The Puffer Forum

I don't have a great deal of space under my tank and the cabinet is split in to two halves making it awkward to get a pre built system to fit.
so I decided to have a bash myself.
I picked up a new aquastart 320 1' cube for half price and set to butchering it:

what I started with, but in silver


the shelf on the right hand side of the cabinet has been cut out to make room for my skimmer, and on the under side of the shelf I have screwed the light unit from the butchered aqua one hood.
It's a start. nothing too big to begin with as I can always do something similar for the other side and re home the electrics outside the cabinet making a double sump type arrangement.

a few pics of the mess so far :

Tank with plastic trim removed and skimmer placed in situ:


The cutout made in the shelf to take the skimmer:


The light unit from the butchered hood before being screwed to the underside of the shelf:


Tank skimmer and shelf in place:

and with the sump light on:


Full shot of under tank as it is at the moment taken with flash:

and one taken without flash with sump light on:


still got a long way to go with this.
I have some 5mm acrylic on order, to make some baffles and stuff, and will need to drill/cut the shelf again to take the pipework.
not sure how I'm going to set it up yet, if it's going to have a sand bed, or LR and a big chunk of algae in it and run more as a refugium.
I'm still kind of just playing it by ear and seeing what happens.
So... that's what I'm up to anyway

any input is welcome as always

That looks like a great set up for such a small space.

I noticed there is very little room between the shelf and the sump, so, do you think the light will be transferring heat to the system?

good point, I did think about that, but it isn't going to be lit all the time, it's going to be alternate to the main tank lights as using it as a fuge with algae in is the favourite option at the moment.
When I finally get it up and running, I'm going to see how it works out, I might then be able to put my heater on a timer to come on when the sump light goes out and the main tank lights go on, or something to that effect.
I could possibly drill holes for the shelf supports a little higher, it's all just "see what happens" at the moment and jump each hurdle as it presents itself.

It looks great. Cant wait to see the final result.

wow, this looks like fun. I can't wait to see how you progress this project.

yeah, i've had temp problems from the lighting and lack of airflow. so, i guess i notice these things.

love the idea.

I have a couple of old PC power supplies lying around, so I could always rig up a 120mm cooling fan from all the spares I have.
I'll add it to my list of things to do

glad to see i might have helped in averting temperature disaster

now if only i knew how to rig pc fans...

One problem I see... when the water comes down from the main tank into the sump, it tends to let out a bunch of bubbles that will rise up and pop, splashing saltwater all over the bottom of your shelf. You're going to have a ton of salt creep on that thing.

I put a ton of rubble over the output of the overflow tube, that helped cut down on the bubbles.

(I'm assuming here that you're going to do an overflow box or something? Or are you going to use the Fluval somehow?)

The inward flow of water from the schuran overflow box in to the sump is going to be baffled and surrounded by coarse sponge to hopefully stop most of the bubbles.
Another way I suppose it could be done would be to have a fixed cover over the top of the baffled area, either way would work
The fluval is going to be used as the return pump with the intake pipe in the sump instead of the tank.

Interesting idea... Now you have me eyeing up my Filstar that's sitting here unused .

I still haven't hooked up my sump since I moved and it overflowed on my (my fault). I really should get around to it but now its mostly evaporated and I don't know what to do about the high salt content... If I change it, the bacteria in there (if any) will crash and I don't want to pump that into the main tank.. what to do, what to do...

Took another step forward today.
The silicone sealant and acrylic sheets arrived towards the end of last week, so this weekend I managed to cut a few little pieces out and seal them in place for the supply and return water flow baffles.
The supply water pipe will go to the bottom of one corner baffle reducing bubbles and splash back to a minimum.
The return pipe will go down to the bottom of the other corner baffle to reduce the amount of micro bubbles returned to the tank (my skimmer currently puts lots of these back in to the tank as it operates)
Normal operating water depth in the sump should be approx 1" to 2" above the height of these sections.
Setting it up this way should hopefully remove any risk of overflowing in the main tank if the syphon breaks and the water keeps pumping up to the main tank from the sump.
This should also leave enough room in the sump in case the return pump fails and the syphon keeps the water flowing from the tank to the sump until the water level in the tank drops below the minimum level for the overflow box to work.

im following this because i dont have much room under my tank and this looks like it would be perfect for my fig 8 tank.

Your following a build that is 3 years old LOL

Lol. Its good to look at these projects tho.I wonder if its finished