Tony
Staff member
You know, I have done a lot in my life from working on cars, to driving for a living. to aquariums to Rc and so on. One thing I have never done is played with acrylic. I have always wanted to, just could never afford it.
Well with this new aquarium, that is going to change. Or should I say, it is changing. Friday, the wife, kids and I went up to a plastics place in OKC and we purchased 3 sheets of 1/4" clear acrylic so that I could play around with it. Yup, my wife is that awesome lol. I'm going to be making a sump for my aquarium that better fits the stand. The one that came with the tank is a bio-ball sump, and I HATE bioballs. The one that I'm running right now I only paid $50 and I didn't even argue with the guy over the price. These things go for $250 EACH!$200 off for a sump that had a VERY small crack at the top that he fixed the correct way? Hell YEAH!
Well, I was happy then with it, but I'm not happy now about it. What changed you ask? It's the "stuff" that I have now. I didnt' have AnY of it when I got the sump, and it was plenty big enough for my needs. But now, I need something bigger. With my return pump (that is being upgraded to a larger one) to my HUGE skimmer, to the fuge that I had to take out of it because of the skimmer, it just needs to be bigger. See the picture in the next post to see the sump I'm running now, and the one out in the cellar with the bio-balls that I will NEVER run.
The sump I have now is 30x12(f-b)x16(H). The one that I'm going to build will be 40Lx15Dx18H. That will give me a total size of 46.75 gallons in the sump alone. Could I add more? Yup. But I'm not going to. I will keep the tank about half full when it's running, so that would give me a total of about 23 gallons of water, plus my 90 that's in the tank. Right now, I'm running about 10 gallons under the tank in the sump. In fact, the total volume of my current sump is 24.94 gallons and I'm running at just shy of half full. so as you can see, I'm about to double the size of my sump, hehe.
So I have been looking at a lot of different sump designs and they all have one thing in common, they all flow from one side to the other. Well, that is just wasted space IMO. Yes, you can fit some big stuff in there, but why make your sump flow in one direction with a constant water flow all the time. If you know anything about refugiums, you know that you can't go blasting a river through there, nothing will survive that is good for your tank. so you have to slow it down.
so what design did I settle with? Well, none of them. I'm going to use one of the designs that I found for the basic layout, but I'm going to change it up a bit by reversing where the inlet is and where the pump will sit. Right now it's on the right, I want it on the left. The intake to the sump that is. But, I LOVE the idea of putting a flow control off of the return pump to feed the fuge. That way you can control how much you want going in and out of the fuge. And since I'm going from a 950 gallon per hour (GPH) pump to a 1200GPH pump, I have the extra volume to supply the fuge like that.
Okay, so back to the acrylic. I picked up 3 4x8 sheets (48"x96") and decided that I wanted to do everything myself. I think I made a mistake lol. My table saw is quite small and trying to slide a 48x96x1/4" sheet of acrylic by your self is not going to happen, and two people can't keep it straight enough. so I told the wife, load up, we're heading to Walmart! Went there and got me a new saw. Came home (after buying more crap, you can't go into walmart without spending a bill. YOu go in for Q-Tips and walk out with $800 worth of crap...) and put the blade on. once in the garage, I clamped down my guide, fired up the saw that was MUCH quieter than my old one (and I mean old, like 1940's old. Craftsman, ALL metal, no safety, but the base is loose. too loose to use on a guide). I started to cut and holy crap, I was getting pelted with a crap ton of little shards of death. Yup, that reminded me I didn't have safety glasses on lmao. Got those, started again and had to stop about 1/4 the way through it. Cutting this crap is friggin LOUD!!! But, I cut the rest of the piece.
I checked it with a straight edge, and sure enough, it was not straight. Didn't figure it would be with a hand saw, that is what the table saw is for. so I setup the fence on the table saw and ran it through. That was a mistake. Low tooth count, blade was too high (didn't know...) and there are HUGE chunks taken out of this piece. Okay, that didn't work so well. Just about that time, the heater ran out of diesel and it's about 30ºF outside so the garage is getting cold FAST. I look at the wife, sat the saw down and we came inside.
so I have two options. Both are expensive but one is proven to get good results. First, I can go to Lowes and purchase a high tooth count carbide blade. I'm talking 80+ teeth. I now know that I need to keep the blade pretty low to it's hitting it at a much steeper angle and not just ripping down through it like it did. The blade is $60+ depending on how good it is. Plus gas, which isn't much seeing as it's about a 60 mile round trip.
Next option, I go back and pay a nominal fee and just have the pros cut all fo the pieces to my specs. If they don't get it right, they have more acrylic to work with, I don't. They can even use a router on the edges and get them ready to be glued (with solvent) together. This is the MUCH easier way, but I don't know what their "fee" is, and we just went up to about a 100 mile round trip. And in a truck that gets 16mpg, it could add up. But, it's going to be perfectly cut on a table saw that is made for this.
So that is where I am now. Covered in plastic after only a couple cuts, ears still ringing (will wear ear plugs next time...) and a scrap 15x48" piece sitting in my shop with chips in it. I will use this for smaller projects, but still, it sucks. Anyway, I'm trying to figure this out as well as everything else. Just a day in the life of ME! lmao.
Here is the sump I'm using as a "kinda" template.
See next post for the sumps I own and are going to sell to help pay for my screw-up's that I'm making trying to learn acrylic lmao.
Well with this new aquarium, that is going to change. Or should I say, it is changing. Friday, the wife, kids and I went up to a plastics place in OKC and we purchased 3 sheets of 1/4" clear acrylic so that I could play around with it. Yup, my wife is that awesome lol. I'm going to be making a sump for my aquarium that better fits the stand. The one that came with the tank is a bio-ball sump, and I HATE bioballs. The one that I'm running right now I only paid $50 and I didn't even argue with the guy over the price. These things go for $250 EACH!$200 off for a sump that had a VERY small crack at the top that he fixed the correct way? Hell YEAH!
Well, I was happy then with it, but I'm not happy now about it. What changed you ask? It's the "stuff" that I have now. I didnt' have AnY of it when I got the sump, and it was plenty big enough for my needs. But now, I need something bigger. With my return pump (that is being upgraded to a larger one) to my HUGE skimmer, to the fuge that I had to take out of it because of the skimmer, it just needs to be bigger. See the picture in the next post to see the sump I'm running now, and the one out in the cellar with the bio-balls that I will NEVER run.
The sump I have now is 30x12(f-b)x16(H). The one that I'm going to build will be 40Lx15Dx18H. That will give me a total size of 46.75 gallons in the sump alone. Could I add more? Yup. But I'm not going to. I will keep the tank about half full when it's running, so that would give me a total of about 23 gallons of water, plus my 90 that's in the tank. Right now, I'm running about 10 gallons under the tank in the sump. In fact, the total volume of my current sump is 24.94 gallons and I'm running at just shy of half full. so as you can see, I'm about to double the size of my sump, hehe.
So I have been looking at a lot of different sump designs and they all have one thing in common, they all flow from one side to the other. Well, that is just wasted space IMO. Yes, you can fit some big stuff in there, but why make your sump flow in one direction with a constant water flow all the time. If you know anything about refugiums, you know that you can't go blasting a river through there, nothing will survive that is good for your tank. so you have to slow it down.
so what design did I settle with? Well, none of them. I'm going to use one of the designs that I found for the basic layout, but I'm going to change it up a bit by reversing where the inlet is and where the pump will sit. Right now it's on the right, I want it on the left. The intake to the sump that is. But, I LOVE the idea of putting a flow control off of the return pump to feed the fuge. That way you can control how much you want going in and out of the fuge. And since I'm going from a 950 gallon per hour (GPH) pump to a 1200GPH pump, I have the extra volume to supply the fuge like that.
Okay, so back to the acrylic. I picked up 3 4x8 sheets (48"x96") and decided that I wanted to do everything myself. I think I made a mistake lol. My table saw is quite small and trying to slide a 48x96x1/4" sheet of acrylic by your self is not going to happen, and two people can't keep it straight enough. so I told the wife, load up, we're heading to Walmart! Went there and got me a new saw. Came home (after buying more crap, you can't go into walmart without spending a bill. YOu go in for Q-Tips and walk out with $800 worth of crap...) and put the blade on. once in the garage, I clamped down my guide, fired up the saw that was MUCH quieter than my old one (and I mean old, like 1940's old. Craftsman, ALL metal, no safety, but the base is loose. too loose to use on a guide). I started to cut and holy crap, I was getting pelted with a crap ton of little shards of death. Yup, that reminded me I didn't have safety glasses on lmao. Got those, started again and had to stop about 1/4 the way through it. Cutting this crap is friggin LOUD!!! But, I cut the rest of the piece.
I checked it with a straight edge, and sure enough, it was not straight. Didn't figure it would be with a hand saw, that is what the table saw is for. so I setup the fence on the table saw and ran it through. That was a mistake. Low tooth count, blade was too high (didn't know...) and there are HUGE chunks taken out of this piece. Okay, that didn't work so well. Just about that time, the heater ran out of diesel and it's about 30ºF outside so the garage is getting cold FAST. I look at the wife, sat the saw down and we came inside.
so I have two options. Both are expensive but one is proven to get good results. First, I can go to Lowes and purchase a high tooth count carbide blade. I'm talking 80+ teeth. I now know that I need to keep the blade pretty low to it's hitting it at a much steeper angle and not just ripping down through it like it did. The blade is $60+ depending on how good it is. Plus gas, which isn't much seeing as it's about a 60 mile round trip.
Next option, I go back and pay a nominal fee and just have the pros cut all fo the pieces to my specs. If they don't get it right, they have more acrylic to work with, I don't. They can even use a router on the edges and get them ready to be glued (with solvent) together. This is the MUCH easier way, but I don't know what their "fee" is, and we just went up to about a 100 mile round trip. And in a truck that gets 16mpg, it could add up. But, it's going to be perfectly cut on a table saw that is made for this.
So that is where I am now. Covered in plastic after only a couple cuts, ears still ringing (will wear ear plugs next time...) and a scrap 15x48" piece sitting in my shop with chips in it. I will use this for smaller projects, but still, it sucks. Anyway, I'm trying to figure this out as well as everything else. Just a day in the life of ME! lmao.
Here is the sump I'm using as a "kinda" template.
See next post for the sumps I own and are going to sell to help pay for my screw-up's that I'm making trying to learn acrylic lmao.
