard time getting all of the bubbles out of the corners on my sisters stand. In a you tube video the guy was using about 1 inch by 1 inch pieces of cloth. It looked a lot easier than using one long strip for inside corners.

When doing corners the material wnts to form a radiusinstead of a tight 90 degree edge. So I had to put more resin on to fill in the void under the radius... which I am pretty sure is less than optimal for strenght. With a long piece of cloth; when you poke it into a corner with a putty knife you pul it out of somewhere else... the opposite corner in my case.

I used 1 big sheet of material to cover the whole floor of the stand. I had to use too much resin to get all the corners bubble free. Out side corners wer impossible (for me) to get bubble free. I had some internal 2x4 braces with sharp corners (I jointed and planed the 2x4's). I am thinking that it might have worked bettter to stop the resin 1/4" or so before the outside corner, let the resin dry, then come back and finish the resin later when I could pull the material tight over the corner with out pulling the material off of the wood.
 
So it'd be much easier if I just used like 2x2 squares?
 
Concerning the noise of water entering the sump: you can use a bean or herbie method for the overflow and it will be dead silent. The only noise you will have would be from the bioballs if you choose to use them. In my sump, i just have mechanical filtration and matrix all submerged and the only soun is the slight hum of the pump.
 
Can you explain to me what those methods are?
 
flowingmotion said:
Here you go.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=344892 herbie

http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx bean

Basically, both methods use a siphon rather than an open pipe (with air) so they are silent. The bean is a herbie on steroids so you can start there i suppose.
Click to expand...

That'll take some studying it seems.. is the normal overflow (without tank drilled, don't know proper name) loud?
I'll read up on that bean method once I get computer access

Also, thank you for those links
 
Tstone said:
That'll take some studying it seems.. is the normal overflow (without tank drilled, don't know proper name) loud?
I'll read up on that bean method once I get computer access

Also, thank you for those links
Click to expand...

It will take some reading up to make sure you understand it but you can always swith to the herbie at any time with little trouble. The bean you would likely need to tear the tank down to use it. Since it requires three overflow holes for the tank.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom