Kris' Custom 20 Long

I am down grading from my 75 gallon tank to a 20 gallon long, as moving my 75 back and forth to college is just getting to hard. For this tank I am doing a lot of DIY stuff and making it pretty custom (mostly the lights). So now that you know why I am setting it up, it is time for some pictures of my progress. I should have the tank up and running with in a month because I need to get it up and cycled so that I can move it in August when I go back to school.


This post is quite long and there is one or two sections of text that you don't have to read if you don't want to. But if you read all of it thank you!!! and I hope you enjoy it!!


This first picture is of the slots I am going to cut in the back of the tank to pour into my external overflow.



I tried cutting through the plastic along with the glass and that failed so then I cut the plastic off by taking a razor blade holding it in a pair of pliers and heating it up with a torch, then I melted the plastic on the exact lines I wanted, it didn't take very long. Here is a picture after that and of the first hole I cut.




That one went well, and then I tried to make it a little larger and it came out ok. Then I cut a few more and it just looked like total crap to me.






So then I decided to cut out the whole section and I would just put a piece of glass or acrylic in the tank with the teeth in it and paint that black to make it look nice. This is just the rough cut, I cleaned it up a little later on.


So now on to the over flow box that I mounted on the back. I guess I didn't take pictures of me cutting the glass and making the edges smooth, sorry. But here is a picture with the back and two sides on.... the wrong way!!! .




So after I realized that it was on the wrong way (and the silicone was cured) I removed one of the panels and put on the bottom correctly.




Then I put on the final side of the box and all was good!! I did have a small piece of glass crack off when I was tightening the clamps down to hold everything in place but that was an easy fix with a bit of silicone. Also I had to shave the sides of the box just a little bit so that it would fit inside the black rims of the tank.




So once again it looks like I forgot to take pictures of me drilling the holes for the bulk heads and putting the box on the tank, and once again sorry. But here is a picture of the box on the tank and running with water just to test that I have no leaks and that my return pump doesn't have to much flow. The pipe on the left is the main drain (full siphon with a ball valve to adjust flow) and the one on the right is the emergency incase the main gets clogged (its just open pipe with no restrictions). The pipe returning water to the tank will not be there, I am drilling two holes in the back of the tank for the return water and using a check valve so that if the power turns off it will not overflow my sump.




Here are a couple more shots of the overflow box on my tank.
Side view of the overflow box, as you can see it is pretty thin, I did this so that there is less leverage on the silicone seams holding it to the tank. (that is 3/4 inch pipe so you can kind of get an idea of the size).


This one is from the top.




Now this picture is of the two drains coming down to my sump, I heated the pipe over a hot plate and bent them to how I wanted them to be. The part after the ball valve is because I needed a sharper turn and the pipe would have kinked. The ball valve will be strapped to the side of the stand.



Now for my favorite part!!!!! The lights, I don't really like the look of any heatsinks I have seen, so I decided that I would make my own .

You don't have to read all this stuff below, It talks about how I built the stuff to melt aluminum! I just put it here incase some of you would like to know how I did it.

So I researched about casting aluminum, and how to do it at home. I found that lots of people build there own foundries for melting aluminum at home, so I looked up about building my own. It seemed pretty simple so I decided to make one of my own. I had an old pressure tank for people who have wells like I do, and I used that to make my foundry. I cut the top off of it about 3/4 of the way up so that I would have a base and a lid. I cut some square metal tubing for legs and welded them on, they look really bad but they are functional. You have to make some*refractory cement to insulate the melting area from the sides of the container so that all of your heat doesn't escape. There are a lot of different mixture recipes on the internet so I picked one that I thought would work the best for me and it is a mixture of sand, cement (a certain kind) and perlite. I mixed some up and poured it in the bottom so that I would have a flat base. After the bottom layer of the cement hardened I cut a hole in the side of the bottom of my foundry so that I can force air into it, I wont get into all of the details as it would take to long to explain. But then I took a 5 gallon bucket and used it as a form for the cavity where the melting will actually happen. After pouring the cement around the bucket and letting it dry, I removed the bucket (by cutting it up into pieces because it was extremely hard to get out) and I now had my foundry to melt aluminum. Then I took some well casing and welded a plate to the bottom to make a container to hold the aluminum so that I can pour it.
I will take some picture of the whole set up tomorrow and post them right under this wall of text .

Then next step was to make something called green sand that holds its form so that the liquid aluminum can take its shape. This was pretty easy to make all it takes is sand (the finer the better) and bentonite clay. You just have to pack it in a frame with a mold of what you want then take the mold out and you have a cavity to pour the aluminum into.

So I tried out my foundry and it works quite well. I was able to melt aluminum and pour it into a bread pan just to see it everything would work ok, and it did. So then I decided I would try to cast an object and I couldn't decide on what as I did not have my mold of my heatsink finished. So my brother told me to cast a badge off his Mercedes he is redoing and after I poured the aluminum in and cleaned it up and sanded it to make it look clean this is what it looks like. Not bad for my first time ever doing this I think.




Sorry about that whole spiel about building my foundry but I am proud of it and wanted to share it here.

Now back to the stuff about my tank, I started to make a mold of the heatsink I wanted to build and I hit a couple of snags along the way. So here are some pictures.
Cutting a 2x12 close to the size I want it to be.




After I ripped the edges off to make it about 7 inches wide I planed it down to make it the thickness I want.




Then I cut a hole in the center for a 120mm fan.




Then I put bondo all over it so that I could sand that down and it would fill all the small holes and what not so that I would have a smooth surface.




So after I sanded it all down and made it smooth I cut the fins in the heatsink. All did not go well .




So after all the work to get to that point my mold was ruined, and I had to start over from the beginning.

This is another part you do not have to read if you don't want to. It explains what I did wrong with that mold, and what I did to prevent it next time.

So when I went to cut the fins in this piece of wood I was using a router with a 1/2 cutting bit, non spiral. When I got to the center part that was cut out for the fan the bit would grab the edge and that is what cracked the mold. I did get 3 passages cut before it cracked. So on the next mold I made I used a dado head on the table saw to cut the spaces in between the fins.

Now I started a new mold. Cut and planed as before.





This time I cut the fins first so that if that went wrong I didn't loose to much work. All went successful the second time. Oh and that is brown paint on it to help prevent warping while it is sitting.




So after I cut the hole out for the fan and lots of sanding, painting, sanding again, painting again, and sanding even more this is what it now looks like. Also I have to sand in between each fin, really every surface of the mold I have to sand so that it is smooth.
Fin side



LED side, the two dots are holes so I can remove the mold from the green sand (explained where I kinda get off track above).



Side view to show how thin it is.






I still need to make a mold of the top that will cover the fins and make the air flow go through the fins instead of strait up. Also I am having a problem with the mold of the heatsink not coming out of the green sand properly and ruining the greensand mold so I have to overcome that before I can cast the heatsink.


So I believe that is all I have to post at the moment besides the pictures of the foundry that I said I would post earlier. I will be updating this thread pretty often as I need to get it done quickly.

 

Looks like a great start! And that foundry seems like a really cool thing to have.

 

Thanks, and ya it is really cool to be able to cast basically anything I want.

 

This looks awesome. I like external overflows. I may try and do that with my next tank, which I think I will make a 90 (I'll trade in my 20 gallon tank/stand/canopy and 55 gallon tank/stand/canopy).

 

Thanks! Ya I like external overflows also, this is my first one Iv'e had but I really like the look of it, and the space it saves in the tank.

 

well after having to quickly put my tank together so I could move up to college, I tried to cast my heatsink and that did not go so well and the mold is now ruined. But I have redesigned a 3d model of it with a few changes and I am going to print it out on my 3d printer that I just got and then cast it from that. here is a picture of the 3d model. There is a top that goes with it I just didn't show it in these pictures.



Here is the bottom where the LEDs will go

and here is the top with the fins.

 

I like the plans. Seems to be going smooth enough. Cant wait to see the next pic updates!