Thar she blows!!!

[sfsuphysics]

Well time has come, yesterday, the acrylic baffle I had in my glass sump finally blew out. It held for a couple years with silicone, shortly after one side came off a little, then the other pushing it forward, well I simply used a piece of PVC to push it back, and it was fine, sure stuff leaked out the sides a bit but the water came from the tank faster than it could leak through so it actually served the purpose of a baffle (which in this case is to keep a constant water level for my skimmer). Well it's finally gone, there's no way to rig together a solution either. Time for a new sump design.

So I'm thinking of using a 40g glass I have instead of the 55g... the 55 is slender and long (12" x 48" which is kind of nice except my skimmer choice is pretty much fixed because nothing fatter will fit in there (not that I'm thinking of changing anytime soon anyways ). Well I really don't want to do acrylic again... same reason, I was thinking about PVC sheeting, unfortunately TAP is closed today, and I really want to try and get it done today...

Then it hit me.. glass! No not what you think, I dismissed glass initially because cutting it is a pain... HOWEVER! I have a 40g glass tank (technically 38) of the same exact dimensions I was going to use for a sump quite a few years ago... well long story short I broke one pane of it so never used it... AND!!!! I held onto that piece of junk tank near the garbage cans all this time... well it so happens one pane that's not broke is the exact inside dimensions of the other tank... all that I need to do is cut the top down (since it's also the same height) but damnit to hell this might actually work... in a slick way too!

Although I can't find my dremel still... so I might just go buy a new one, cheapy version (I still know where all the diamond cutting wheels are though), I need to pick up some silicone anyways to glue it together.

Now in retrospect I really would rather have a larger sump, however I'm not quite ready for that now...

Ok, pictures and such to come later...

 

[Raddogz]

Cool!

I have one baffle in the sump that doesn't reach all the way to the bottom of the tank. A scrap piece of acrylic is propped up and held in place by water pressure.

Since then I don't throw away scrap glass or acrylic neva eva

 

[Elite]

Man the title scared me... I thought your big tank blows ..

 

[sfsuphysics]

Hehe Phong... well unfortunately I did a booboo, I tried to remove the bracing.. and man theres a lot of silicone around it... well the pane I was going to use made that "click" sound.. and I knew it was all over... a nice long crack the entire length of it... oh well I still have 2 other sides to use.. just need to do a little more cutting... I still need some glass shields for a couple DE pendants, so I think I can salvage the glass.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Geezus Christ I hate glass, I cut my width fine, a few rough spots here and there but hey I'll goop the seam up with silicone, then I cut the height... and for some reason it broke at the wrong way near the end and made a big ol detour... so there's a fricking slant on one side.. although I think I can salvage it because the top piece is large enough to reinforce and goop some silicone in there.. ok I'm just making excuses, but I am going to try to salvage it. After all it's just a sump baffle, if it fails then I need to make a new one is all.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Ok as promised pictures...

So here's the blow out if you will.. the water level wasn't terribly different on either side of the partition but enough to blow it out... here's my lovely algae turf scr... ah hell I won't lie it's green algae that grows in my sump, probably because sunlight is shining into it. Hell my skimmer body is covered in the stuff! I think the next incarnation of sump I might put something up to block the light in the skimmer compartment.

My nicely newly cleaned out area under the stairs for storage, I was ordered to move these out of the laundry room... however in my defense it's also my fish room... yes dear I'll move them... although they didn't stay there long! I'll choose the 40.

Low and behold, here's an identical 40! I've held onto this bugger for at least 3 years, thinking I could fix it, or something.. actually it was in the garage out of the way so I didn't care... but one pane was gone, doesn't matter the other pane is the perfect size, all I need to do is trim a couple inches off the top.

Unfortunately there's still the trim around the top, so need to remove that.... awww CRAP... yeah my bad, too much pressure in the center, didn't realize the top part was cracked... oh well, I actually do have a use for these pieces! This just means I need to cut the long directions up... no problem.

First cut and snap, nice.. second... AWW CRAP AGAIN! You can see the line that I WANTED the glass to break along, unfortunately I don't think I cut deep enough, and the glass had other ideas where it wanted to break. But it's ok I can salvage this, silicone this to the other piece, should enhance the strength, make sure I place it in the way that the pressure squeezes them together... yeah basically I don't want to have to cut another piece.

Finally here we go, siliconed into place, nice clean lines... well mostly.. let this bad boy cure for a week before I put it to work... no problem it should be great... but hey it's not like this is preventing water from getting on the floor, so no biggy if it does fail... I'll just have to go through all this stuff again.