Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 I like this M-tank idea, the only trick is fitting it under the stand. An interesting twist... My wife owns a 15H that, until now, has been packed full of stuff in our closet & off limits to me. It wouldn't have worked as a display because of its depth (I don't have MH) and the fact that my PC fixtures won't fit it. That doesn't mean it can't be a sump. The only trick I have to come up with is how to install baffles without marring the walls (wife's rules). Silicone never really comes off, so I can't silicone them in. I am still on the hunt for a used 10g because I will be free to do with it what I will. I stopped by my two LFSs today (yes, blue, I finally visited Fins ) but neither of them was willing to sell a used 10g... I bumped my thread in the classifieds hoping that someone local will step up to the plate. As soon as the baby goes down for the night, I will run a test of my new overflow with the 20L & the 15H. Link to comment
bluebastion Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 I like this M-tank idea, the only trick is fitting it under the stand. An interesting twist... My wife owns a 15H that, until now, has been packed full of stuff in our closet & off limits to me. It wouldn't have worked as a display because of its depth (I don't have MH) and the fact that my PC fixtures won't fit it. That doesn't mean it can't be a sump. The only trick I have to come up with is how to install baffles without marring the walls (wife's rules). Silicone never really comes off, so I can't silicone them in. I am still on the hunt for a used 10g because I will be free to do with it what I will. I stopped by my two LFSs today (yes, blue, I finally visited Fins ) but neither of them was willing to sell a used 10g... I bumped my thread in the classifieds hoping that someone local will step up to the plate. As soon as the baby goes down for the night, I will run a test of my new overflow with the 20L & the 15H. Did you have a hard time finding Fins? How'd you like it? I haven't been there in awhile since my tank is fully stocked for the most part. I love the fish in his 180+... Link to comment
reefone Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 check this out fosi install baffles with no marks http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav...les/baffles.htm Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 Easy to find, especially when you take I-26 to Lake Murray Blvd. It was ok... The fish in the 180+ were nice, especially that black tang and his acrylic shrimp/crab system was pretty neat too. He had some seriously diseased fish in the smaller tanks by the door & no prices on his prop-like coral tanks. He didn't have an magnum 350 impellers, said he could get one, but wouldn't look the price up for me. I was also suprised to see MJ1200s being sold for $40. In any case, I may browse there when I am interested in looking for smaller SPS & LPS frags, but they aren't a place I'll go every weekend. EDIT: Damn reefone, you're johnny-on-the-spot with useful links! Link to comment
bluebastion Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 He didn't have an magnum 350 impellers, said he could get one, but wouldn't look the price up for me. I was also suprised to see MJ1200s being sold for $40. Yeah, those are the goods I don't buy.... IME, all LFS charge a ton more for dry goods than mail-order places. However there are some livestock that's a steal buying through him... my solarensis wrasse was only around 40 bucks.... while other places online sell them for 80 dollars and up w/out shipping. Sometimes he gets pompom crabs for only 20 bucks. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 I'll browse there again, just not until I have the $$ for LFS (as opposed to "fellow reefer") livestock. Link to comment
travisurfer Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 Awesome fosi. When I was out surfing yesterday, I saw a piece of sargasso floating nearby as I was coming through the shorebreak. Sadly, I couldn't get it because I had to save my board from being dinged. I swam back out after bringing my board up onto the beach but I was too late. Sargasso almost came early this year but I guess I will have to wait for it to really start coming in when the water warms up a bit. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 Hey trav! Don't sweat it, I still owe you a xenia frag. Looks like I won't be doing the test tonight. I have been told that I will pay dearly if I wake the baby, so I guess I will get it done tomorrow. Link to comment
bluebastion Posted January 10, 2007 Share Posted January 10, 2007 Hey trav! Don't sweat it, I still owe you a xenia frag. Looks like I won't be doing the test tonight. I have been told that I will pay dearly if I wake the baby, so I guess I will get it done tomorrow. That would be awesome if you could do the siliconeless baffles like Reefone cited. Then there would be no repercussions from wifey. However you would need to purchase acrylic/plexi, and those rubber seals. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 I've got 1/8" acrylic laying around & I plan to price out the seals. I have picked up weather stripping before, albeit not the kind in question, and it is generally less than $3. With any luck, this will turn out snazzily. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 As you can see, the overflow works quite well. You may have noticed the little powerhead/pump in the higher tank (20L) with the airhose running to the overflow. I am thinking about using it this way in the display, because it will give me more flow & I can use the venturi to constantly provide suction on the overflow, which will remove air before it can intrude & break the siphon. The remaining plumbing parts for the silencer and the behind-the-stand drain should be coming in the mail today or, more likely, tomorrow. We (wife, child, & I) have to do some food shopping today, so I will try to price that specific kind of weather stripping. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 11, 2007 Author Share Posted January 11, 2007 ***News Flash*** Walmarts in SC don't carry weather stripping. It gets pretty cool down here, why the heck don't they carry it? I wanted to check Lowes or Home Depot, but things were a little tense in the car so we just went home. I have a meeting tomorrow during which the other biology grad students and I will hash out our teaching schedules. The meeting is at 10:30AM and it'll probably last about 2hrs, so I think I'll have time to stop by the Harbison home improvement stores to see if they have the stuff or something comperable. If worse comes to worse, I may have a friend from PA ship me some of the right stuff and run the 15T sans baffles or with makeshift baffles until it comes in. I also need to pick up enough RO to mix up 15g of SW, but I may do that on Saturday. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 11, 2007 Author Share Posted January 11, 2007 Home Depot strikes again! I called Lowes & HD to ask about weather stripping and HD says that they have the foam rubber stuff that is rated for outdoor use. I don't know if it is the same material as what is used in the link that reefone posted so I am going to stop by HD after 3PM today and check it out. Apparantly they sell the stuff in different widths and thicknesses, so I may have quite a selection to choose from. If they have the right stuff, I will get some baffles cut tonight. My wife will be happy to have the "junk" acrylic used in some noble purpose. I'll probably say something like, "See? This is why I keep things that you think are useless. If I had thrown this away like you have been pressuring me to do, I would have had to spend $$ to buy more." Hopefully the plumbing supplies from calvin will arrive to day. If they do, I will get to work on making the stockman silencer & running the soft plumbing. I plan to do the to-sump & away-from-sump runs in soft tubing to cut down on noise. I prefer hard plumbing because I think it is aesthetically pleasing, but this has to sit in our common living area and I don't want to hear complaints about noise. My plan has been to use my unused magnum 350 as the powerplant for the sump with additional flow for the display provided by my HOT magnum, powerheads, or the AC70s that I have. I don't want to clutter the display too much, but I am going to play around with my various water movement devices to strike a balance of aesthetics and flow regime. The bummer is that when I did a FW test of the 350 a couple weeks ago I discovered that the impeller had rusted, which swelled the shaft badly enough to stop it from rotating. I got the 350 some months ago from one of my brothers-in-law who was leaving the hobby. When I first inspected it, I noticed that the impeller was badly abraided, suggesting that it had either been cavitating bady or run with gravel in the impeller housing for some time. I didn't think much of it, since was free, still in working order & didn't make too much noise. Apparantly, a crack developed in the plastic housing that covered the magnet and the SW that I ran through it several months ago during my rock cooking experiment caused the magnet to rust. I am suprised that the designers didn't use a ceramic magnet, but I guess they had their reasons. The good news is that I don't have to buy a whole new assembly, as the designers had the presence of mind make the impeller shaft removable from the magnet. Suprisingly, one of my LFSs quoted me a price comperable to what I can order it online (including shipping), so they are bringing one in for me. The bad news is that it likely won't arrive until Friday of next week. No biggie. I am still going to set the tank up as if I had the pump, I just won't start the overflow or fill the sump. I will likely subsist on powerheads & HOBs until the new impeller magnet arrives. Link to comment
mybuickskill6979 Posted January 11, 2007 Share Posted January 11, 2007 looks good. nice stuff man. the pic i promised! Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 Maybe I'm just a retard, but I don't get your schematics... Link to comment
mybuickskill6979 Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 if i had a copy of a good cad program i'd draw it up on there. whats the address to that free cad program? Link to comment
bluebastion Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 So what happened after 3pm? Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 Well, aside from making dinner, playing with the baby, and eating dinner, & putting the baby to sleep, this happened (not yet glued): The package of plumbing stuff from calvin arrived today, allowing me to construct my hard plumbing. I still need to cut the slots out of the stockman & drill a hole in the cap, but that'll take all of 15min. I cut all the pipe with the saw in my Swiss Army knife because I can't find my hacksaw. The pipe is from calvin his & the other assorted fittings are from a failed attempt at a skimmer & refugium for my 5.5g. I keep trying to tell the wife that it is really a good thing that I keep assorted, unused PVC pumbing parts around. It really wasn't easy to convince her that I shouldn't have thrown them out when we were packing to move down here. I also found the EPDM stuff at HD & bought one package. It wasn't $3, actually more like twice that, for 10', and they only have one variety. There were plenty of other "foam rubber" weather strips, but none that were made of EPDM. I think that 10' is the minimum length I need for my baffles. If I make baffles that are 9"x9.25"x9" I can make five baffles, more if I make smaller ones. If you decide to check my math, don't forget to consider that at least one of the baffles will be a flow-under that doesn't require a seal for most of the 9.25" edge. I didn't have any time to cut the acrylic, so I will likely do it tomorrow. I would like to have all day tomorrow to get the stand placed, shimmed and screwed to the wall, but I volunteered to help a new prof move into his lab. The truck is supposed to arrive a the school at 10AM, but it will likely not be on time. Also, I saw my coral pathologist friend at the meeting today and he said he wants me to call him when I set up the system. He wants to do a SW system at some point in the future and wants to see how I have chosen to construct mine & how I handle the livestock. I think that is kinda funny for a guy who is an avid SCUBA diver and handles coral samples all the time, but I guess it is different when you aren't flash-freezing them in liquid nitrogen once you get them out of the water. I also picked up some shims ($0.99 for more than I need) & two wall brackets ($0.87? each) to attach the stand to the wall. That's all I can think of. I am going to need the full weekend to get this done and I better get it done because I am going to have a full dance card once classes begin... EDIT: Buick, I think you are thinking of SketchUp... Why not d/l an MSPaint equivalent instead? Link to comment
mybuickskill6979 Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 i delete mspaint from this comp hehe!! i'll use sketchup!! Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 I have had zero time today to get things done on this project... Tomorrow is Saturday, so I plan to get the stand placed, shimmed, and bracketed. I also want to get the baffles cut and placed. I have only tomorrow, Sunday, & Monday to ge this done, but I will get it done. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 Well, I decided to start gluing the PVC together. No part of the stockman will be glued, so I can take it apart if I need to, but the slip-to-screw fittings will be. This is the problem I ran into: the nut for the gulkhead doesn't fit over the slip-to-screw fitting that I have. If I put the nut on, then glue the fitting on, I won't be able to remove the bulkhead from the overflow without cutting... What do you think I should do? Link to comment
travisurfer Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 tank is coming along nicely Link to comment
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