# My DIY Tnk Poject (DIY Sub, Overflow Box,scenery, stand)



## bigcountry10

*My DIY Tank Poject (DIY Sub, Overflow Box,scenery, stand)*

I'm kind of a novice to the aquarium world, I had a 40 gallon tank setup about 10 years ago with some jacks, which was a mild success , other than the fact that I was a lazy kid and didn't always take care of it like I should have. The demise of the tank finally came when the wire spool I had the tank on eventually collapsed sending a metal rod through the bottom of the tank, makes me cringe just thinking about the mess. But anyways now that you know about my greatest failure in the aquarium world, I would like to show you what hopes to be my triumphant return to the hobby.

This time around I really wanted to do this right, so I have been really reading up on aquariums and how to successfully get one going and manage one. Along the way I decided that a sub tank filtration system was the best way to go, but I'm not the type of person to just go out and buy one. Number one they are far too expensive, and number two I love to tinker so I decided to make one up myself. So I went online to YouTube and various other sites and looked into how sub filters, and refugiums work, and finally came up with a plan and put it together and here it is.

*Explaining the design: 20 gallon long sub*

*A.* water enters tank from this section and starts filtering by way of a wet dry system using either sponges or bioballs and air stones. then passes through the first bubble trap. 
*B.* water pours over bubble trap and enters the second filtration section of the tank most likely a mechanical form of filtration will be used in this section or a plant form. once the water level rises the water will pour into section C.
*C.* Section C imitates a shallow stream which will either use wet dry filtration like section one or some type of mechanical not sure yet.
*D.* Section D is a bit of a pain I should have put the stream system on a hinge or slotted it to overlap the middle divider so I could lift it up, but I didn't so not sure what I'm going to put in this section(Note I can fit my hand inside it's just a little tight). I might end up using this section for plants since I wouldn't really need to get my hands in there, the only problem is that if I use mechanical filtration before the plants I might rob the plants of some nutrients. 
*E.* This section is where the return pump with go to bring the water back up to the tank. 



The tank stand ( Image below) I created over the summer consists of a frame made from 2x4's and is covered by oak, which was salvaged from old pallets. 



I am now currently working on an overflow box which should hopefully be completed by the end of the week when it is I will post some pictures and explain it. My planes for this thread are to show the progress of my tank setup and get some constructive criticism on some of my ideas and maybe what I could do to make them better , I have already been working on my setup for the past 6 months and expect it to at least take another six. so hope you guys enjoy the thread.


----------



## baeya

I love your ideas! Thanks for sharing and good luck with the finishing touches!


----------



## snail

Love the stand, simple but handsome.


----------



## AquaOverflow

Best of luck with your build. I have been building overflow boxes for years, so let me know if you get stuck or have any questions.


----------



## jrman83

Seems a little ellaborate, but as long as it works. Stand looks awesome. What size tank is going to be on it? Looks about like the footprint of a 90g or maybe a little larger.


----------



## Don

Awesome looking stand.


----------



## bigcountry10

Thanks for the posts guys, I'm just about done with the overflow box. I have the external drain section done, today I'm going to work on the actual overflow box today hopefully by tomorrow or Tuesday I can start testing the system out, I'm going to add a valve in the system so I can adjust the water flow rather than just hoping I use the right sized pipe. The tank to answer your question jrman83 is actually a 55 gallon short, I like tanks that have a lot of floor space.


----------



## bigcountry10

Sorry it's taken so long to update the post guys, I finished the overflow box a few days ago, but haven't had any time to post any pics, so here you go. The three PVC siphon pipes are 3/4 inch which I have read is rated to 220 gallons per hour, my pump is supposed to put out 350 gallons per hour so I put in 3 siphons just in case one gets clogged.

I made the drainage pipes so they can fit a ,whole house filtration cartridge, I just cut the cartridge in 3rd's so I can get a few uses out of one of them. I also put in a four way junction where the two drains connect, and just have a plug in the top section just in case it gets clogged. I also added a coupler to the bottom drainage section to allow for easy cleaning. 
if you guys have any more questions just ask, here are the picks.


----------



## GraphicGr8s

bigcountry10 said:


> Thanks for the posts guys, I'm just about done with the overflow box. I have the external drain section done, today I'm going to work on the actual overflow box today hopefully by tomorrow or Tuesday I can start testing the system out, *I'm going to add a valve in the system* so I can adjust the water flow rather than just hoping I use the right sized pipe. The tank to answer your question jrman83 is actually a 55 gallon short, I like tanks that have a lot of floor space.


Why would you need, or want a valve in the overflow?

Why the two baffles?


----------



## bigcountry10

I didn't end up putting the valve in the system because I found that the 1 1/2 inch pvc allowed for more than enough flow through my system. I put in two different baffles just for insurance purposes (worst case scenario) in case one of them became clogged the other would take all the flow.


----------



## jrman83

How do your overflow pipes maintain suction? It also looks like your water level will have to be pretty high for the overflow box to operate....there doesn't appear to be adjustability in it. Good craftsmanship....hope it works for you.


----------



## bigcountry10

The way this type of siphoned works is fairly simple, but also a little complex : ). It took me a few hours to figure it out myself, I really didn't like the method most people use for DIY overflows like this one. I just really didn't like all that PVC in my tank It just looked way to tacky to me. 












and I had seen these types of overflow boxes on the internet, but never a DIY version it was always a commercial grade. So I spent a few hours one day in the kitchen with a bunch of PVC a few containers and a lot of towels : ) trying to figure it out, and here's what I discovered.












With this type of siphon the water flows very fast due to the difference in height so it displaces water efficiently. The problem with this design is that because there's so much momentum behind the suction when container A runs out of water it sucks in air and destroys the siphon, so when container A refills with water the siphon is broken and causes the system to fail. though I did find that if the pipe was kept completely level sometimes it would keep minimal suction, but the suction was very minimal.












This type of siphon ( the toilet siphon, named because it's the same way your toilet works at home) is probably one of the cheapest and easiest siphons to reproduce, but in my opinion still has a few problem with its mechanics and isn't very visually appealing. The biggest problem with this type of siphon is that it can still suck air, ever time the water level drops below the drain pipe the water level drops to the bottom of the first curve. which in turn allows for air bubbles though minimal amounts to travel up inside to the second curve. This action over time without a bleeder could cause the siphon to break. Some people even go so far as to add an air pump to suck the air out of the second curve which causes your tank setup to cost that much more both initially and monthly (electrical costs), not to mention the added noise pollution generated by the air pump. The other problem I had with this design was the drain both because of the chance of it clogging (heaven forbid) from a fish dying , causing the tank to overflow and because the noise it makes from the water flowing into it. Finally I couldn't justify spending several hundred dollars on a tank setup just to have an unsightly amount of PVC inside of my tanks. I know this system is way cheaper than making an overflow box out of Plexiglas and you could just mask the pipes with rock our something, but I just really didn't like it. 












finally I was really studying the commercial style siphon, it was very intriguing to me it was simple and sleek just a curved pipe. So I set up two mason jars filled them with water then put a pipe line in and tried to make a siphon ,water flowed through but it wouldn't suck all the water out of container A into container B they would just equalize in water levels then the siphon would stop. But the suction would stay in the tube. 












So I looked all around the internet for an explanation, 2 hours later and I finally found a video on YouTube explaining how these systems worked . Basically what happens is when section A and B are equal there is no water flow because the pressure in the system is the same all the way through. But as soon as you add more water to section A the system has to equalize out again so the siphon sucks just enough water from section A into section B and if section B has enough water in it will overflow into section C allowing for the whole system to work. So in this system the siphon tube never becomes exposed to air allowing for the system to run indefinitely even if the power goes out and there are no drainage noises, because the system remains underwater at all times. In my opinion this is the perfect siphoning system.






















So there's your answer JRman83, it's a little long, but being a DIY thread I wanted to cover all the bases. ​


----------



## jrman83

Well, I hope it works for you. I still see the need for adjustability in the level of the box inside the tank, otherwise you have to do it by adjusting the water level. The way you have it the water level in the tank has to stay pretty high in order to flow water into the box initially. As soon as your water level drops, which it will do pretty quickly once it begins to flow, you loose flow into your box. This is the failsafe, but given how tight you have it you will not be able to account for much evaporation at all. If you look at the picture of a box you posted and you look at the area where the box rest on the tank rim, you'll see 2 plastic screws. These are used to fine tune the flow in the box and vary the depth of it within the tank. Your box doesn't look like it allows for that...unless there is something I am not seeing.


----------



## bigcountry10

Good point I didn't think about the adjustability aspect, I might lower the overflow box a little, the only thing is either way it would be a pain, either I have to constantly add more water every day to account for my fixed box, or you would constantly have to adjust the height on the adjustable overflow to account for evaporation. Either way they seem to both have drawbacks to me.
But thanks I'm definitely going to maul the idea over in my head about lowering the overflow box.


----------



## jrman83

It's not a pain really. If I see your box correctly, it looks as if the water has to be very close to the rim of the tank....even farther than most people prefer to fill them. Putting adjustability into the box allows to just throw it up there, adjust for flow and you're done. You have have to start off with a VERY full tank to get it going before your box may get the needed flow into it in order to operate correctly. When I had one on my tank....if I had let the tank go 2wks without putting any water in, I was still able to adjust the box down to get it under the water level. Ideally, I guess your box would need to be able to go 3-4" into the tank below the rim and then have the adjustability, like tightening those screws on the other box, to adjust it up.


----------



## bigcountry10

I understand what you are saying but it shouldn't be an issue, even where my box stands as it is it has a 1 inch clearance from the bottom of the overflow holes to the bottom of the plastic rim. The box itself contains 25 - 1/2 inch holes and half inch PVC is ruled to put out 90 GPH so that allows for a total of 2250 GPH which my tank will never get anywhere near, so at worse the water level might come as close to 7/8th to the bottom of the trim. 


plus all I need to do to get the system up and running is fill the tank up to just under the overflow box, fill these two sections (in the picture, red) with water prime the siphons, turn on the pump, and add just enough water to the sump tank to make the water overflow into the overflow box. so it basically works like a drilled out tank. I do agree I will have to pay attention to the water level a little more, but I plan on putting in a fixed Styrofoam background so I wouldn't really be able to adjust the overflow all that easy anyways.


----------



## bigcountry10

Hey everyone sorry it's been a long time since my last post, but I had to save up enough money to start the next step of my build. Over the last few months I have been working on the hood of the tank and sculpting the backdrop. I finally finished both this week. I'm going to apply the backdrop tonight and then start coating the Styrofoam backdrop with quickcrete tomorrow. I'm getting really excited, because everything is starting to come together. I'm hoping to have fish in the tank by around may. here are some pic's of the lid and the backdrop, please post any comments, or questions.


----------



## Summer

It's coming along quite nicely! thanks for sharing the pics as you go along. I really like teh background.


----------



## artur_berger

Very nice!!


----------



## bigcountry10

Hi everyone, I'm done with the background, it took me about two days to finish. I put on a total of 5 coats of quikrete with acrylic sealer. I waited about 4 hours between coats to allow for the coats to set up. Everything went fairly well other than I had a small crack form around the return pipe, and I didn't measure the location of the return pipe to the hood, which turned out to be a big problem because one of the supports met right up against the pipe so I had to notch the support out a little. other than that the tank is coming along nicely right now I'm soaking the background, I'm doing half change outs every other day for about 3 weeks. I'm also throwing some carbon in the water, to help absorb any extra chemicals. here are some picks of what it looks like.


----------



## snail

Thanks for the update, look forward to seeing it up and running.


----------



## Galvatron898

wow thats really nice looking


----------



## jrman83

Is the pipe on the right the return pipe? If so, where does the water come out? Looks completely enclosed to me. Have you tested your filtration yet?


----------



## Arayba

that looks amazing great work


----------



## Reefing Madness

Got a question for you, maybe i just missed it, but, why are you going to have so many chambers in your sump?


----------



## bigcountry10

hey guys, Sorry I havent posted in a while I've been real busy with work. Got a few minutes before i'm gonna go to bed so decided to answer your questions. To answer you question Jrman83 if you look on the right side about mid way along the background there are four small holes they are the outlets. To answer your question Reefing Madness the reason why i have some many chambers is..... I dont know  just decided to do 4 instead of 3. Im thinking about trying some new ideas i have had for filtration in one of the sections so i made another one, so we will see what happens.


----------



## whitetiger61

not sure i would have done your return outlets that way..on a system like this anything that restricts fow on the system is called head( the amount of flow lost between the return pump and the waters final destination...the tank) anything can restrict flow,, 90 elbows, length op piping to the display, if your return pip isnt lined up with anyone of those hole thats going to restrict flow to the tank. system will still work as long as water can get to your overflow box, but i think your going to find out the tank does'nt have much flow at all,,and monitor the fill the first time..if water cant get to that overflow..you will have a overflow on your hands..good luck..let us know how it works.

Rick


----------



## bigcountry10

Not sure if I quite understand what you saying whitetiger61, but I think what you are thinking is that the return pipe just ends behind the background and that I just cut four holes in the background for the water to go through ? If that's what you are thinking then it's wrong, what I did is I have another 90 and then a straight pipe with a cap on the end. Then I drilled 4 holes in the pipe and matched them up with the backgrounds holes and epoxyed the pipe in place. So the water flowing out of the holes comes directly from the return line. I have been testing the system for about a month now to and it works quite nicely. The only problem I have been having is that I am losing about a quart of water a day in evaporation is this normal? I was told by a friend it's because I live in an upstairs apartment and they tend to be very dry due to having heat sources all around our place. I also don't have the hood on it right now so that probably doesn't help, any advice ?


----------



## whitetiger61

i didnt see that posted in your thread..so you should be just fine..and with living upstairs and no hood that evaporation rate is normal..i have a 50 cube with a open top and my evap rate is about 1/2 gallon per day. but im seeing that go down with the led's now. nice setup. keep us posted and im sorry if i didnt read it right.

Rick


----------



## bigcountry10

Not a problem, I like your setup, I was looking at your galleries last night, did you make those tanks yourself ? If so where do you buy your glass, I eventually want to build my own tank. But I can't seem to find a place that sells glass at a reasonable price.

By the way I forgot I did have one hiccup about a month ago. I forgot to put in an anti siphon hole in the return line and had turned off the pump to do a complete water change. left the room for about a minute or so and then heard my wife start to scream in horror. Took me about an hour to clean it up . I now have a anti siphon hole.


----------



## whitetiger61

i built a few of them but not all...just went to my local glass shop with dimensions and had them cut it..they even sanded the edges for me..it can get expensive, but not as expensive as acrlyic..yeah i forgot to ask about a anti- siphoning hole..lol..makes you feel any better ive made that mistake too. Thanks for the compliments..its appericiated.

Rick


----------



## Mr_Pat

<---- Also guilty of forgetting the anti Syphon hole on y first system i put on my 190.. luckily the tank was in a basement so it wasn't that bad to clean up <aka floor drains FTW> I'm guessing you have an Acrylic Bender or are you using a heat gun to bend your acrylic? also are you using silicone to hold the acrylic together or did you buy the acrylic "glue". I know i used some stuff from TAP plastics for my acrylic stuff. smells like acetone to me but i believe there is more to it than that.


----------



## bigcountry10

lol nope, I used a butane torch and my stove top to bend the acrylic, im pretty low tech, I've been doing everything in my 2 bedroom apartment.I didnt show it but the hood i made has all handmade joints, took me a long time with just chisels but turned out very nice. Next time im going to use my oven to do a lot of the bends never really thought about it, but thats what the big companies do for giant sheets.

I used acrylic glue to bond everything together, but then I sealed it all with silicon just to make sure.


----------



## Reefing Madness

Silicone isn't go to do much for sealing a Acrylic plate, Weld-On on the other hand bonds the sheets together.


----------



## beaslbob

I'm way late to the dance on this one but did want to complement you on your work. Looks very interesting and a great setup.

To anyone viewing this thread you might want to consider the "beaslbob trap" which is a pvc overflow similiar to the post on the firs page here.

See: http://www.aquariumforum.com/f37/pvc-overflow-3492.html

then that thread is 3 years old also. *old dude

my .02


----------



## Reefing Madness

DIY Overflow Using Only PVC Pipe (DIY OVERFLOW PROJECTS)


----------



## Mr_Pat

yeah i figured you had used the acrylic glue but i wanted to check. I have built a few odds an ends with acrylic.. was actually looking into a heat strip bender.. that way you arent heating the whole sheet for the bends. and yes the silicone seal is a smart idea. given that the acrylic glue seals things pretty good the silicone insurance policy doesnt hurt.


Nice work on this by the way. It looks good.


----------



## beaslbob

bigcountry10 said:


> Not a problem, I like your setup, I was looking at your galleries last night, did you make those tanks yourself ? If so where do you buy your glass, I eventually want to build my own tank. But I can't seem to find a place that sells glass at a reasonable price.
> 
> By the way I forgot I did have one hiccup about a month ago. I forgot to put in an anti siphon hole in the return line and had turned off the pump to do a complete water change. left the room for about a minute or so and then heard my wife start to scream in horror. Took me about an hour to clean it up . I now have a anti siphon hole.


been there done that.

added a anti-siphon hole also. and in another case just had the return lines above the water line.

my .02


----------



## whitetiger61

i have a question..is this going to be a saltwater or freshwater tank?

Rick


----------



## bigcountry10

freashwater, im a novice and i dont have the money to afford a saltwater tank just yet


----------



## ryan e

Very nice work


----------



## whitetiger61

bigcountry10 said:


> freashwater, im a novice and i dont have the money to afford a saltwater tank just yet


what is going to be your filter medium..in order to effectively filter with plants in the sump you will need a butt load of plants down there, and light down there for them..i tried this..and i found its just way to much work for a hobby and actually became a job..you get dead plant matter in the return pump all the time.even with baffles..that stuff seems to always find its way to the pump.
dont get me wrong it works really well but to me just not worth the effort where my tank was to to risk overflow on the system.. i might this spring try to figure a way to keep stuff out of the pump but for right now..tank sits empty.

Rick


----------



## bigcountry10

For right now I probably won't have any plants in the actual sump, I'm thinking later on down the road of doing some very low light plants hydroponically, or (just had this idea) growing edible sprouts over top of the water. But anyways for now this is what I'm planning on doing for the filtrations.
A. This section of the filter is the inlet, I'm going to do bioballs in this section I'm building the drip tray for it right now and reworking the drain pipe to suit.
B. In this section I'm going to put a foam filter to trap any large particulate that may have gotten past the initial water filters in the overflow box.
C. This section is going to be for testing, for now I'm going to try a moving bed filter with cut straws. I might try a fluidized sand filter in it later.
D. Not sure what I'm going to do in this section yet, might do the hydroponics. 
E. This section is for the heater and any other equipment.
F. Probably going to put some type of polishing filter in this section.
G. Probably leave this section just for the return pump.


----------



## bigcountry10

Hi everyone, just wanted to give you a few updates on the build, I'm drawing the project to a close now. I finished the hood last week, I put 3 coats of polyurethane on the inside and 1 on the outside to keep it waterproof. I finished the wet/dry section of the filtration system, and wrapping up the rest over the next few days. Still working on the fluidized bed filter I thought I could achieve it just using bubble agitation but it didn't work. I bought a circulation pump to put in the main tank which helped out a lot since then the water is super clear. I also bought the substrate for the tank which you will see in the photos.
heres some pics.


----------



## deaver

nice writeup, very interesting read too, thanks for taking the time to share.


----------



## DL Lawrence

Very cool- I just came upon this thread, running searches for "sump filter" to learn more about that whole deal. How's this tank coming along? Any update for us? Thanks!


----------



## bigcountry10

Hey guys, sorry I never really did cap this post off, I wrote another post in the general section showing the progress so I will paste a link to it. So far the system has ran great, I did get one small leak from the over hang about a month ago, but its just dripping into the sump so its all good . But heres the link and if any of you have any questions please just message me, I have learned a lot from this build and had a lot of fun doing it. My goal is to do a 200-300 gallon within the next 3 years, tank and all. 

http://www.aquariumforum.com/f2/my-aquarium-experience-so-far-39090.html


----------

