So here is our first real contribution to society, well MFK society anyway 
. We're still a little new in the fish world, but we've learned a lot in a short period of time, and now we're really jumping in the deep end. We're currently working on a fish tank rack that will hold six 30 gallon tanks, two 20 gallon tanks, and one 60 gallon tank in our garage so that they're not all over the house anymore 
. There will be another rack right next to it that will hold four 10 gallon tanks. This is what it should sorta look like when it's all done.
The top six tanks will be run by one of the bottom tanks as a sump (hopefully). We may need to add a canister or two as well, but we'll see what we end up stocking I guess. The plumbing is pretty much the big part of the project for me (my partner is much more into the fish and I'm much more into the DIY and science
). Here are my goals for the plumbing, some of which may have to wait until later depending on those stupid green pieces of paper everyone is always talking about.
As cheap as possible
Able to do a water change on all tanks at once (per stand anyway)
Automatic water changes possible (even if this needs to be added later)
Modular (I don't know if that's the right word, but I want to be able to turn off or take off an overflow and return to quarantine a tank if needed)
Able to add the things I've mentioned adding later without cutting everything apart and starting all over again.
Yeah, I know I'm asking for a lot when I'm also asking for it on the cheap, but I figured I'd do my best to get as close as possible to all of these things. This is how I'm envisioning the plumbing so far, although I just realized that each return line would also need a valve on it
.
Obviously the way I have this drawn out so far doesn't exactly meet all of the points on my wish list yet, but I'm hoping that with your help MFKers that I can refine some of this. So please please please chime in and tell us what you think! Any ideas are helpful, even if they spark something else for something else who knows! I'll do my best to update this thread as we move along, and I hope lots of you join in so that we can hopefully get this thing right the first time!
Oh! If it's hard to understand something I said or that's in the pictures, I'm happy to explain, or post another picture (I like pictures
)
. We're still a little new in the fish world, but we've learned a lot in a short period of time, and now we're really jumping in the deep end. We're currently working on a fish tank rack that will hold six 30 gallon tanks, two 20 gallon tanks, and one 60 gallon tank in our garage so that they're not all over the house anymore . There will be another rack right next to it that will hold four 10 gallon tanks. This is what it should sorta look like when it's all done.The top six tanks will be run by one of the bottom tanks as a sump (hopefully). We may need to add a canister or two as well, but we'll see what we end up stocking I guess. The plumbing is pretty much the big part of the project for me (my partner is much more into the fish and I'm much more into the DIY and science
). Here are my goals for the plumbing, some of which may have to wait until later depending on those stupid green pieces of paper everyone is always talking about.As cheap as possible
Able to do a water change on all tanks at once (per stand anyway)
Automatic water changes possible (even if this needs to be added later)
Modular (I don't know if that's the right word, but I want to be able to turn off or take off an overflow and return to quarantine a tank if needed)
Able to add the things I've mentioned adding later without cutting everything apart and starting all over again.
Yeah, I know I'm asking for a lot when I'm also asking for it on the cheap, but I figured I'd do my best to get as close as possible to all of these things. This is how I'm envisioning the plumbing so far, although I just realized that each return line would also need a valve on it
.Obviously the way I have this drawn out so far doesn't exactly meet all of the points on my wish list yet, but I'm hoping that with your help MFKers
that I can refine some of this. So please please please chime in and tell us what you think! Any ideas are helpful, even if they spark something else for something else who knows! I'll do my best to update this thread as we move along, and I hope lots of you join in so that we can hopefully get this thing right the first time!Oh! If it's hard to understand something I said or that's in the pictures, I'm happy to explain, or post another picture (I like pictures
)
