from sump to a display?

I have a chance to get a really cheap 2 year old glass 180 gallon tank, but it has a few issues. It used to be a sump for another 180 and has 4 or 5 large baffles siliconed in with black silicone. Think that can be scraped off with not much damage?

It is also drilled . . . funny. There is a 3 1/2" or so bulkhead drilled in the center of the back glass about 3" up from the bottom. Could I make or buy an acrylic overflow cover (like the stock ones on other drilled tanks) and fit it with some kind of durso standpipe off a 90* at the bulkhead?

We might be getting into a new house soon as the prices are just too dam good to pass up right now. I might be able to get away with putting this in a wall and using my 125 acrylic tank as a sump while keeping all my other over sized equipment and lighting as is. I'm soooo over my acrylic tank, I want something that wont scratch when I look at it wrong and I miss having an open top tank.

~Will.

 

A razor blade scraper should get the silicone off. scrap at around 20-30 degrees from the glass.

 

BE VERY CAREFUL trying to cut out the silicone. I put the wrong silicone in my sump the first time and while i was cutting it out a baffle snapped and sliced a huge hole in my finger. I ended up just buying a new tank I was so mad.

 

Are you sure it's not all scratched up? Lots of people don't take as good of care of their sump glass as their display.

You can buy full overflows that you could silicone in to the wall/bottom.

It would have to be an unusual standpipe design because you would probably want an elbow inside the tank in the overflow to put a standpipe in to keep the water higher. I'm not sure where you even buy a 3" elbow or how big the elbow would be front to back when it's in the bulkhead, maybe you could bush down to 1.5" or something but doing all that plumbing in there might make the overflow area really big and take up a ton of room in the tank.

Honestly for the amount of work and potential pitfalls I would probably just buy a new tank and not worry about it, that's just me though. I haven't priced 180 tanks though so maybe I would think differently if I saw that sticker.

 

i tore the baffles off my 22 gallon cadlight built on to the back + a huge black acrlyic wall with no problem at all. Razor blade works awesome and doesnt scratch the glass (obviously, thats how almost everone cleans off coralline). Good luck!

 

Spending around a grand on a new 180 is not in the cards right now, if this upgrade is going to happen its going to have to be on the cheap. Anything will be an improvement over my old 125 acrylic I got that is all kinds of scratched up. This tank is now only costing me a few frags and if we do end up moving it will make everything be MUCH easier.

I have been talking with my buddy and he is pretty sure the hole is only 2" so that might make things a little easier. Here is a quick sketch up of what i'm thinking about doing.



~Will.

 

Picked it up on sunday and everything went really well! the baffles came out with some persuasion and a lot of razor blades and so far I can only see a couple small scratches and tiny nicks that will probably be invisible once filled with water. I'm thinking about going with a coast to coast over flow and a BeanAnimal overflow setup. should be able to do a leak test after I get a bunch of bulkheads ordered.

~Will.

 

Sounds like it is going to work out for you real nicely. I would love to see some pics as you get started putting together. I saw a c2c/beananimal overflow the otherday on here someone was doing. It looks like it is a very nice setup.

 

There will definitely be a build thread for the 300 system upgrade. I am in no rush tho so I'm going to really take my time with everything to make sure its just how I want it. My cousin (who just happens to be a structural engineer) is coming into town this week so i'll pick his brain about a few stand ideas.

~Will.

 

Sounds good, good luck! $1000 for a 180 sounds like a lot to me though unless it's something fancy, starphire or custom built or something.