Elapid Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 I am planning to build a rack sometime in the near future, mainly for grow out tanks and smaller species. I will be completely honest and say I am a complete newbie and not all that crash hot with building things but would like to give it a whack and see how we go. The rack will consist of 2 tiers, each tier holding 3x standard 2 foot tanks and room at the bottom for a sump. Combined weight of tanks minus substrate,pots etc will be around the 360-400 kilo mark. Here is a highly detailed MS paint sketch: The main points I need help with are as follows: 1)What are the easiest but strongest joints to use? (Yes I know it's an oxymoron) 2)Should I use coach bolts or similar? 3)What timber thickness should I use? 4)What size pump would be sufficient? 5)What size sump will be sufficient? 6)What is the best way to plumb the rack? Sorry for all the questions guys but I would much rather do it right the first time and I couldn't think of asking a group more fitting All help will be appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krellious Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 http://www.sydneycichlid.com/fishtank-rack.htm No idea about plumbing or pumping though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquaholic Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Pallet racking is best. Wood will sag. If you are going to use wood use 14 guage hex drive batten screws. Plumbing would be involved. Drain top tanks to bottom to sump. Pump back to top tanks. It will cost you a lot in fittings. I know someone local selling 6 cubes with plumbing. look on plecoplanet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elapid Posted October 6, 2011 Author Share Posted October 6, 2011 I saw them but my whole system will cost less than what he is asking. I have already completed the stand now I am waiting on the glass holesaw to begin drilling the tanks. I am only using them for grow out tanks so it doesn't need to be a $500 project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krellious Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Pay someone to drill the tanks dude. 1 cracked tank will prob be more then he asks to do the job. Much safer and if he buggeRs up then he has to pay:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRK-351 Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 hey mate, here are some pics of the two different construction methods on my racks. I see that you have built your rack already but I thought I'd put these up just in case anyone is interested in the future The first rack is slightly harder to build because you have to cut notches in the uprights. The second rack is pretty much cut all timber to length and pre drill guide holes, then bolt it all together. I'd recommend using 90x35 or 90x45 timber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elapid Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Pay someone to drill the tanks dude. 1 cracked tank will prob be more then he asks to do the job. Much safer and if he buggeRs up then he has to pay:) Against all advice I drilled my first 2 footer today and came out excellent, It worked out a hell of a lot better than I expected so will also be giving the others a crack (No pun intended) hey mate, here are some pics of the two different construction methods on my racks. I see that you have built your rack already but I thought I'd put these up just in case anyone is interested in the future The first rack is slightly harder to build because you have to cut notches in the uprights. The second rack is pretty much cut all timber to length and pre drill guide holes, then bolt it all together. I'd recommend using 90x35 or 90x45 timber. Cheers for the pics bud, very neat and tidy setup there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomt Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 Hi, I am no plumber but I am happy with the solution that I have running at the moment. It gives you full control of the flow in individual tanks and makes very minimal noise. Pretty much consists of having a single pump from the sump going up to a gang valve at the top. From the gang valve a pipe goes down to every individual tank allowing you to isolate a tank if there is a crack etc without losing flow to the others. The valve for each tank also allows you to slow down the water for some tanks and speed it up for others. On the ends of the pipes going into each tank I put a slip joint with a bit of pipe sticking out the bottom which I attach to the ends of the pipes leading down the the tanks. I then drill a hole in the pipe coming out of the slip just above water level, then the rest of the pipe going below minimum water level when the pump is off. This allows for water to silently enter the tank without splashes etc and the hole stops water from being sucked out of the tank when the pump is turned off. Each individual tank also has its own 32mm hole drilled in it with a 25mm bulkhead fitting. I put the bottom of the hole at the lowest desired water level. I drill all my own holes on the tanks with a 3$ drill bit from ebay (I brought two just incase). It is very very very very boring drilling a hole in glass with these drill bits because it takes forever with the hand drill. All you have to do to make sure the glass brakes is not change the direction (angle) of the drill while its in the glass and to have water flowing over the drill bit and the hole while drilling. You do not have to drill it in one go either I just drill for a while then pull the bit out to let water flow over then drill some more. All my tanks that I have drill have been 6mm glass though I would not be to keen on drilling 10mm because of the time it takes to get through. After you have the bulk heads in the holes I would suggest you use a durso standpipe like contraption like I have (pictured) to reduce the gurgling sound of the water. You can make this miraculous contraption with a threaded tee section which you connect to the wet end of your bulkhead as-well as a plug and strainer thing. The strainer thing is not essential if you have bigger fish but I like to have it on anyway and you will definitely need it with fry. The standpipe pretty much works because it reduces the amount of air getting into the pipes which is what makes all the noise. You need to let some air into the pipe other wise it will create a vacuum causing the pipe to suck in more water and your sump to ultimately overflow. Also for the really small fry in the tanks you would probably need to put a mesh over the drain strainer thing to make the holes smaller. I personally get a filter media bag and use elastic bands to wrap it around the drain pipe which stops anything being sucked out though it will reduce your water flow (not a problem because of all your handy valves =p)As for the drainage its really up to you how many pipes you want. I have two large 50mm pipes on each level of my setup draining into my sump but that was so I could run high volumes through my setup if I desired. It would probably be cheaper if you just pipe each individual drainage pipe into the sump but it would not be as neat. Pipe thickness really depends on how much flow you want to put through it. I am imaging you would not be having too much flow through the tanks so you could get away with smaller then 25mm bulkheads but its always better to have your drains as large as possible so ideally use 25mm bulkheads (needs 32-35mm holes in glass) If you ever put on a bigger tank and need more drainage you can just drill another hole and have two drains. As far as the pipes feeding the tanks you would want your pump feeding a bit of acrylic pipe at whatever its head width is. The acrylic then can feed into a slightly large gang valve chamber which can probably get away with 32mm PVC then 20mm PVC coming off each valve into each tank (20mm because its usually easier to find the fittings). As far as pumps go your drains can handle (from my experience) up to 16000 lph though I would recommend because your poor sump wont be able to filter it (learnt the hard way) about 7000lph for your setup which gives just over 10 turn overs per hour to each tank (assuming 100L each). If you are using smaller two foot tanks you can run it on less. For heating you could heat 600L easily with a Ehime Jagar 300watt which is rated at 1000L but that would be dependent on the pump circulating the water the heat everything. You can save allot of power by using a single ehime jagar 300watt teamed up with a ehime pump (if you get a ehime or similar high end pump you wouldn't have to worry about it failing). Quality gear also uses allot less power. I replaced my dodge Chinese pump which used 0.024watt per liter (and failed on me) with a Laguna Max-Flo which uses 0.01watt per liter and is dead silent. I wasted $300 because of my $150 cheaper pump, the pump was worse in every way and it broke anyway. If your short of cash try and get places to price beat etc and shop around on the net for things. That is pretty much all I have to say about setting up a fish stand thing.Hope it helps, Tom PS: my valves sexy valves. Also you tend to get pipe weld everywhere so have a rag on you unless your going for my red and green mess effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomt Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 Also forgot to add the reducing T fittings are called Tee PVC Cat 19 (end X end X Branch) and I recommend getting all your pipe bits at once from http://www.wetearth.com.au/They are as cheap as chips with a huge range and shipping is a set price to your area so you can order as much as you want. Get all your fittings and pipe weld from there.You cannot order the PVC pipes from wet earth because they are huge etc and I do not think I have seen the Nyglass Threaded Strainer things (hence the lack of a better name), the strainers are from the same brand as the rest of the nyglass stuff. I found my mine at a local irrigation place. Pallet racking is great for stands as well and it is surprisingly cheap though you will have to work out how to get support under the tanks because the gap is about 860mm wide (something along those lines) A friend made a wood platform from 3x2 s and plywood which works great. A good start for finding a pallet racking solution for your stand would be on eBay then contacting the sellers outside of eBay to see if you can get a better price on the beams etc. Also sometimes you can get pallet racking which is only 600mm wide, I tried to get some but its allot rarer and I wasted two months waiting on the parts from the supplier then I ended up getting the normal stuff anyway. Same goes for the ultra thick beams. I got beams rated at 4 tonnes over the 9 foot stretch because they where $6 more each but it took a very long time for them to arrive (was overkill anyway), though it might not be so bad for you. If you are making it out of wood I would recommend housing everything you can and making sure the tanks have a dead flat base to sit on a swell as foam. Also work out how you are going to mount your lovely valves because mine are currently attached to the mescaline level at one end then supported by a crude stick at the other. I suppose you can mount your vales on a wall which would be very neat as long as your tanks are not too hard to lean over. Will be hard to lean over if your using pallet racking. I probably have forgotten something else. Good Luck, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elapid Posted October 22, 2011 Author Share Posted October 22, 2011 Wow, Thanks a lot for taking the time to post all that. I have finished drilling the tanks and still shopping around for a pump, I'm not in any massive rush to finish it so it's been easy pricing them.Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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