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Yay 3rd tank upgrade in this house

HiFidelity

HiFidelity

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Yup, time for my 3rd one. For a little while now my 2nd tank has been in the garage after my 1st tank (after moving into this place) broke.

I'll keep it simple for starters because I seek advice on configuration and starting construction soon so I need to finalize my plans.

What is not variable;

57g rimless tank in-wall where an old wet bar used to be

flush woodwork covering light and the bottom around the tank but I will probably leave a gap above the tank since it's rimless and I like watching the surface as much as I do the front. In the bottom part bellow the DT will be a 2nd tier housing a 12g mr aqua rimless (display fuge or clean looking frag tank) covered with a tinted glass door so when lights go out in the bottom it's just black down there.

Also there is an under-staircase closet right next to DT that is going to become the utility room. RO/DI & mixing station in the garage plumbed to the utility room.

Variables:

basically everything inside the utility room. I got some great advice in another thread about how to waterproof the whole thing but I'm still not firm on what I'm putting in it, I do know I need to have my water and dosing reservoirs in there, sump, fuge or frag tank and of course all electronics and gadgetry.

THE BIG QUESTION haha

Would a 50G sump be overkill for a 57G DT? the back of the closet is quite useless considering the height is only about 20" which happens to be the height of my current 50G (19x19x35" glass). I was first thinking I would make a sump out of a 22g acrylic tank but putting this bigger tank all the way in the back wouldn't take up much more room. What a luxury I thought it would be to put any size skimmer I want on this thing and basically do a pretty large fuge in a sump that would comfortably hold whatever equipment I throw in it while still having a small intricate display fuge out front.

Would that be a good idea or just run it additionally to a conventional sump as a massive fuge or frag tank? If I did use it as a fuge/sump then I'd have 2 fuges and would still need to run an auxiliary frag tank unless I scratch the idea of a display fuge in favor of a frag tank which I'm not favoring at the moment....

Share your thoughts with me :) I start on the framing soon and waterproofing so I'll have to know for sure what goes into the utility room and where so I can account for it when doing the first layer which is waterproofing walls & floor.

Here's the bar before I tear it down and that's the door to the closet aka utility room
IMG_20160103_160244.jpg


The view from the couch (pardon the mess, just finishing up a renovation project on the opposite side of this floor)
IMG_20160103_160305.jpg
 
Awesome man. I'm sure you haven't forgotten abou electrical work? Hope you don't have to do any, but probably gotta do that befor waterproofing the walls if you're going to. I say use the big sump. Why not?
 
Why of course I'd have to do electrical haha, not sure yet because I haven't stripped any of the drywall. I plan for 4 or 6 GFCI outlets on a dedicated 12ga line straight to the breaker box on a dedicated breaker. I'm almost sure the current outlets do not have a dedicated line so I expect to have to do some wiring but I already have a clear route planned all the way to the box :)

There is nothing about the electrical that is new to me, should be peanuts. I'm more worried about setting up all the equipment, plumbing, waterproofing and carpentry that is to come...
 
I am a fan of over-size sumps if you have the room.
Adds stability, lots of equipment space, easy to work in.
They can become a tank in themselves, with frags, fish, and whatnot.
Only downsize is that water changes increase in size proportionally.

I ran dual tanks in the garage for a while. (Sump + Fuge)
New setup has one large sump.
It was a pain. Many issues.
Plumbing between them was a hassle.
Two small tanks, so issues placing equipment.
Basically, a lot of extra parts and pieces, for no real benefit.
So IMO, not recommended.

You can never have enough outlets. Preferably each with its own GFCI.
 
I dug around in the garage, low & behold I already had a roll of armored 12 gauge cable and 2 dual GFCI outlets (total of 4 sockets) so all I need is a circuit breaker and I think my box already had a few unused ones in there so woohoooo on that end.

I'm pretty much 90% sure I'm going with the massive sump option mainly due to the fact that it can take up so much more siphon water from DT thus making the system even more leak proof, I figured I'd divide it into 3 chambers, fuge 19x19x16" and another two chambers roughly 8x19" each and here lies a HUGE advantage because I get a large fuge, whatever pump I could ever need and pretty much any size skimmer with plenty of room still for a 2nd pump to feed aux tank, sensors, switches and even algae scrubber, all within a 19x35 footprint :D Furthermore this allows me to actually walk into the closet considering no tank will be sitting on the sides, just electronics & liquid holding containers I figured I could even throw a small sink in there against the wall & connect it to existing plumbing.

I can live with a display frag tank in the 12g Mr. aqua under DT instead of Display Fuge, this image is kind of similar to what I'm going for:

945546_10154391835644325_9017453236653024712_n.jpg
 
+1 on oversized sump. I converted a 125 tank into a massive sump I designed for a 250 gal reef. It has (from left to right) a return section, huge skimmer section, fuge, & a fresh water section hooked up to ato.
 
I can soooooo relate to that statement, some here might recall when I first joined this group I was piss broke begging people for a job, took any hand outs I could get (equipment, livestock, etc.) and I spent A LOT of time on what simple of a poor tank I had haha. Fast forward to today, I've bought every single thing I need for this new build, literally down to the rocks & sand and that special cement for scaping (the name has escaped my mind) but this was nearly a year ago now, all these items are sitting in my garage collecting dust waiting for my mercy to put them together :confused: and all the BAR events I've missed, it's depressing sometimes but I must continue to pay the bills :mad:
 
On a brighter note, I finished remodeling the entire first floor short of new hardwood floors (leaving it as absolute last step) so in terms of this build, the house is ready for it, my tank is ready for it, I am not lol
 
Here's a good trick life has taught me. Give away or sell the tank, then all of a sudden you will have time to install it once it's gone. Then all you gotta do is buy a new one...
 
HiFidelity said:
On a brighter note, I finished remodeling the entire first floor short of new hardwood floors (leaving it as absolute last step) so in terms of this build, the house is ready for it, my tank is ready for it, I am not lol
Click to expand...

Hardwood floor with giant tub of water on it? ;p I'm going with polished concrete on my first floor to minimize the damage on any tank fall out lol.
 
it's going to be built into the wall with a dedicated utility room (stair closet) which will be itself waterproofed against up to 40g spill. I've never had my DT leak unless broken so I'm not too concerned with that but sump & equipment, yeah had those leak plenty of times, hence the large capacity waterproofing :)
 
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