The pipes take alot of little quirks to get right. Its all about drawing a circle on the right plane, colouring it and then pulling it. Then you can move it around to fine tune the fit into the fittings.

The tank might be changing slightly as we will see what fits best in our new house. Im looking at a 55 Corner Bow but the principals will be the same - the closed loop.

Ill keep you all updated dont worry!!!!

Just to keep you interested, here is a pic of one of my boards for the Aquatroller!!!


i will be stacking more on top

So much pvc...

Nah, thats nothing!!!

just read through this whole thing. looks good. i am anxious to see the outcome. call me a noob but i still dont understand the flow chart. is there any way you could pm me a diagram of how the water will flow into what chamber and how it will return? i'm used to the traditional setup but this is a whole new language to me. thanks

I just want you to know I hate this thread.








because I'm jealous. Looks awesome man!

A flow chart of which thing????? There are so many bits i dont know which one you want to understand better???

i tried to follow the return plumbing but got confused when it came to the frag tank. i see the pump goes to the frag tank and back up to the DT, but how does it escape the frag tank?

Ahhhh,


Look closely in the last pic, you can see the vertical stand pipe in the frag tank which leads back into the sump. I can control the flow through the fuge and the frag tank with vavlves off the manifold.

Hope this helps.

VR.

i see it. thanks. i just overlooked that. now that i look at it closer this is pretty brilliant. there will be now dead spots for the fuge. i like this setup alot.

pretty wicked stuff. I might have to learn google sketch autocad 10 just doesnt do it for me

Thanks for the praise. If all goes to plan this will be one hell of a sweet setup, especially once my controller is finished and its automated. The next things to work on will be my auto salt dispenser and my text message alarm add on to allow me to view faults in real time. and sort them out electronically

My next biggest hurdle is the software side of my controller. Im a hardware guy and im VERY slowly trying to lean Visual Basic to make a nice internet based user interface, so if any of you guys could give any tips on that i would be VERY much appreciated!!!

I got bored again....




Its a pity the demo ran out on my rendering software as it would look cool rendered!!

VR

Wow. very impressive!

(And I love Vancouver!)

You should sell your boredom!

yes please.

wow thats an insane set up!!!!!!!!! i wish i could have half of the amount of resources you do.... your reef better be nice or else ill hurt you

For the amount of time ive spent designing all this stuff if best be good!!! The only problem ive got is starting it all on a 50 Gal!!! This system would rival the Vancouver Aquariums setup!!!!

Once ive finished my aquarium, controller, installation and user interface ill finally have time to sketch-up anyones ideas, plans etc!

awesome

Wow man, you are really good at that. After seeing your I tried it out, they are decent but yours keep getting better and better! Wicked cool man, great work! Now bring it to life!

Personally, I think closed loops are the way to go. A good practice is to drill two return holes and plumb them both, though leave one valve'd off so you can use it if you need to. Or, plumb them together and have them rotate 100% return every now and then. Remember, a closed loop with one intake and one return is like two powerheads (the intake pulls as much water as it pushes). Twice as effective if you separate them on sides of the tank.

Just my two cents....

Kyle,

Your Lagoon tank is INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it!!!! Now thats what you call a show piece!!! That would be sweet to do a deeper one with a full reef below and then your own Hawaiian volcano on top!


Love it

Gosh, thanks man! I can't wait to get my bigger one under way!

Now, yours is going to be awesome because you seem to be a man of the "quality, rather than quantity." That is PERFECT for a reefer. Good job and make it happen!

this is now the sump that i will from now on refer to as "the sump that i've always wanted."

Richard ... less sketchup, more visual basic! Which reminds me, send you some source code!

Gimmie CODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey can I have the sketchup file?
I'll, when I get bored do some nice materials and render it out then post it here.
I enjoy doing stuff like that and need a break from my current animation project.
I know Yaf A Ray(a rendering engine that works with Blender) really well as well as Blender's internal engine,
plus the lighting and all of that stuff.
I'd appreciate it.

Dude, I've been jacking with sketchup for days and all I can do is screw stuff up. How are you modeling the tanks themselves? Being transparent and all.

click window, then materials, and click translucent.

If you use this sort of architecture, be sure to use at least Schedule 80 PVC pipe to hold that tank and stand nice and sturdy .


This looks like an awesome plan.

sched 80 i like it.

JM Pm sent!!!

Hmm.
I did a direct Collada Export to Blender,
totally didn't work.
Then i tried to export it as a Google earth format and I got the same messed up scene.
Finally I go the Pro Version of Sketchup then exported it as OBJ,
now it in Blender however it won't separate all the mesh correctly.
I think it will clean up with some work,
I dunno maybe a few little pieces got messed up.
The materials, lighting and stuff will be the easy part.
But hey I have something to do now don't I?

I must say I got bored of working with sketchup (cause I have to use it for college) but gotta admit I love loosing time doing what I don't really need to do in sketchup... like Reef related stuff haha

I didn't read the whole thread on this excellent mockup, but here are some thoughts

1) why not have the gravity feed from the tank flow through the frag tank, then overflow to the fuge?
frags would get a shot at eating whatever leftover food comes down, and water temp would be more stable (pumps can heat water a little) and it would allow you to either use a smaller pump or get more flow in the display tank for "free"

you could plumb in on or more small external pumps to circulate water from that center intake across the bottom. If you wanted, you could do a long-term wavemaker effect (a tidal effect) such that you run one pump for 6 hours, then the other, etc...

iii) the graphics are impressive

d) same comment on the fuge as on the frag tank-- I'd rather see water go straight downhill from the tank into those spaces vs. using up flow from the return line. Since the sump is at least 3m below the display, you'll get plenty of velocity on the downspout. I suppose it could be trickier to adjust the flow, so maybe build a small header tank that catches the water from the display, then you can put as much as you want into the fuge/frag tank, and the rest goes into the skimmer/sump

the end result is still that you get a lower flow pump or more flow in the display. Either way, you win with less heat or less electric bill

How do you do the full rendering photos that make the models looks so real?

You can try Podium. Is a plugin for sketchup. There's also Vray

Watch him choke on the aquascape, lol.

now D thats just mean. but I'll bet 5 noob tails your right.