first aquarium build

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
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Hi all

a little about myself
In my old house I had 5 Cichlid tanks which I had for approximately 8 years, Luckily my wife fell pregnant but unluckily that meant goodbye fish as we now had no room for fish except 1 small goldfish tank. All the tanks I have ever had have been freshwater I have built a few glass sump tanks in the past but this is about the limit of my fishkeeping experience.

SO moving on

we have now brought a MUCH bigger house which can hold a MONSTER aquarium, as I have never done anything like this before I am really looking for quite a bit of help, also being a business owner I over plan things and and a fussy bastard when it comes to building, and on top of that because I am a tradie I HATE to see any plumbing/electrical wires etc, everything HAS to be hidden....

So now to the bit where I need help
as I work A LOT is there a way to have a "self sustaining" salt water aquarium with coral? Or would I be better staying with a freshwater Aquarium?

The Tank
I am looking at building something roughly 3000mm long, 1000mm wide, 1000mm tall
To keep everything nice and tidy and easy to hide I am thinking about an overflow like this
with a large sump down the bottom

So i am going to need help with things like what actual size to build this thing so its easy enough to clean, what size pipe to use, what to put in my sump, what size pump, etc etc.

any reading material or advice would be fantastic

TIA
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
1
8
39
cant post a link in the thread bummer
glassreef com / basics _ overflow php
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
1
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I found a calculator it looks like I will need 40mm acrylic sheets with bracing for something this big. And 3.1 L/H
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
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39
So I have done up some drawings of what I think I am looking for with my sump setup and tank setup.
After some research I think I am looking for 2 x 3000L/H pumps with 1 meter head pressure to get plenty of turnover I have also added 2 x returns as well as 2 x backup returns for a fail safe in case something goes wrong.
Does anyone have recommendations on what pumps I should look at purchasing as this would help me with what size pipe I will need to run? Also I am in Australia so I will have to run metric size pipe. I would also like to run 100% PVC pipe if I can.

For the sump I am thinking of running 2 or 3 sizes or filter media in the first chamber then bio balls in the second, then in the third 2 x Titan G2 1500w heater 1 for failsafe, with some substrate and plants.

I also think I need to add a last chamber for the pumps to suck water out of so they dont pull my plants and substrate through them.

Sump.jpg

tank.jpg
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
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8
39
I am thinking something more like this with the heaters in the last chamber now

Sump.jpg
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
1
8
39
I have run into my first problem, I cant seem to find any 40mm sheets larger than 2400mm x 1200mm everything above that is only 10mm... Has anyone else run into this problem before? is there ways to do seamless joins in acrylic or am I going to have to suck it up and go a smaller tank?
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
1
8
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I think I found a supplier who can import these sizes for me.
for the tank I am looking at
5100mm x 3100mm x 40mm
3100mm x 3100mm x 10mm
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
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So in my house I have home automation called "nero" which gives me the option to turn on or off lights remotely or by schedules or whatever I like really so I was thinking of running everything on the tank through the same automation, I am wondering has anyone done automatic water changes? I was thinking I would be able to once a week.
Saturdy
8:00am pumps turn off
8:05am drain valve opens and drains the sump completly
9:05am drain valve closes
9:10am fill valve opens (controlled by ball valve)
10:10am fill valve closes
10:15am pumps turn on

I would also be able to do a "top up" schedule
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
8:00am pumps turn off
give it 20 mins for all the water to drain down into the sump so not to overfill
8:20am fill valve opens
8:40am fill valve closes
8:50am pumps turn on


I am also able to run a dimming schedule so I was thinking this could also be pretty cool doing a "wake up" and "sleep" schedule and I can set this to (sunrise) and (sunset) in my time zone so it will change all year making it nearly real life. So my next thing is should I have a blue light that runs overnight and starts to turn on half way through the "sleep" schedule and turn off at the start of the "wake up" schedule..... mmmm more things to research.
 

lampy007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2017
21
1
8
39
So im trying to work out lighting and how I am going to build what I am looking for from some research I am thinking of going with heat sinks and cree LED's

124 x XML-2 Cree LED's --- 6500k ----- daytime only ----
Lux @ Depth = 19482
41 x ULTRA- Violet (UV) High Power LED Star ----- Night time only
I have attached my first plan for lighting..... could change but from my research it looks pretty solid..

lighting.jpg
 

robham777

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jan 9, 2013
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Most of what you are asking is way above my pay grade, but I would go with higher capacity pumps. There are very efficient variable speed DC pumps available that allow you to customize your flow rate. I am using a Jebao DCT-15000 at the lowest setting which I believe is 40% max or 6000 L/H on a 210 gallon aquarium. I would think you would want around a 5x turnover on your project so a single unit like this could work or you could run 2x pumps at lower settings and have some redundancy.
 
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