You Requested it, here it is. The Acrylic Sump Builder's Step by step.

At long last I have decided to post a thread for all of you who have asked me how to build a sump. Well, while I didn't build a sump here, It was a skimmer for a fish tank, these are the steps in which to follow for building your own sump! Easy as 123... or at least 12345678910. So we start off with the supplies you will need.

First and most important, there is the acrylic sheeting, you can buy this usually at your local hardware store, however if you have an acrylic shop in your neck of the woods, I recommend that route. You will know it is acrylic because of the blue sheeting that covers it. It can either be blue, or paper that reads acrylic sheet right on it.

Just pull the blue or paper cover off, and you are ready to go!

Then here are the other tools you will need:

I hope I made the labels clear. If not, this should help.

Acrylic Knife: your average hobby-ers tool for the job. You can also use a table saw with the proper blade for even better cuts.

Then there is the Glue:

Then there is the glue applicator, you could also use a small syringe.

Last but not least, a good adhesive tape, I used automotive painting tape here, as an example.

Oh Yeah, almost forgot, a Sharpie.

Take the Sharpie, and trace the outline of your measurements. For this I used my starting wall to measure a new one in another sheet. To get the first wall you have to measure with tape and mark the length you want, the rest is the same as follows.

Now you are ready to cut. Find a spot in your home that has a straight 90degree angle. Put the sheet that needs to be cut down first, and then put your guide piece on top(if it is your first piece, you will but a flat edge of a new epoxy sheet up to your marks, to create the tracing line.) or if you have super tools, thats cool too. Then you take your knife in your hand like so, and stoke along the glass towards yourself. If you are doing this on carpet, you will screw your carpet up.

Once you have made your first couple passes you will have a good enough groove in the acrylic that the knife will follow easily, so ditch the tracing piece of acrylic, and work on making that groove deeper!

Once you have your cuts deep enough, pictures to follow, you will be able to break the acrylic.


Put the cut edge facing down, and simply flex the acrylic sheet. It will snap at the line you have made.

If you do get a wiley one, which does happen, just file it off flat. Concrete works... Tools are better.


Now you have some walls made from your hard efforts of cutting:


Continued...

Then you take the pieces in your house and Tape them togeather, so they look like a box.


Squeeze all the air out of the weld applicator, and stick it in the can of weld. It will suck up some glue, and you don't need a lot off the bat to get it started:


Turn your box so that the seem you want to glue is vertical. Then apply the glue at the top of the seam. You will notice it travel all the way down to the bottom of the seam. Give this an hour to dry, then do another seam, and so on.

Now this is what it looks like when they are mated properly.

This is what it looks like if the plastic was not touching:

You want the plastic to be contacting the other piece all the way down the seam to get a good bond. Set your box right side up after all of your sides set, then fill in the cracks again and allow to dry overnight. You should be able to fill it with water in the morning.

AWSUM!!! thanx man this will help out sooo much.

You are welcome, If you have any questions, let me know.

i definitely will and i definitely will.its going to be a few weeks, at the earliest, before i can start on it but il be refering back to this thread very often when i do. i triedd giving you rep but iv got to spread some around. thanx again.

alright and now begins the questions. in Aeroheads pc thread it was mentioned that the acrylic naturally bows and warps after time. do you think that i will have that problem with the sump that i am going to attempmt to build? you can find it here. the reason i was asking is that i was thinking of useing 1/8" acrylic for the outer shell and 1/4" for the actual sump itself. the "coolonig fins" will also be 1/8". i plan on glueing the "cooling fins" to the sump then inserting the sump into the outer shell. then the final step will to be glue the fins to the outer shell to make it 1 piece. im hopeing that when i make it into 1 piece that the warping should almost not occur. in your opinion would 1/8" be enough for the outer shell and resist the warpage? or is the extra space gained a waste and i should construct the entire thing from 1/4"? thanx for takeing a look at this problem. also for the 8" intake hole in the bottom of the cab and outer shell, would it be more structurely sound to make it round or square? iv been debateing that over and over and would like someones opinion.

p.s. hope to see you at the mini fridge clubhouse!!

Just wondering how much one of these costs to build? Might be easier to just look around and find a container already made? Plenty of sizes, shapes and colors. Check your local walmart, buy a container that fits your grow, light proof it with some foil tape, cut a hole and grow. Might cost you 10 bucks, and you will not have to build it and worry about leaks. Might be a bit easier than building your own, but if you need a customized size I can see the point.

slowandeasy said:

Just wondering how much one of these costs to build? Might be easier to just look around and find a container already made? Plenty of sizes, shapes and colors. Check your local walmart, buy a container that fits your grow, light proof it with some foil tape, cut a hole and grow. Might cost you 10 bucks, and you will not have to build it and worry about leaks. Might be a bit easier than building your own, but if you need a customized size I can see the point.

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Yeah, the two options have their merits... but the acrylic sump gets cool points.

I too am curious about the cost though.

price , for the 1 i plan on building, should come in around $75 give or take.

as far as my build goes i could go with a walmart bought container but i want to get the most out of the space in the cab, and pretty much everything about this build is custom in 1 way or anuther. just trying to keep with the theme that iv already got going.

Sounds a bit expensive to me. Not sure spending that much would be worth it, no offense. Are you just doing DWC? If you are, that is a huge waste of money. I can see the fogger thing that Boleman did might help. Whatever floats your boat, personally I would spend that 75 bucks on something more important. Good luck either way, they look cool...but looks mean nothing.

lol the sump il be building will serve as the air intake, light trap, sump cooler, and sump its a bit confuseing but if it works it will be well worth it, and if it works as i hope it will eventually be built from aluminum. to some looks mean nothing but when you're ocd about things being just the way you want them then to some looks do matter. sorry just a lil quirk o mine.

disfunktional,
I hear ya man. As long as your happy that is all that matters! Plus if you do it right the first time, you wont have to redo it. Obviously your idea is a little more comlicated than a walmart tub, good luck. Your doing a great job on your fridge, keep up the good work. It will be worth every penny.

disfunktional said:

alright and now begins the questions. in Aeroheads pc thread it was mentioned that the acrylic naturally bows and warps after time. do you think that i will have that problem with the sump that i am going to attempmt to build? you can find it here. the reason i was asking is that i was thinking of useing 1/8" acrylic for the outer shell and 1/4" for the actual sump itself. the "coolonig fins" will also be 1/8". i plan on glueing the "cooling fins" to the sump then inserting the sump into the outer shell. then the final step will to be glue the fins to the outer shell to make it 1 piece. im hopeing that when i make it into 1 piece that the warping should almost not occur. in your opinion would 1/8" be enough for the outer shell and resist the warpage? or is the extra space gained a waste and i should construct the entire thing from 1/4"? thanx for takeing a look at this problem. also for the 8" intake hole in the bottom of the cab and outer shell, would it be more structurely sound to make it round or square? iv been debateing that over and over and would like someones opinion.

p.s. hope to see you at the mini fridge clubhouse!!

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with 1/8 inch plexy you may get a half a grow out of your sump. You will have to go 1/2" to get any kind of duration out of it. And it is worth it to pay the extra money up front, because if you sump falls apart from warp mid-grow, you are kind of up shit creek if you know what I am sayin. Again. Use 1/2" and up if you want any kind of longevity.

You might be able to find one already made, but what to do when you are drilling your net pot holes, and the lid shatters to a billion pieces, cutting your badly and sending you to the hospital. I would save on the possible medical bills, and the having to make a new lid anyway, by building my own, which is why I did thus.

Slow and easy: The sump in my boleman fridge cost about 30.00 US to build.

slowandeasy said:

Sounds a bit expensive to me. Not sure spending that much would be worth it, no offense. Are you just doing DWC? If you are, that is a huge waste of money. I can see the fogger thing that Boleman did might help. Whatever floats your boat, personally I would spend that 75 bucks on something more important. Good luck either way, they look cool...but looks mean nothing.

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On the contrary good sir. It is inexpensive. When you think about it, you are buying a piece in a store that is not what you invision. Instead, the thing you find in the store will be close, so you let go of your vision to accept a lower median. I would much rather pay the 35 dollars (not 70) and build the thing. If you are not very handy, then go with the settling for not the perfect thing then. Not only will the sump be better quality if you are good at building things and build it yourself, but the sump will last much longer if you use the right size acrylic.

Hey Boleman,
Disfunktional is the one who said it was 70 bucks to build his rez, that is why I asked. 35 bucks is not bad...but 70 I am sorry that would be a waste IMO. Of course building one customized for specific grow cabs to utilize the space is a great idea, I am not knocking anyone for that. I think they look really nice, but I would not trust my skills to make it leakproof...with my luck I would have a flood! Take it easy guys, great job.

disfunktional said:

alright and now begins the questions. in Aeroheads pc thread it was mentioned that the acrylic naturally bows and warps after time. do you think that i will have that problem with the sump that i am going to attempmt to build? you can find it here. the reason i was asking is that i was thinking of useing 1/8" acrylic for the outer shell and 1/4" for the actual sump itself. the "coolonig fins" will also be 1/8". i plan on glueing the "cooling fins" to the sump then inserting the sump into the outer shell. then the final step will to be glue the fins to the outer shell to make it 1 piece. im hopeing that when i make it into 1 piece that the warping should almost not occur. in your opinion would 1/8" be enough for the outer shell and resist the warpage? or is the extra space gained a waste and i should construct the entire thing from 1/4"? thanx for takeing a look at this problem. also for the 8" intake hole in the bottom of the cab and outer shell, would it be more structurely sound to make it round or square? iv been debateing that over and over and would like someones opinion.

p.s. hope to see you at the mini fridge clubhouse!!

Click to expand...

Acrylic of any thickness will warp, it's just an unfortunate property of the material. The thicker the acrylic is, the more time it takes to warp and the less it warps. The warping will eventually stop and can usually be kept under control and retain enough of it's original shape to remain functional.

I wouldn't use 1/8" unless you have to for tolerance issues. Make sure to put braces and gussets anywhere they won't interfere with the function of the res and it will reduce warp.

As far as the res material goes, acrylic is an insulator rather than a conductor meaning it will not dissipate heat. Cooling fins made of acrylc would not be very effective at all. aluminium would be great for cooling the res but it would react with the nutes and change the PH constantly, don't use aluminium. Stainless would be the best of both worlds, not as good at cooling as aluminium, but far better than acrylic.

I think your intake cooled res idea is very creative and can't wait to see what you come up with. When I suggested a hepa filter, I thought you were going to have intake air come into contact with the water for cooling. It's very hard to get powerful airflow through a hepa filter. Now that I understand you are going to just cool the res body, I think it would be alot easier to have a very large bottom intake under the res and have it flow around the res through external cooling fins fitted around the entire exterior.

thanx for the help guys!!

Just remember.... Glass cuts, even if it's plastic.

bump

i cant see the pics... hmmm

kweb1989 said:

i cant see the pics... hmmm

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Nope, no pics !