Advice sought from the vast experience at WAMAS-Tank Evolution

[makai531]

So I picked up a sump last week from DCReefer, and he offered me some advice. He said to work on my 75 gallon set up instead of tweaking my 29 gallon, knowing I want to upgrade. I thought about it and that made a lot of sense. I have a vision of what I want to end up with and am trying to come up with a plan to get there. So if you can share any insight, I'd appreciate it. Here it goes:

 

What I want to end up with:

75 gallon tank with lots of color and movement I.e. Fish, anemones and corals

45 gallon cube - pretty coral garden with lots of vibrant color

 

What I have:

29 gal FOWLER tank (2 damsels, 2 maroon clowns, 1 cleaner skunk shrimp, and a med/lrg green LTA). Have HOB filter, HOB skimmer, and Aqueon modular LED light (weak 10 watt total). Tank and inhabitants are doing great and are healthy. Clown is hosting anemone and it's been awesome watching the relationship happen. My only desire is that it needs more color and something that moves on the other side of tank (RBtA and frog spawn come to mind)

 

75 gallon non-drilled tank and stand, Eschopps sump. Catalina HO T5 until budget will allow LED upgrade. All used, but I re sealed the tank and cleaned up a very ugly stand. Plan to drill it, once I figure it out what I need to do for the whole set up. (Will be separate thread).

 

45 gallon cube complete set up with MH light. Previous owner had a few suggestions - get larger sump (currently 10g), get new bulb for MH, and put light in hood/shroud if it's in a living room.

 

I know where I want to place the 45 and 75 in the living room and both spots are different than the current location of the 29.

 

I know with every project I always have something that would have done differently/better. Hoping to avoid some errors if possible. So instead of forging ahead willy nilly, if you were me, how would you move forward?

 

 

 

 

 

[PK3]

My advice is to drill the back of the 75g tank and install an internal overflow while it's empty.  The u-tube/siphon over-the-top overflows work, but there is a risk of the siphon breaking, which would likely result in a flood.  This is why I highly suggest going with a Herbie (2 drains/holes) or Bean Animal (3 drains/holes) overflow system for 2 primary reasons: completely silent and fail-safe (if designed/implemented properly).  A lot of people here have experience with drilling their tanks and it is surprisingly a lot easier than you would think.  

 

 

The sump you picked up from DCReefer is very nice and would do very well under your 75g.  You will need to determine the flow rate you want through the sump (I believe the general rule of thumb is 3-5x display volume, which would be 225-375gph), although you could go with more.  Find a return pump that will deliver that amount of flow into your tank (after accounting for head loss), and plumb it into your system.  

 

 

You will probably want to reach out for more help once you get to this point; however, I would recommend reading through some of the build threads on WAMAS and reading up on the herbie and bean animal overflows to help understand how it works.

 

[lutz123]

I agree that's probably a good start. I like the Ghost overflow myself - same concept but...well, I just like it. You mentioned the ugly stand. Don't use it unless you can refinish or reface it. If you think it's ugly now it will only get uglier, and you said it was in your living room. It's not terribly expensive, or difficult to find one.

 

Honestly, there are a ton of ways to do things and that can be very individual, hence all the choices. Some very easy, all the way to very complicated (and extremely expensive). Do you want to try SPS? LPS? NPS? Softies? Biotope? Is there any one thing you just have to have? No one can answer that part for you. And recommendations are very much based on what's going in.

[makai531]

Just for clarification, the stand no longer ugly. Painted and clad with PVC Beadboard. It matches my kitchen cabinets now. It was über ugly when I got it

 

 

 

[Sharkey18]

Pics of the stand please.  Before and after would be nice :-)

[Jesse]

I vote on the external, drilled, overflow (the ghost overflow or something similar).  I built my new 300 gallon with an external overflow after having an internal on my 90 gallon and I love the external overflow.  Not having space inside the tank taken by the overflow is perfect.  It also gives you options for the type of drains you wish to run.

[makai531]

Here are the pictures of the stand. Still need to do some caulking.

 

 

 

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[makai531]

Here's a before pic. What's not readily apparent from the before picture is the cheap 1/4 ply with tons a weepy knots it was clad in and a horrible stain job. The casters on the bottom will of course be removed. They just made it so much easier to paint and store will working on it.

 

 

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[PK3]

Very nice work. I like what you did with it. The stand I'm working on will be a similar style and color.