How to make a low profile, high volume reservoir

Well, this weekend me and Blaze threw together another reservoir so I thought we would throw toghether a little tutorial. If you dont have the tools to do this just make all your measurements before hand and go to lowes, they will cut your boards to size for a small fee.

Meow first you will need to get your materials:

2x8" or 2x10" or 2x12" depending on how deep you want the res
3/8" osb
2 1/2" screws and 1 1/4screws
stapler
black plastic
pond liner

Meow our reseviors are 2x4' and are 8" high but you can make yours any size you want. Just figure out the volume of water you want and divide it by 7.5(gallons per cubic foot) Then just make the box hold that much volume.

ok, so on to the pictures:
Put the ouside frame together using the 2x8"s and the 2 1/2" screws. Just line up the ends so they are flush, it doesnt need to be square at this point.


Meow take the piece of osb and lay it on top, attach it with the 1 1/4 inch screws.(this piece will become the bottom) It is easiest to line up one corner at a time then proceede to screw the sides in after all the corners are attached.


Meow for the hardest part; the pond liner. We stapled the liner to one of the long sides and then cut the liner with about 2' extra on the sides that were not stapled. The key here is to have more than enough! You dont want to have the liner tight anywhere. If it is tight it will pull on the liner and could possibly rip where its stapled. Only staple to the outside of the box. Keep the staples about halfway down the side of the res.

Heres is a pic of ours with the liner:


Meow you need a top. for the resevior. We made ours out of 3/8 osb and wrapped it in 3 mil yard plastic.

Pre-wrap:


Post-wrap


As you can see the end is cut off to make a flap. This is for easy access to the res and pump. The slot in the center is for our ebb/flow table that sits on top. Its a slot because the trays can roll forward and back to make accessing the girls easier. But for other systems a couple holes would work just as well.

Screw the top of the table down with 4 of the 1 1/4 screws. Duct tape the flap to the top of the res.

Finally, I add a 90 degree fitting to my pumps so that they suck from the bottom of the res. Adding the 90 allows much the pump to work at much lower water levels.

Meow just add water and you have a low profile, high volume resevior!


Our res is 8" tall and holds about 30 gallons of water when filled to 6". With the tray on top the table is about 13 or 14" off the ground to the table top.

AAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhh! A pond liner, beautiful thinking. Clean execution too. Tired of using stupid preformed rubbermaids for res. TY

Glad you like the idea Killdan, the pond liner works great...the stuff I used was 22 mil. You can normally find the at hardware stores, or theres many places online that sell the stuff even cheaper. One extra benifit to doing it this way is the res is 100% light proof too. When I was using one of those rubbermaids as my res it had slime all over the inside walls within 2 weeks. Its been 2 weeks in my res with the liner, and it still feels and looks like the day I bought it.

Wish I had a better picture, but here is the system my friend and I built. Its hard to see, but thats an ebb/flow table with one of these reseviors under it.

i plan on running several tables. The way your idea helps, is that I was dreaming of putting them on moving carts but didnt know how the res would work out. Now ill build a res to fit the cart and roll my tables around in comfort.

wow thats crazy, when I was first dreaming up my setup, I was planning on putting caster wheels on the bottom of my res so I could move the entire system around just like you described! Instead of going with the casters I use the rubbermaid under bed storage containers that have wheels on as my flood table. With the ebb and flow fittings centered in the tray, it can easily move around for access.

Couple coats of marine epoxy (inside and out) and you can make a truly waterproof, custom res of any size or shape. Done it several times for setups where i couldn't find the right size reservoir(s) for the spot.

Pistil Whipped

Heres what I did. I wound up ditching the rezes and got some commercial rubbermaid containers. I needed about 200 gallons per table.

After I tore them apart I realized I had mold on the plywood from the rez leaking and some water spilled on the floor. It was pretty ugly and they had only been built for 2 weeks. If that OSB ever gets wet, you will get mold.

I would use pressure treated lumber in the future.

I was also considering custom building one and using 2 part epoxy or lining it with fiberglass. But when I found the rubbermaids, it was easier to use those.









Heres what I went to

I may be wrong but pressure treated wood does not get moldy. I have left un treated wood out for a week or two and it was ruined from mold. I do not see that issue with PT wood.

lootchie, lowes didnt cut the boards for me, I already had all the stuff. But I know lowes cuts everything to whatever size you want, they can even rip 4x8' sheets of plywood lengthwise. every lowes has a saw and if you request it they will do it. Plus their cuts will be perfectly straight too.

You think the kilts will work to seal the wood? Luckly I havent put this one in yet. I can kilts it then replace the old one with it then maybe kilts it or replace it with another.

ps, do you think the top needs it too? In my old setup I had a couple spots of mold, but that was with about 99% humidity for a month or so and mylar trapping the water on the walls.(this was a veg cab in a flower chamber that was no longer in use)

Yea I figured I would mention it seeing that alot of people are in appartments and stuff. Its alot more discrete to carry a few boards in from a vehicle than it is to be cutting all kinds of stuff yourself. They can cut basically anything as long as its straight lines. If its over a certain number of cuts i think they charge something like 25 cents a cut, but alot of the time the wont charge anything.

Well, looks like I get to kiltz some stuff this weekend....at least thats better than having mold!

wow thats weird all lootchie's posts disapeared....looks like i was talking to myself lol