Welcome to my new tank thread.

After the Southern California Edison caused tank crash on my 39 gallon CAD Pro I decided that I wasn't happy with the CAD and wanted to take a stab at rolling my own. So I sat down and designed this:



It is modeled after the standard Lee Mar 56 gallon 36"l x 18"w x 20"d tank with a few "optional extras":
Starfire glass on all three sides
Rimless so it looks allot like the ELOS tanks
Dual drain line
Closed loop
Overflow box that didn't take up a big part of the tank and that light could pass through so I wasn't loosing space

Total cost for the tank came out to $700

The stand is a stock Lee Mar stand with a large centered door.

This tank is going to serve as a display tank for a dual dosing/ATO reservoir system and combination refugium/sump that I have designed and plan to offer for sale.

In the sump there will be:
Tunze 9010 skimmer
Neptune Systems ORP, Temp, and pH probes

The sump portion is designed to have a flow rate of about 400 gallons an hour and the refugium a flow rate of 100 gallons an hour. This is to maximize skimming potential and to allow for nice things like pods to grow more comfortably in the fuge area.

The return compartment will be empty except for a Tunze Osmolator sensor suite and return holes for my chiller, dosing system, and ATO. The return compartment will also serve as the primary "Oh Crap!" overflow for the tank. a secondary "Oh Holy Crap!" overflow is a 16"l x 16"w x 4"t acrylic box that the sump/fuge sits in with a Maxijet 1200 and float switch in it. Total overflow capacity at that point is 6 gallons. If the float switch in the box activates the Maxijet will kick off and pump water into a 5 gallon container giving me a total "OH SWEET JESUS FROG ON A POGO STICK THINGS ARE REALLY BAD!" overflow capacity of 11 gallons or 20%ish of the total system volume and a 100% over the estimated overflow capacity based on back syphon from the return lines and drain.

The return pump will be an external Poseidon T3 pump. It will feed flow from the sump/fuge back to the main tank as well as feed a closed chiller loop and a polyreactor and 18w Coralife UV sterilizer closed loop. The T3 has a flow rate of 700 gph at 20 feet of head and I plan to have 100 gph flow going through the UV/Polyreactor (don't want the GFO the start breaking up) and another 200 gph going to the chiller with both dumping back into the return compartment.

After running a couple of refugiums in the past where I had a deep sand bed, live rock, and live rock rubble I came to the conclusion that unless I am doing a "display refugium" for people to look at having a DSB and LRR is more trouble than its worth. So in the refugium I will only have chaeto.

Lastly the lighting will be an ATI Powermodule T5 Six Bulb 39 watt unit with the following light bulbs listed from front to back:
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Aquablue
ATI Pro Color
ATI Aquablue
GE 6500K Daylight
ATI Blue Plus


Here are some shots of the plumbing and the tank. The plumbing is about 80% complete. The 1/2" ball valves you see sticking off the closed loop drain and return are for water changes. The closed loop drain side will be for water out and the return for water in. Water in will come from a Mag 5 pump placed in a bucket. The reason I am doing this is because one of the main reasons why I would get wet carpets was that I wasn't always very careful on my syphon and refill and that tended to piss She Who Must Be Obeyed off quite a bit.





Yeah... Yeah... I found I need a PhD in Physics and a MS in Mechanical Engineering as well as a advanced submariner course from Damn Neck Naval Submarine Force Training Command.

Drain line ball valves are to shut down completely either (both) drain line for maintenance of the sump or the line itself. Gate valves on the drain line are to fine tune the amount of flow going into the sump and refugium.

Ball valves on the 1" return are for turning flow on and off to the return pump and to the water change out line (1/2" line and ball valve)

Ball valves on the return line (the one with the + connector) is for maintenance on the pump and the line. Gate valve is for fine tuning the output to the tank. The two 1/2" ball valves (not in photo) will be to regulate flow to the chiller and UV/Polyreactor

3/4" ball valve on the closed loop return is for line maintenance. The 1/2" one is for adding water back into the system during water changes. No gate valve will be used here because I am not really all that concerned about fine tuning the flow here.

Unions are for taking apart the lines for maintenance.

The 45* bends are to allow me to attach the piping to the stand so that I don't put strain on the bulkheads from the weight of the pvc and the vibrations from the water flow.

The odd angles into the sump are because my wife #####ed about salt creep and the possibility of flood.

What worries me the most is the flow coming down the drain lines. Running the math[1] I get about 338 gph from a 1" drain line with 1" of water weight pressing down on it via gravity draw no syphon. With two main lines I get 677 gph With the bends and loss from the components I am worried that I am going to reduce that to below what I would like.

UH

[1] Algorithm for those of you who are into that kind of thing or who just like pain:

Velocity of water out an opening:

V = 8 Sq Root h ft per second where h is in feet

Flow rate:

q = AV where A is in sq feet

q = 8A Sq Root h ft'3

You had me until the end.

Welcome back stranger

Cheers. The very end with the ugly math part or before?

Schematics > math.

Mirrors, needs mirrors for the back! lol!

Any update's there urchin well looking good anyway

I've seen this tank is person and the plumbing and all that and it's even more insane in person than in pics! But it is surprisingly simple!!

It all makes sense once I realized the picture was sideways. Top notch plumbing!

I see one problem.


Not enough pictures.

wow!! nice tank!! sweet build!!! and great overall planning!!! this should be one hell of a tank!!! and hopefully no...."oh holy craps" goin on!!
good luck!!

Ask and ye shall receive...

Sigh... Made it half again as close to getting the new tank on line this last Friday by avoiding the Honey-Do list courtesy of work. Got about 2 hours of work done on it intermittently during the day and night so *NOW* all thats left is to pipe dope the ATO feed, attach the return/closed loop pump hoses to the hose barbs, water/load test it, soft cycle it and I am in business...

I figure that by the end of the month I will be fully operational if I can sneak about three more hours past SWMBO...

That is unless I end up moving out of the house this week in which case I will be doing a massive DBTC donation!

MOVING?!? I know SWMBO can't be that bad, lol!!

After MAX this weekend, I'm inspired to get my 30g back up ASAP!!

Welcome to marriage mate. Things happen. Some things get so bad that a bit of a walk away for a while to get some perspective least one ends up eating a bullet because the other party drives you to the point where death is better than living is required.

Truth.

I totally understand mate! I do hope things work out for the best!

Cheers. Not bloody likely at this point after what she said to me but I am not moving out for what thats worth. Some things just cross the bloody rubicon which puts them beyond the pale as far as I am concerned. And I am Irish enough that I do not forgive or forget.

Wow, sorry to hear this.

Well, that doesn't sound light and feathery.

I'm here if you want to talk/vent, you know my boat so we can relate on some things.

Now to get some water in this tank.

Aye Carinya. She has a temper to match a pairing of a German, Irishwoman, and Han Chinese and a mouth to match. I am not a prince either but I have learned over time to pause and think before I blurt out the first thing(s) to come to mind. She hasn't. I have discussed it with her more times than I have fingers and toes and there is only so much I am willing to put up with.

Yep. Just like sushi or cotton candy, Mr. F. Fills you up initially but about an hour later you are hungry again.

Thank you Phixion. Tonight's mission is to finish off the Return plumbing and if I am lucky the ATO as well.

Sorry you are dealing with this. It's not fun stuff.

Just let me know if you need a hand, mate!

Cheers gents and thanks.

For those of you following along at home I spent too much time staring at my plumbing setup and not enough time getting the tank up so I went ahead and redid the whole thing at 10:30 pm on a Friday. Silly me. But its (somewhat) better and more efficient from a fluid dynamics and flow perspective and moderately more elegant from an engineering one. Sadly its still FrankenPlumbing!

Design considerations were:

1. Hard plumbed as much as possible

2. As Modular as possible without detracting too much from flow speeds so that one section of the infrastructure could be taken off line for maintenance without having to take the whole system or subsystem off line.

3. The following subsystems:
a) Chiller
filtration(poly-reactor and UV)
c) redundant drain with separate feed to refugium,
d) return
e) dosing (not pictured)
f) ATO (not pictured)
g) water change

4) Use as few pumps as possible. Thus filtration is run off of closed loop and chiller is run off return pump.

5) Make it as simple as possible but still meeting the design goals (Yeah... About that... Its a B1tch...And this is what I could come up with)

For all ya all who are all about "Didn't happen without pic's..."

The Whole Enchilada:


Detail (with commentary) of the drain lines:


Detail (with commentary) of the close loop and return:

That looks like plumbing all right!

All that detail & commentary is going to be very helpful to someone I'm sure but it makes my head hurt.

You always were the smart one Fossi!



Don't feel bad. Think about how my head felt after staring at it for so long I had to redo it all over again then go through redoing it!

thats a lot of plumbing!

Yep. But not too much.

I can't post photos until Monday because I left my camera connector at the office but...

As of 1630 PDT 05/08/09 there is water, rock and sand in the new tank!!! ::

I know I know photos or it didn't happen but you can check the time stamps on the photos and the date/time ticker on CNN running in the background!

You horrible tease!

Aye. That be me. Seriously though not much to look at right now as the sand silt is still in the water column and hasn't fully settled in yet. Tomorrow should be much better. So I will shoot some shots then that do it a bit more justice.

And we are of to the races!

FTS with the ATI 6 bulb, the current (subject to change) rockwork, and the sump/chiller.

Right now only the return pump and chiller are active with the dosing system and ATO still to be completed so that's why you see hoses hanging off.

Also there is only one Vortech active in the tank right now. I am looking for the bloody wet side for the other one... Sigh.

Is that all LR or did you mix it up with some base rock as well?

All fully cured live rock. 70% of it from my old tank after its crash. 20% of the remaining 30% is not from the old tank and is the shelf rock on the top left corner and the rock its attached to. The reamaining 10% is the rock on the right side under the overflow on the bottom next to the one with the hole in it. 90% of it has been curing in a brute trash can for the last 3 months and that last 10% (the rock on the right) was taken from a mature tank and put into this tank within 1 hour of being removed.

You know the old saying "If it isn't broken don't F### with it!"...? Yeah... About that... I was staring at the tank last night and about 2300 said to myself "maybe a little tweak..." and this is what I got...

Full Tank Shot after rock rework at 2300 hours last night:


Jawfish Home:


In the process I moved the vortech and was mesmerized by how it created one of these on reef crest mode so I decided to snap a shot of it.

And a quick preview of what's been hiding in my garage for the last several months while I get my act together and get this tank going.



Don't worry this guy's only been in there about 2 weeks, is eating like a pig, almost eats out of my hand now, isn't showing signs of stress, and will be going up top ASAP. He's in a 33 gallon now with a clown, helfrich, and a 12" Derasa who is the reason why I moved the rocks around and may do so again. Sigh. I bought him because at the price I couldn't pass him up and live with myself. He was less than the lowest price Mystery Wrasse I have seen online.

He's a super/terminal male Rhomboid wrasse by the way.

That is one BA fish UH!!!!

Tanks coming along too!

Thank you SDT. You still are the Gold Standard when it comes to tanks though.

I got him for two reasons (well three) First it would p1ss off Kraylen... I keed! I keed! Second it was an unbelievable price. About 10% over wholesale. Third he was a beautiful fish.

I was very worried (and still am) about him in such a small tank but so far so good knock on wood! I plan to put a Velvet Fairy in the new tank at the same time with him and am trying to track down a female for him if possible. He and the Helfrich literally sleep together and he and the clown get along very well.

thats a nice wrasse!
keep it up. it looks very neat.

Thank you Jake.

Beautiful wrasse.

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WTHPWAIHP{AW(JTO(AWJfgp[agj
A{Sdj
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OMGGGERZ I am hella jealz.

I thought there was gonna be a tang in here.

I *TOLD* you not to look!

Oh and I pulled the tang out last night. Actually there was a very small (1 1/2") Kole tang in there for a while. He stopped eating and wasted away. My fault entirely because of my hubris and belief that he would be fine in holding for the short time I thought it would take me to get this tank up.

No more tangs after that. I really don't like killing fish. Especially if its because of my own ego and arrogance.

If you want one, are willing to hold me harmless for loss, and are willing to pay the freight to ship, the place I got it from will be getting some more in soon. That offer goes for others here as well. You know who you are. Just PM me and we can set something up.

Urchinhead is like.. so my new fave on NR.

Love and kisses Kraylen.

Update:

Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates at 10 as of last night... Time for the Cheato and *MAYBE* a move of the clown from holding into tank along with another big piece of fully cured live rock... Thoughts anyone?

Oh and what I like to call "proof of life"...



I am hoping that I have an infestation of these guys so I can justify a Harlequin shrimp...

<3

WATER SPOUT, RUN.....ER......SWIM FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!



Beautiful fish the wrasse is. Tagging along cause.....well........I want to!

Heh. Good to see you Spanko!

Top o' the morning to you sir.
Seems like it must be critter time for this ocean of yours!!!

And to you as well...

Aye, seems to be about that time. Thinking to toss in a Cheato bundle to help with the nitrates, do a 20% change, and test over a couple more days to make sure nothing creeps up on me then add in the first fish this Sunday or so.

I have been pretty strict on what went in (vodka to increase carbon and thus bacteria growth, fully cured live rock, seed live rock from a mature tank, etc) so as to avoid as much of the expected algae bloom as possible and keep the cycle soft and fast.