Double the water, Double the fun!

[SoggyNW]

So this has been in the works for a while. I've had my 40b set up for over 5 years now and it is busting at the seams. The wife is completely opposed to a larger tank in the house so the compromise is a frag tank in the garage.

So the plan is this. The current setup is a 40 gallon display with plumbing through the wall to a 20 gallon sump in the garage. I'm going to upgrade the sump to a 40 breeder and then put another 40 breeder on a stand above the new sump.

Pic of the display tank.

So this is how the original sump was set up. It lived on the bottom self if our garage pantry storage. The storage shelves and food are being relocated to a different wall. Tried to draw kinda how the plumbing goes and where the display is.

I picked up a shop table off Amazon that is supposed to have a 2000lb capacity, I won't be even 1/4 that so I'm feeling pretty good about the table.

I'm a budget diy, simple sump kinda guy. All I need is a sock champer, main chamber, return chamber, no fancy over under baffles. I had some sheets of thin acrylic that I liberated from the dump at work and this is my first fail. It worked great on my 20 gallon sump to simply flex the acrylic for added rigidity and glue it real good. Trying that on the 40 though it failed on the first fill attempt. So the old sump went back in place and I had to buy thicker acrylic and redo the baffles.

Took a lot longer than I hoped but I've got the sump and stand in place.

 

[1112-425XL]

Looks good!
Following...

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[SoggyNW]

Ok, next step was drilling for the overflow which I seem to have not taken any pictures of. It's an Eshopps Eclipse Medium, always takes way longer to drill than I expect.

I want my kids to like the tanks and feel like they are involved. I had my son and daughter finger paint the outside back and bottom of the tank and once it dried i spray painted over it with black. It came out way better than I hoped and the kids think it's their tank so win win.

I was stuck on the analysis paralysis wheel over the lights for ever. I'm a budget guy but darn are the nice light nice, I was unhappy with the options within my budget and kept straying over to the expensive lights. Finally I said forget it and got the Smatfarms which were the cheapest acceptable lights. Holy cow are these light punching above their price tag. The even spread is ridiculous and they are more than bring enough. Little modification to mount them to the wall and I couldn't be happier.