Mjoener's New Build Journal

[mjoener]

I've been having a rough start back into this hobby for the past year or so. Last last year or early this year I started back with a 5g, some of you may have seen that thread. I've been out of the game and community for quite some time. It's quite depressing. We bought a new house in April and I started my Master's degree program in August of 2013. So needless to say we have been super busy, with no time to keep up on such a small system.
I brought it with us into the new house but I was experiencing temperature issues and I was not able to monitor and solve the issues so I decided to frag it forward and step back from the hobby for awhile.





Fast forward to now.


I had a buddy moving his 40g system into a 29g biocube. He had basically DIYed the whole thing, canopy, overflow, sump, return.





Skimmer:
Tunze 9004


It's pretty dirty. I tried to clean it up but meh.

















The return pump is a Marine Land NJ 1800





He sold me everything which I plan on setting up, hopefully by the end of the year. This thread will be my planning journal.


That's all I have time for now. Next week I'll get some pics of lights and sump up.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Good luck with the new setup!!

 

[revhtree]

Following!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

This should be an interesting build to watch! Following!

 

[mjoener]

Thanks for tagging along!

Now that I know people are following this, it might push me to get thing done!

I'm really torn because PetCo is doing the $1/gallon sale! I'm into that!

The location for the tank in my home would lend itself to a couple different options. I would really like to do a peninsula setup. But a cube might also work. I might take some pics of the area to get some feedback. I don't even know if PetCo carries cubes...

I think the skimmer is rated for like up to 65 gallons. So that limits me a little bit. What I have is a 30g, which is pictured, and a 10g as a sump/ref. I'm not a huge fan of the black paint on the back, which rules out the peninsula option. The 10g sump/ref is custom made by the same friend, and the silicone is coming loose, so I will need to redo it anyways.

Any suggestions?

 

[T&DCorals]

Sorry just new to the hobby and wanted to know what a peninsula tank works be. Thanks

 

[mjoener]

It's a tank that usually juts out from a wall, making three sides visible

 

[mjoener]

My friend was running this skimmer for almost a year on this set up. So I'll be staying with the original capacity of 40g, hopefully the skimmer will get the job done. I'll play around with this skimmer for awhile as it will have to do for now.


Here is the sump. It's a 10g with some customer acrylic inserts.






Here are the LEDs that I will be using and the manual: http://www.taotronics.com/media/downloads/62-80000-001.pdf

 

[mjoener]

I just noticed that there is a small crack on one of the sides of the 10g sump/refug. I'll try and get a pic up here to show it. Do you think that I should scrap it and get a new one? PetCo is having that $1/gallon sale still, it might be worth it to get like a 20L to use, that would add to my overall volume to 50g as well. Can my skimmer handle 50g? At least for a little bit? I might upgrade the skimmer down the road.

I also am having issues with placement. The room that I want to place the tank, is eventually going to be a movie room. I also created a layout in paint which I will upload later to show you guys what I'm working with. Any feedback will be pretty helpful.

 

[mjoener]

This is my downstairs layout. I think my best bet is the 94" wall. What do you think?

 

[mjoener]

So this happened when I was cleaning the skimmer.



I hope it did screw up the whole thing. I plan on testing it tonight. Which me luck!

 

[mjoener]

I tested the skimmer in a bucket and what do ya know, that tube being separated was no big deal, from what I can tell.

I also threw the rest of the stuff in a 5g bucket with some white vinegar to soak for a couple nights.

I'm not sure if the plumbing tube and hose will be used for this build or not, but at least they'll be clean.

 

[mjoener]

I moved some photobucket pics around so here are the LEDs again just to have on here.

 

[mjoener]

Here's the stand that I made.







Concerned it will tip.

 

[mjoener]

Got the "wrap" of the stand completed and bottom screwed in.