Three words:

Rotating Pico Cylinder

Formerly the lightweight contender, tipping the scales at 2.87USG - now a svelte featherweight 2.5USG.

Many thanks to Paul at First Class Aquatics who built the tank for me before I'd heard about the competition. It cost me more to have one and a bit inches trimmed off the end than it did for him to build and send me the tank in the first place!

Given that I'm a UK entrant and so any prizes wouldn't be of much use to me (not that I'd win anything in a million years) I have decided to give anything I win to a US or Canadian school run tank. I've seen a few of these on various boards and I'm sure their respective teachers deserve the prizes much more than I ever would.

More pics soon

Nice socks
Best of luck!

Are you insulting Churchill College Boat Club? If you are I'll have to set some big Germans on you!!!

Things you wish you'd checked before choosing your College:

1) College Colours
- Pink and Brown.... DOH

Right, I have more LR and the final bits of equipment. Swapping everything over with the system still full is going to be "interesting" but should be possible!

Hit us with a fts when you're ready!

Pft! Tank currently feels like one of those logic puzzles. I'm having to disconnect the plumbing from the tank to attach the swivel base, but I know from a test run that this involves the tank emptying in 36 seconds! I don't want to post any more shots till it vaguely looks like a tank with water and LR in it!

Need lots of saltwater on standby Also have Aiptasia all over the nice big bit of LR I just bought

The good news is that the swivel is trimmed but it's a bit smaller than I'd have liked so I'm having to build a marine-ply base to sit on top of it.

All the rest of the plumbing is sorted so I'm just waiting till tomorrow when I can cut the ply. I'm supposed to be doing a legal research exam but this is so much moer appealing...

Anyway, back to the Marriage (Approved Premises) Regulations 1995 Not the most thrilling of bed-time reading materials.

How are you doing the plumbing? I can think of two ways I'd do it, but I'm curious as to what your plans are.

There are loads of ways I could do it. The one I've settled on isn't the most elegant but I'm hoping it'll be simple and faff free!

The original idea which used the rotating union was going to have 2 independent closed loops. One, running a Maxijet 500 was there just for circulation and the other went to the modified canister sump.

The idea was that the tank would be free to rotate in any direction as many times as you'd like. The MJ loop was stuck to the bottom of the tank so rotated with it. The power cable for the pump went into a slip ring on the top of the rotating union so it wouldn't get tangled. The drain and return to the canister also went into the top of the union, and then emerged from the base. Again they wouldn't have become tangled during rotation.

Unfortunately the cost of the union sky-rocketed and I was concerned about metal poisoning, so I'm going with a less elegant solution.

As there is now no longer a restriction in the tubes (The union had 1/8" channels) the second loop isn't required. Instead the tank stands on a rotating pottery base (I believe they're known as whirlers or banding rings) and a surpluss of eheim tubing wraps round the base. This should allow for 1.5-2 complete rotations in either direction from the starting point. The MJ will be in-line with the canister in order to provide some more oomph!

Hope this clears things up,

Ed

Pics please.

Best regards

Ann

Hmmm...

Today, I have been mostly, finishing my plumbing:











Getting the UGF plate in and sandtight was a bit of a pain (especially with the system already running) but I think it was worth it!

Am about to order my 150W MH

Before anyone asks, that is not the finished base. Paul (FCA) cut me a nice stylish acrylic base... but I changed the design and it's about half an inch too short (sorry Paul!)

I'm about to order a new tank from him so I'll have to ask very nicely for him to send another bit.

The plumbing will probably go through the stand while it's here in my house but once I take it to work it'll go through the cable tidy in the desk a la Chad/Fish/Ninjafish.

More pics tomorrow,

Ed

Ed,
That looks sweet!!!!
Are you only running a closed loop, or is that just the temp. flow?

Can't wait to see this thing grow, may be some real technical competition for Tigah!!!

Aaah! A hallowed '01 reefer! You have made 38 posts in the last 4 years and one is about my tank Thank you for your kind words!

The design changes on a pretty much hourly basis. I was going to be running one short powerful closed loop and one loop down to a canister filter. Now the pump and the canister are inline on the same loop for simplicity's sake.

I can't use a normal sump drain and return as I don't want an overflow and the tank takes precisely 36 seconds to drain through one of it's 1/2" holes!

There's a bit more info on the various designs and builds here:

http://p2.forumforfree.com/ejls-rotating-p...anoreefsuk.html

Apologies for the random English humour. All you need to know is that people from Portsmouth are strange!

Ed,
That I a really sweet looking tank! You have got my vote. I'm sorry to hear about the huge costs. Would it be possible to put all of the equipment on the turntable and rotate the entire thing? That way you wouldn't have to worry about the tubing.
Looking forward to seeing it with the lights on.

- Chad

So should I post a pic of how I was thinking that you could of done the plumbing or would you not be interested? (not saying that i don't like how you did it, just if you are interested in then idea i was thinking about)

Hi Chad!
When it looks half as sweet as your cube I'll be happy!

The costs were "okay" until I realised that one part of the union would have to be custom made. Then it became silly!

The current system works quite well! You get about 270 degrees movement in each direction before it snags. I was thinking abut rotating it all but it isn't very elegant and won't allow the attachment of an auto topup etc...

Thanks once again Chad,

Ed

*****************

BTF,

I'd love to see your design. It probably matches or is close to one of the 18 variants in my file (I change things a lot!) but I'd love to see anything in case it's new!

The original design was way cooler but when a £300 union became a £1000 union I changed my mind

The current design was chosen by applying 2 tests:

1, what design will my boss allow me to have in the office (i.e. how leak-proof is it)

2, bearing in mind that few of my parts arrived what could I build with what I had before the contest deadline!

*********************

P.S. The current arrangement of the looped cabling is extremely temporary. The coils run much more smoothly when encased in the acrylic stand but for the moment it just has to sit there and work

You probably thought of this already then

Pardon the paint quality sketch.

Black box on top is the tank, black box on bottom is a sump.

Blue pipe is an overflow pipe drilled into the middle of the tank

Green pipe is the return that fits inside of the blue pipe and spits water back into the tank (directed, sprayed, whatever). Pump fitted at the bottom of the green pipe pushing water up.

Granted, the trick is letting it rotate around the blue pipe, but there wouldn't be really a concern for leaking because the water would be flowing down the blue pipe. As long as the seal around the pipe's outside is good, you should be fine.

Conversly, you could do like a clam tank and let the edge of the tank be the overflow and get rid of the blue pipe entirely. Let the water flow down the edge of the tank into the sump below it and the center pipe being the return. That may be the better answer between these two thoughts actually as you can make the return a spray bar or something. Though the first idea makes the pump easier to put in since the pump won't rotate (nor the joint between the return pipe and the pump.

A rotating pico, awsome!

btw, lava lamps are awsome

BTF,

I had a similar idea but yours looks cooler!

I decided against it because:

a) I wanted the plumbing hidden like in Fish's tank and couldn't be arsed to drill through my LR and

Where the tank is eventually going to live, the display can't be directly above the sump as there's a filing cabinet there. That was a real PITA to get around!

I might have a go at mocking up a design like this for you to have a look at though. I've got a few UK 12x8x8 tanks around here somewhere....

Fishyfan, thanks! I have to agree with you about the lava lamps

Ed

I love the look of the cylindrical tank, when the pipes are concealed it will be such a very neat and tidy set-up with no visible equipment at all which is absolutely perfect.

Darn it, I wish that I'd thought of something neat and original for my entry now.

Best regards

Ann

Glad to hear that my idea was at least a bit different then the ones you had.

Don't worry about it too much! I had been planning this tank for six months! Plus I just really hate overflows!!!

considering it's just 1 rock it's a nice shape and size for your tank. It's gonna be so sweet once it's done! Keep us up to date with FTS!

It's actually 2 rocks! i got a really nice bit of LR, looks like dense tonga but I'm not sure, but it was too big. I broke it into little bits and put the two best in the tank. I really like the effect, I've already worked out where everything can go

I'll take another FTS as soon as something happens but nothing much has changed I'm still waiting on my halide...

However, I did get into a bit of trouble yesterday. I picked up a mantis a couple of weeks ago but unfortunately the rock he's living in has so much die off on it that it's polluting the tank to toxic levels.

I tried everything I could to get him to switch rocks so I could swap him over, unfortunately it didn't work, he really liked his home. Things came to a bit of a head yesterday when I decided to clean out his tank and do a 100% water change.

While I did this I put the mantis rock in a plastic bag in the top of the cylinder. I turn away and <whack! whack! RIP!> Oh ****! Mr Mantis makes a bid for freedom into my cylinder having ripped a hole in the seam of the bag

Now I have to work out how to get him back into the other tank before I start stocking the cylinder!

Those crazy mantises... what will they think of next?!

good luck,
Jared

Cheers!

I personally think they're plotting to take over the world! Starting with one little portion of my flat!

Love the avatar by the way!

I've got more avs like it coming... The Reef Lizard has no mercy! ahh ha ha ha ha!

Yeah, i've noticed! This is, what, the fourth?

Are they going to be increasingly violent in relation to '04 v. '05 rivalry or is this a blip?

So what's the plans on stocking? Or if you told me would you have to kill me?

Nothing special really. I was going to try to get few sexy shrimp and pom-pom crabs but ever since Stig my mantis made a daring escape from his plastic container my plans for invertebrates have had to change somewhat.

Up until today he seemed to be much happier with snails and the like rather than crabs but he changed his mind and appears to have horribly butchered "Crash-Test-Dummy No1."

I'm not sure I can be bothered to take him out at the mo so he'll stay in for now

Other than him I'm hoping to have a small Crocea or Maxima clam, as much pretty LPS as I can lay my hands on and a few SPS. I may throw in some zoos and rics if I can find some nice ones.

Of course my blastos will be taking pride of place!

Any ideas for an interesting fish? My mantis' species aern't reknowned as fish hunters!

How about a neon goby, lots of people suggest them but v rarely have I seen one in someones tank. Cool little suckers too.

I keep changing my mind! I'm pretty sure that 9 days out of ten the mantis would be terrified of the goby. He's not a big scary mantis like Tigah's, he's a little wussy mantis who beats on snails becuase they don't have claws!

But that other day, when he's trying to show off, you just know he'll kill anything that comes near his burrow!

It's a shame becuase i'd quite like a goby or something like that but I think I'd feel pretty bad if he killed it!

On another note, have you had any luck getting on nr.co.uk today? Pete says it's been taken down by hackers

I usually visit most days and i've not had a problem, I may have missed it. Site is definately ok now though.

Think you're right about the goby, a mantis is a cool enough resident anyway

Any new updates/piccies to show us?

Best regards

Ann

OFFICIAL PICO CONTEST NEWS

New Task... Read about it here...
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75621

YOU MUST COMPLETE THE TASK!

Hi all,

Distinct lack of funds syndrome is hampering the project but we're still battling on. The mantis has a few more housemates and has continued to grow. Pics as required by Gil will be forthcoming as soon as I get my camera back.

Ed