The 180gal Family Project

[Jaydog]

Nikki. First of all, thank you so much for answering my question about the canister, sump/refug the other day. I was up very late lastnight reading about your, "family project." I love that title, and also plan on using it inthe future. It looks so cool, I'm invious of that tank. I admit, I almost got sick when I got to reading the drilling section. I guess I have the worst luck when it comes to things like that.

I was just wondering, could you please post a pic or two on your sump/refug? It looks like the one I have pictured for my tank, (only much larger). I would like to get some ideas for my own, if you don't mind.

Thanks so much!!

[nikkipigtails]

No prob. Thanks for checking out my thread. Here's the link to the post. The 180gal Family Project
We're going to work on finishing the return pump plumbing tonight. Things have been so crazy with Tommy's job that we haven't had the chance to work on the tank like we should have.

Anyway, the box you see in the back left corner of the tank is one of two bubble traps. One of our sump drains drains into that section which will have LR rubble in it. That section is the skimmer section. Then there are a series of three baffles that act as the second bubble trap. The middle section is the return section and the last section is the fuge. The other sump drain drains partially into the fuge then is carried over into the skimmer section.

[tbittner]

Hmmmm, you've had a whole weekend to work on your system. Where are the pics???

[JoJo]

evertime i think i'm caught up on your threads, BAM another text book reading session to get back caught up...i guess thats a good thing tho

[nikkipigtails]

We're finally finished with the sump plumbing and, hopefully, we'll start working on the CL this week. Pictures will come later. I don't feel well and Olivia's eating. I'll try to post some later tonight.

[Craig Manoukian]

Take care Nikki, hope the swelling is gone!

[JoJo]

get well soon Nikki. looking forward to those pics

[nikkipigtails]

Ok, here's the picture of the sump plumbing. It's not glued into the bulkheads yet so it looks uneven but it's not. Now we've got to get some rubber or some giant suction cups to attach to the bottom of the Mag 36 so it's not metal sitting on the bottom of a glass sump. Next up is the CL plumbing.

[JoJo]

nice job on the plumbing Nikki & Tommy. its really clean, cant wait to see that CL plumbing

[deaclauderdale]

Looking good Nikki.

[thelastmucci]

You know Nikki I have to give you allot of credit. Your doing the bulk of the work on the tank and you seem to have a knack for plumbing. I can't even figure out anything when it comes to plumbing a fish tank...it's all too confusing for me..that's why I bought an AIO. So much props to the Nikster.

[WatchinFish]

if you have a friend who in tinting, you should buy this "Blue Life Water Colors Aquarium Background - 72x30 Royal Blue"( can buy it on marinedepot.com for less then 35 bux) and give it to him to apply. it applies just as if it was tint but wont corrode. i used it on my tank and it came out looking perfect.

oh and for the bulkheads. if you are gonna have 2 overflows a 1 1/2" inch bulkeads should be plenty for the inlet into the sump. you can probably even go down to a 1". and for the returns it shouldnt be more then an 1".

[nikkipigtails]

Originally Posted by WatchinFish

if you have a friend who in tinting, you should buy this "Blue Life Water Colors Aquarium Background - 72x30 Royal Blue"( can buy it on marinedepot.com for less then 35 bux) and give it to him to apply. it applies just as if it was tint but wont corrode. i used it on my tank and it came out looking perfect.

oh and for the bulkheads. if you are gonna have 2 overflows a 1 1/2" inch bulkeads should be plenty for the inlet into the sump. you can probably even go down to a 1". and for the returns it shouldnt be more then an 1".

Thanks for the suggestions. We were going to get the back tinted since we do have a friend who does window tint, but decided against it. We painted the back with a camellion metalliac royal blue. If the light shines directly on it, it's blue and if the light is shined at an angle then it's purple. It's really cool. Then there's a coat of black polyeurathane on top of that.

We bought the tank used and it wasn't drilled. The bottom is tempered and we have a friend who ownes a glass shop so he came out and drilled the back for us so there aren't any overflows. It gives us the maximum amount of tank space as well. The sump drains are 1 1/2" and all the returns are 3/4". All our CL BH are 3/4" as well.

[nikkipigtails]

So, to explain the plumbing one more time...
We have two drains into the sump. If you look at the tank, the one on the left drains directly into the first bubble trap which will be filled with LR rubble. The drain from the RBTA tank will be plumbed into that drain. The drain on the right drains into the fuge and into the skimmer section. There's a ball valve to control the amount of water draining into the fuge so it's not too turbulant. We want some flow in there, but don't want it to be too much so that's the reason behind the ball valve.

We have a Mag 36 for the return pump. There's a coupling just above the pump so the pump can be removed easily if necessary. There are also 2 ball valves on each side as it branches off to control flow. The sump return for the RBTA tank is plumbed into the return on the left.

[nikkipigtails]

Originally Posted by thelastmucci

You know Nikki I have to give you allot of credit. Your doing the bulk of the work on the tank and you seem to have a knack for plumbing. I can't even figure out anything when it comes to plumbing a fish tank...it's all too confusing for me..that's why I bought an AIO. So much props to the Nikster.

Thanks, Mucci. I just drew out the CL plumbing and that was a doozie. It's weird because I had to think in 3D because we can't plumb straight up and down because there's already plumbing there. It's going to look like a big mess of pvc when we're finished.