Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post

sfdan · 09/29/2017, 03:49 PM

And the project is rolling....

After some discussion with the wonderful tank builder (Envision Acrylics) who also built my 120, I'm pretty finalized on these dimensions:

96" long x 36" wide x 26" high. The thread title is already wrong as this will be closer to 330 gallons, but still should be more than big enough.

The decision behind limiting the height to 26" is that it allows for only 1 center brace, which is awesome. 30" high would have been great, as bigger is always better, but frankly in my current 120 I don't feel like 24" isn't deep enough and this will get me another couple of inches. Also as it turns out the place it is going only has 7' tall ceiling, so the extra 4" of space will actually be quite helpful so everything wont be so cramped.

So the design is an external overflow box on the far end, with a 2" gap (on the dry side) on the sides to allow for plumbing to run up the side of the tank and not be visible from the other end. Will use the beananimal design.

I plan to run only about 3-5x tank volume through the sump, so the overflow only needs to support about ~1500 gph maximum. It will be complete overkill but all the plumbing here will use 2" PVC, which will easily support that. For schedule 80 bulkheads this means holes of 3.18" diameter, which will easily fit in the overflow.

Pictures (cat for scale):

What the "front" view will be like, return pipes hidden in the 2" gap.

So in terms of my original goals I said I didn't want plumbing coming over the top. What I actually meant is I don't want any plumbing going in the main tank openings. I want the tank cover to be as sleek as possible, with no humps and bumps for plumbing or cords.

So with this design the return plumbing will come in through the bracing and have no obstructions in either of the 2 main openings. The PVC will also be spray painted black so it will hopefully blend into the background a little more.

09/29/2017, 03:49 PM	#2
sfdan Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: San Francisco Posts: 451	And the project is rolling.... After some discussion with the wonderful tank builder (Envision Acrylics) who also built my 120, I'm pretty finalized on these dimensions: 96" long x 36" wide x 26" high. The thread title is already wrong as this will be closer to 330 gallons, but still should be more than big enough. The decision behind limiting the height to 26" is that it allows for only 1 center brace, which is awesome. 30" high would have been great, as bigger is always better, but frankly in my current 120 I don't feel like 24" isn't deep enough and this will get me another couple of inches. Also as it turns out the place it is going only has 7' tall ceiling, so the extra 4" of space will actually be quite helpful so everything wont be so cramped. So the design is an external overflow box on the far end, with a 2" gap (on the dry side) on the sides to allow for plumbing to run up the side of the tank and not be visible from the other end. Will use the beananimal design. I plan to run only about 3-5x tank volume through the sump, so the overflow only needs to support about ~1500 gph maximum. It will be complete overkill but all the plumbing here will use 2" PVC, which will easily support that. For schedule 80 bulkheads this means holes of 3.18" diameter, which will easily fit in the overflow. Pictures (cat for scale): What the "front" view will be like, return pipes hidden in the 2" gap. So in terms of my original goals I said I didn't want plumbing coming over the top. What I actually meant is I don't want any plumbing going in the main tank openings. I want the tank cover to be as sleek as possible, with no humps and bumps for plumbing or cords. So with this design the return plumbing will come in through the bracing and have no obstructions in either of the 2 main openings. The PVC will also be spray painted black so it will hopefully blend into the background a little more.