n2585722

I decided to try and make a couple of corner boxes for the sump that I could used to either add media or add some small live rock. The drain manifold would output into these before entering the compartment the boxes are in. I have little room so I decided to make them in the shape of a triangle. Since the sump is currently in use I did not make the base portion at the bottom of the boxes yet. I will have to make these when I pull the sump to finish the drain manifold. Below is a photo of the parts to a box minus the wide side. I did not realize it was not in this photo until it was too late to get a photo of it with the rest of the parts.

The two sides in the photo above have one long edge cut at a 45 degree angle. one is the correct width and the other is about 1/4 wider than needed. First I glued the right angle of the box. Since I was using 1/8 inch acrylic and this did not have to be water tight I used the thick solvent. I used the small 1/4 inch acrylic triangles in the upper right of the photo to set the sides at the proper angle to be glued to each other. The photo below shows the two sides ready to be glued together.

Now that the parts are ready it is just a matter of applying the glue and mating them together as shown in the next photo. As you can see in the photo there is some excess acrylic at this joint. This will be trimmed off with the router when the joint has set.

I used the small triangles again for support of the part while trimming the excess with the router as shown in the next photo.

The part to the left is the third side that did not make it in the first photo. The assembly is ready to have the excess trimmed. Once it is trimmed it is ready to attach to the third side. I left the outer triangles attached to support the assembly when it was attached to the third side. The next photo shows the assembly attached to the third side. as with the first joint there is excess to trim off on either side of the third side.

trimming the excess was tricky on these sides as they were not at right angle. I cut some MDF at a 45 degree angle that I taped to the side for the router bit guide. this is shown attached to the assembly in the next photo.

Once both sides were trimmed it was time to add the bottom. The bottom has 21 3/16 inch holes drilled in it for water outflow. The next photo shows the bottom attached. The excess will be trimmed at the same time as the top is trimmed.

The photo above shows the top ready to be attached. I drilled a hole larger than the router bit and taped a template to the part to cut out a hole large enough to get the 1/4 acrylic in the box used to make the final trim to the top. The next photo shows the top attached to the assembly.

After the top and bottom have been attached and have had time to set the excess will be trimmed. The next photo shows the 1/4 acrylic in place to make the final trim to the top.

After the final trim the only thing that is left is adding the base to the box, but that will need to wait till I can remove the Sump and make the final changes. The photo below is of both boxes after completion.

On another note the tank has cleared up a bit. Also the ammonia is down to around .25. The nitrite is still high so it has not completed the cycle. The last test take are pictured below.

Now for the tank itself. I added some sand that I had left from the setup I had in the 90's. This is where the rock came from also. I rinsed about 2 gallons of sand and added it this weekend. I was trying to get an idea how much it was going to take and about how it would look. The photo below is of the tank a few hours after adding the sand. I also added the foam around the MP10's just to keep the sand out of the pump.