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My 125 Male Peacock/Hap.. Pictures!

14K views 51 replies 10 participants last post by  S14Swap240sx 
#1 ·
Ok, so i got the tank, new.. with overflow and lids super cheap on craigslist, and wanted to keep everything on a strict budget. SOoooo my 125g build will have a diy stand, and also diy sump, which my current 55 gallon tank will be used as a sump, and the current stock will be switched over.

So here is the current 55g.. I have a couple fish in it.. benga yellow, vc10, blue dolphin, electric blue hap, 2 ob's and some other dudes.. total about 8 fish. I have been super excited to get a bigger tank, hopefully the vc10 will grow faster in its soon to be new home!



Filters are 2, eheim 2217's, korila circulation pump, big sponge filter.. eheim jager heater. Nitrates are dead low, this set up has been working well for me.

Here is the new tank



AND the stand build begins.. not before a lil giants football

 
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#27 ·
Welp.. had baffles grinded down another 1/16 of an inch.. so they say. and the glass place def didnt do exactly 1/16th. Two baffles fit fine.. two still need to be grinded down more.. there is a noticable diff in the width of the two that fit and the two that do not..

this whole glass baffle thing is getting annoying. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND anyone who is getting glass cut for a sump to order 1/8 smaller.. not 1/16.. I should have ordered 11 7/8 width for the 55g.. Back to the glass place, gonna order tops for the sump while i am there. at least they are super cheap but so many **** delays. My measuring, the crappy standard tanks are made of, and bad cutting on the glass place are all to blame. The pieces where not even fully square until i had them grind it again the first time.

Such a let down and so time consuming.
 
#32 ·
sump taking shape.. i cut slits into the pvc legs so water can flow in and out of em and i guess it essentially increased water volume. Better then buying something like acrylic cylinders cause i have a ton of pvc and its cheap



Have about zero time to get the glass regrinded for the baffles.. hopefully end of this week everything will be siliconed together and pvc pipes ran.. fill up the next week. after it all drys
 
#33 ·
Plumbing almost done



Sump.. gotta clean off some silicone, and add another brace under the egg crate holding the wet dry.. and then run water and test the sump



Full tank shot.. need to finish plumbing, test sump, add my airpump and clean clean clean clean

 
#36 ·
Azballa7 said:
What did you do for your background on the new tank?

And how much did the new setup cost you?
background is the slimline from design by nature.. total it was like 110 after shipping or something.. i ordered one sheet to many tho. have enough extra for a 40g breeder or something along those lines.. so that could have been like 35 dollars cheaper..

the tank, overflows, lids was 275 new..

stand was like 150 with glue,moldings, paint.

sump was 55 dollars, plus 130 plus 40 plus 50 for media and the heaters where like 23 each and rkl 113..

The setup with sand, media.. everything ran me about.. 800-1000 dollars..

what really made this expensive was skinning the stand.. the 1x pieces of wood and moldings came out to nearly 80-100 dollars
 
#38 ·




Tank is finally up and running.. the sump works very well! no need to bleed off water from the output.. everything seems to be working well and pretty quietly. I need to drill a row of bigger holes in the middle of the drip tray.. that should be the last tweak..

as far as those blue pool hoses, they all had slow drips, so i laid a think layer of silicone around the inside tube, and outside of the pvc, pressed on and clamped.. pretty much cured into a gasket and so far so good! not a drop of water anyway.

gonna bring up one of my eheim filters, that is well established and run it on the tank when i add a light stock of like 3-4 fish, and some of the rock from my main tank. Gonna pass on the fishless cycle for now... i have alot of established media waiting to get chucked in the system.
 
#42 ·
THey are going to be a on dimming circuit, i wanted to use 3w because i wanna give em a trial run before bringing them into my reef tank. Its going to be mild lighting for sure. more then half of what a reef tank would require.

bioballs are from kensfish
 
#43 ·
well i screwed up.. silicone was silicone 1 kitchen and bath.. WRONG! me and my brother are pissed..


lol talking about it..

neways i tore off the background, and took apart the sump. had to order new sump baffles, making some changes to it. and doing some sch80 updates to my intake pipes.. also reworking the filter sock mounts and sump to allow filter socks or poret foam.

Here are some pictures:

Tank cleaned and scraped:


new background going on again



baffles



plumbing for the canister filter eheim 2217.. going to paint the pvc flat black



Flexpvc, and unions.. bulkhead for intake where replaced from barb to threaded.. much much better.. thank god


the new silicone.. rtv108 (clear)



fda approved.. im gonna eat some for the **** of it
 
#44 ·
some pictures while i wait for the silicone to set..





comparing ge silicone 1 to ge (momentive) rtv100 series.. really no comparison.. the glass strips *** installed only have silicone on the upper portion until everything sets and i can scrape excess clean and also tape around the bottom pieces and handle the sump a bit more aggressively..

but neways, at 24 hours of cure time the first two pieces i have installed have no play in them what so ever.. its pretty incredible.. i read somewhere that the rtv was of a higher strength.. who knows in what terms. but im way more satisfied over this compared to ge silicone 1.

also i took advantage of this time to replace those pvc legs i had on the sump orginally.. aside from taking up a ton of room, silicone just doesnt stick em well to the glass.. even lightly scuffing them up. soo im doing a series of 3 glass strips long ways, with 2 on each end.. im hoping the center does not bow or flex much.. if thats the case a 3rd strip going across will be added down the middle.. but i did not want to make it to clutterly to easily remove whatever goes under the wet/dry.
 
G
#45 ·
fda approved means you can use it to make silicone molds for like chocolate.. not that you can eat it hahaha you funny as ****..

the background is still going to take awhile to cure cuz no air gets back there to speed up the curing process.. wait till you cant smell it anymore.. if you still smell it, its not done curing.. i dont care what anyone says
 
#46 ·
Just curious, how much silicone did you use for the background?
 
#47 ·
m1ke715m said:
fda approved means you can use it to make silicone molds for like chocolate.. not that you can eat it hahaha you funny as #%$&..

the background is still going to take awhile to cure cuz no air gets back there to speed up the curing process.. wait till you cant smell it anymore.. if you still smell it, its not done curing.. i dont care what anyone says
this tank aint getting water in it until march 19th when i get back from costa rica.. and then even at that point 50% water changes daily for a week and then i leave to nicaragua for like 10 days.. prob wont put anything in the tank until late april

the smell was very faint after 24 hours.. its pretty nice how fast this silicone cures.. still aint in no rush tho

neways when i first did the 3d background i used a tube for the middle, and half a tube for the sides... after taking it off with scrapers and anger.. that was way to much.. now when i reinstalled the center i used a mear 1/4 of a tube.. did a thick outline, with a thick x.. when you apply pressure with wood it spreads on the glass.. i also recoated the tank seams incase any residual old bad silicone fell on them. i prepped the glass with alochol an then dried it well.. and used a damp rag to clean the back of the 3d background.

i trimmed the background to a tight fit.. honestly i gotta say the silicone is prob just a safety net if anything

still tempted to eat this silicone.. wash down with jager.. im not sure which would be worse for you in the end.
 
#49 ·
m1ke715m said:
its not edible you spaz hahaha.. theres food grade silicone for making molds lmfao did you scrape all the old silicone off the back of the background?
No way.. i broke it off piece of piece with a scraped and small saw.. i have an extra sheet and part of another sheet that i didnt use. so i set that up in the tank.. and i was short half another piece so i got one more sheet from design by nature.. it came in today. gonna throw it on after 5.

been working on the sump during the day at work.





its coming out so good.. i guess cause its the second time around at this.
 
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