My 220G Aquarium Tank Build with Bean Animal Overflow and Sump:
Preamble: It is a 220 G aquarium tank, and not in the league of many other tank many of the members in this forum have. Given the constraints where I live, wrt the construction of the multi-storied apartments, size of the house, space in living room and availability of materials and the frequent movement of house that may be needed related to work, this was the max size that we could go with currently. Obviously I would have like a house with a pond, which may be for future!
Decision to go for a 220G: We have an Asian Arowana, we call him Flash (My dedicated THREAD) and it was his 2 year anniversary with us. Thinking of upgrading his current tank we bought as his Grow-Out, I started searching for a ready made tank and was unable to get one in my city after searching for many weeks. The grow-out tank itself I got with great difficulty, after searching and waiting for many weeks. So decided to do a custom built tank and started putting the plan together. I had finalized the size 6ft X 2.5Ft X 2 Ft. Also decided that we go with Sump filtration, earlier I was using Canisters for my grow-out tank. During this process, I had also decided to go with Bean Animal Overflow system, since all other system had the issue with noise, and I wanted the system to be silent.
Stand: Obviously the stand was the most crucial part of the whole thing. In order to provide maximum load distribution and strength, we had to provide the support legs at the center too, and this aspect we had to consider while deciding on the sump tank.
Sump: Due to the Stand design, we had to have the sump tank as 2 separate tanks interconnected, one to hold the media and the other to act as a return chamber and hold good quantity of filtered water. The filter chamber holds enough and more media (almost 7-8 times compared to my earlier canister filter). My main mechanical filtration is with 100 Micron Filter Socks, they are 8cm in Dia and does wonderful filtration the entire sump tank remains so neat and clean and media too. I just have to change these socks weekly, along with 20-30% water change. Water changes and cleaning in the new tank has also become less stressful compared to my earlier grow-out tank.
Tip: Currently I am also experimenting with having a pothos plant inside my sump, to see if it’s able to survive there and bringing any good effects of reduced nitrates.
PHOTO – Return Pump Eheim.
Tank Planning: It was the most time taking and stressful part of the whole thing. Getting someone to build your tank, Getting the glass specifications and measurements right, ordering the glass, drilling the glass for overflow (under my supervision at the glass store), getting the glass delivered, and finally making the tank took a couple of weeks all together. We had also planned for bracing at the top and bottom of the tank, to provide enough strength.
Tank Cover: While curing the tank for few weeks, paralelly started working on the tank top cover and the carpenter could only start this once the tank was completed. This was one thing which overshot my budget, due to materials used and due to an error, they had to do some re-work on the cover to fit properly. Cover is heavy enough and built with water proof material and also provided with air vent on top.
Overflow System: During the glass buying process itself, I had to design the overflow system, the details of holes need to be drilled and their size and position, the details of plumbing lines and its individual components etc. Got one friend to help here with these details who had done this system before and I was lucky with that! I also had to plan out for the overflow box to sit inside the tank where the 3 holes are getting drilled.
Decided to drill holes (3 drains and 1 return) on the either side glass of the aquarium. This was something different to regular design, but the concern and risk of drilling multiple holes on the large glass for rear was the reason for this consideration. The glass dealer had suggested me that I personally be present during the drilling of holes, and he couldn’t take risk of their workers doing any errors, even though we had provided clear diagrams of the design to them. So I went there and did the verification of the measurements of position, size of the drill used etc and went ahead with the drilling of holes. Spending time in the glass factory was another experience where I experienced the whole thing, how they do cutting, polishing, drilling etc. Finally got the glass delivered in our house by the dealer itself.
During the latter part of this explanation, I will share the detailed picture of the imp section of the overflow and sump system.
Making the tank: Once all the glass parts arrived in our house, we got the tank built by one expert, we got him through a reference. Actual building the tank took 3-4 hours in total. I was happy with the process and the end results. Only thing pending from that day was fixing of the overflow box, which we got it done a week after the tank was assembled (along with removing the clamps). I did one mistake here, I decided to go for a PVC based overflow box initially and fixed it, that failed during the first month itself and I had to make another glass overflow box and fix it within the tank.
PHOTO: WIP Tank
PHOTO: Tank on the stand, without cover
PHOTO: Tank with Cover
PHOTO: Return Line and Return End Pipe
PHOTO: Overflow Box
PHOTO: Overflow lines
PHOTO: Sump Filter Media Chamber
All in all it was a great learning experience and was tiring as well. Finally got to move my monster fish to the new home and he loved it from first day.
My Learning wrt to a monster tank building from scratch, doing DIY plumbing and setting up sump for first time, moving a large fish to a new tank etc. Most importantly getting the bean animal overflow system to work silently, seeing the end result working as you expected it to be, is an awesome feel!
Preamble: It is a 220 G aquarium tank, and not in the league of many other tank many of the members in this forum have. Given the constraints where I live, wrt the construction of the multi-storied apartments, size of the house, space in living room and availability of materials and the frequent movement of house that may be needed related to work, this was the max size that we could go with currently. Obviously I would have like a house with a pond, which may be for future!
Decision to go for a 220G: We have an Asian Arowana, we call him Flash (My dedicated THREAD) and it was his 2 year anniversary with us. Thinking of upgrading his current tank we bought as his Grow-Out, I started searching for a ready made tank and was unable to get one in my city after searching for many weeks. The grow-out tank itself I got with great difficulty, after searching and waiting for many weeks. So decided to do a custom built tank and started putting the plan together. I had finalized the size 6ft X 2.5Ft X 2 Ft. Also decided that we go with Sump filtration, earlier I was using Canisters for my grow-out tank. During this process, I had also decided to go with Bean Animal Overflow system, since all other system had the issue with noise, and I wanted the system to be silent.
Stand: Obviously the stand was the most crucial part of the whole thing. In order to provide maximum load distribution and strength, we had to provide the support legs at the center too, and this aspect we had to consider while deciding on the sump tank.
Sump: Due to the Stand design, we had to have the sump tank as 2 separate tanks interconnected, one to hold the media and the other to act as a return chamber and hold good quantity of filtered water. The filter chamber holds enough and more media (almost 7-8 times compared to my earlier canister filter). My main mechanical filtration is with 100 Micron Filter Socks, they are 8cm in Dia and does wonderful filtration the entire sump tank remains so neat and clean and media too. I just have to change these socks weekly, along with 20-30% water change. Water changes and cleaning in the new tank has also become less stressful compared to my earlier grow-out tank.
Tip: Currently I am also experimenting with having a pothos plant inside my sump, to see if it’s able to survive there and bringing any good effects of reduced nitrates.
PHOTO – Return Pump Eheim.
Tank Planning: It was the most time taking and stressful part of the whole thing. Getting someone to build your tank, Getting the glass specifications and measurements right, ordering the glass, drilling the glass for overflow (under my supervision at the glass store), getting the glass delivered, and finally making the tank took a couple of weeks all together. We had also planned for bracing at the top and bottom of the tank, to provide enough strength.
Tank Cover: While curing the tank for few weeks, paralelly started working on the tank top cover and the carpenter could only start this once the tank was completed. This was one thing which overshot my budget, due to materials used and due to an error, they had to do some re-work on the cover to fit properly. Cover is heavy enough and built with water proof material and also provided with air vent on top.
Overflow System: During the glass buying process itself, I had to design the overflow system, the details of holes need to be drilled and their size and position, the details of plumbing lines and its individual components etc. Got one friend to help here with these details who had done this system before and I was lucky with that! I also had to plan out for the overflow box to sit inside the tank where the 3 holes are getting drilled.
Decided to drill holes (3 drains and 1 return) on the either side glass of the aquarium. This was something different to regular design, but the concern and risk of drilling multiple holes on the large glass for rear was the reason for this consideration. The glass dealer had suggested me that I personally be present during the drilling of holes, and he couldn’t take risk of their workers doing any errors, even though we had provided clear diagrams of the design to them. So I went there and did the verification of the measurements of position, size of the drill used etc and went ahead with the drilling of holes. Spending time in the glass factory was another experience where I experienced the whole thing, how they do cutting, polishing, drilling etc. Finally got the glass delivered in our house by the dealer itself.
During the latter part of this explanation, I will share the detailed picture of the imp section of the overflow and sump system.
Making the tank: Once all the glass parts arrived in our house, we got the tank built by one expert, we got him through a reference. Actual building the tank took 3-4 hours in total. I was happy with the process and the end results. Only thing pending from that day was fixing of the overflow box, which we got it done a week after the tank was assembled (along with removing the clamps). I did one mistake here, I decided to go for a PVC based overflow box initially and fixed it, that failed during the first month itself and I had to make another glass overflow box and fix it within the tank.
PHOTO: WIP Tank
PHOTO: Tank on the stand, without cover
PHOTO: Tank with Cover
PHOTO: Return Line and Return End Pipe
PHOTO: Overflow Box
PHOTO: Overflow lines
PHOTO: Sump Filter Media Chamber
All in all it was a great learning experience and was tiring as well. Finally got to move my monster fish to the new home and he loved it from first day.
My Learning wrt to a monster tank building from scratch, doing DIY plumbing and setting up sump for first time, moving a large fish to a new tank etc. Most importantly getting the bean animal overflow system to work silently, seeing the end result working as you expected it to be, is an awesome feel!
