Jeramy Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 I was planning on doing some kind of sump / fuge setup but instead of putting it below the tank putting it above the tank and have it gravity feed into my display. the one drow back I see to this is when it shuts down all the watter in the line will then want to flow back into my display and we havea flood or I keep the water level low in my tank Then I saw these hob fuges from cpr small pump feeds em water from the tank and then baffles direct it throught the fuge area and it over flows back to the tank nowwe are talkin. How ever these units are like $150 not in my price range I paid $169 for my biocube. Any ways it got me thinking It should not be to difficult to build one of these my self I live really close to tap plastics and have the skills for my own diy project however I dont have any experience working with acryllics. is there a certain type of plastic to use for this kind of project and how thick should it be. What do you use to glue it togather and do you also need to do a bead of silicone in conjection with the glue to make it water tight? I dont want to walk in there not knowing what I am looking for and have some half backed employing feed me a line of bs just so I go away and end up with a leaking mess. Not saying that the people who work at tap plastics would do that but you never know would be nice to have some more knoledge at my disposal. Thanks for any help you may be able to offer me and please and or point out any problems you might see me running into with this plan =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MVPaquatics Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 Whatever is cheap. Probably 1/4inch. You use weldon to weld the arcylic. No silicone. There is thick and thin (i believe number 16 and 2 or 4). Make good cuts, form it together and glue it. I am sure there are detailed articles out there. Just google building diy arcylic tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeramy Posted November 26, 2011 Author Share Posted November 26, 2011 Thanks for the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardedsmurf Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 Say what you will for the rest of their site, but Garf has a good DIY acrylic tank building tutorial. Put in your dimensions and it will give you the needed cuts and shows how to put it together. http://www.garf.org/tank/BuildTank.asp Jeramy: If you want to put it above your tank without flooding it when the pump/power is off, all you need to do is put a hole/bulkhead in the side of the fuge with an elbow turned up at the height you want the water level in the fuge to be and it will surface skim the fuge and never drain it. The other end of the bulk head is plumbed to drop the water back into your display tank. -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MVPaquatics Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 Nice link. Takes the guess work out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeramy Posted November 26, 2011 Author Share Posted November 26, 2011 I am gonna do it thanks for the advice folks now off to the drawing board once I have it all figured out I will start a D.I.Y. build thread =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelhead77 Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 One thing with acrylics is you need a smooth edge. Use a router/router table to get the edges good. A table saw cut might or might not be good enough. The thicker glue will help with any small imperfections, but the glue will not fill gaps. The Weldon glue actually creates a molecular bond between the two pieces so no silicone is needed; in fact silicone does not adhere very well to acrylic so do not rely on it to plug any leaks. Honestly, DIY's are fun and I really enjoy them, but unless you gain satisfaction from it, it's often cheaper to buy something like this used rather than trying to DIY. I've seen these CPR fugues going for as little as $40.00 recently. By the time you buy the acrylic and glue, you're almost at $40.00. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardedsmurf Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 I would recommend getting some acrylic scraps from a local place and practicing on them first. Also, if you have a local acrylic place that you're going to get the pieces from, I would see what they would charge to cut and drill them for you. You may end up saving a LOT of time and mine that way. -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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