Red Sea in the Mojave...the Final Hours

[RollaJase]

I wouldn't count on the cable tie mounts holding long term. Constant tension as well as humidity will pull them off over time. My solution when building my stand was to get some Alu strip, cut, drill paint and screw to the cabinet using washers behind the strip to set it off from the wood. The washers allow you to easily thread a zip tie in behind it. Turned out like so:

[vegasgundog]

Oooooo nice! That's why I ended up screwing down the cabinet lighting I figured I shouldn't count on the command straps holding up to humidity. You built a very nice cabinet.

[RollaJase]

Thank you very much, was my first try at a stand and while it isn't 100% straight I'm pretty happy with it. After my previous attempt at mounting stuff in my old stand I figured that if I can hard mount stuff I would. It is much safer than having stuff fall into the sump. Aluminium is pretty cheap also and very easy to work with so it really is a perfect material to use in the stand. I painted it purely to protect against any corrosion.

[vegasgundog]

Getting closer....but.... I don't know if this sump will work. If it doesn't I'm out 120 from Craigslist buy. Should have slowed down and weighed correct vs $$. I picked up skimmer today from lfs after pouring over online and decided after shipping anything else would wash out. It met the price I was comfortable with (wife is starting asking $$ questions) and read some reviews. It unfortunately will take up most of the room I wanted for the fuge. Looking at the sump I don't know if I'm comfortable with the open return so close to electronics. Ugh.

 

Have a feeling I may be getting newer sump.

[RollaJase]

It wouldn't be impossible to make an acrylic or glass lid to cover the opening if you wanted to keep it. Alternatively, can you flip the sump 180 degrees so the return is on the left?

[vegasgundog]

I will play with that see what happens.

[vegasgundog]

"oh hello, did we hear the ice machine? We were sleeping but we heard the ice machine. Can we have ice? We LOVE ice"

[vegasgundog]

The more I look at this sump and play with it, the less and less it looks like it will work. So aggravating. Lfs who ordered the Red Sea plumbing trying to sell me on the eshopps 3rd Gen 100. The return chamber on it is 4 inches according to the Internet and the Jebao DCT 8000

I ordered on Amzon is 4 inches across acording to the Web. I may end up diy a sump, but so much easier to pay (just not a whole lot). What socks about the Red Sea, it seems the return and drain are backwards from how all modern sump are set up. I'm hoping it will be ok to cross plumbing lines.

[vegasgundog]

Went to lfs to pick up Red Sea plumbing kit. Apparently they are now on back order. Really socks that 1. I can only order from an authorized retailer, 2. I can only use Red Sea plumbing. Well I will have plenty of time to further research sump options including having a custom sump built if it doesn't break the bank.

Fts

 

[vegasgundog]

A public service announcement....

 

When the bucket handle starts to break, throw it away. Don't put it on the porch and grab it later.

[Astinus]

Lesson hard learned

[vegasgundog]

Bought a Trigger 26 sump when I picked up the Red Sea plumbing kit today. Have everything but gate valves. Not sure if I want to build a manifold or just straight line it. Either way I'm going to be cutting on the pipes as nothing is going to match up.

 

[vegasgundog]

Going into this I knew there might be some difficulty working around the Red Sea metric over to standard us. I just dropped a bunchanged of $$ on BRS for plumbing fittings. Looking at the Red Sea piping the hardest part may be the return.

[vegasgundog]

A few weeks back I ordered a DJ power strip on amazon that turned out longer than anticipated and I've been trying all that time to figure how and where to mount it. I spent an hour in Lowes today and finally found a diy mounting bracket in the construction aisle. With a dremmel I cut two elbow brackets in half and stainless steel nuts and bolts it came together.

 

 

Really need to clean my garage...

 

 

Powered up and ready

[RollaJase]

Nice brackets .

[vegasgundog]

Nice brackets .

Thanks, I spent an hour looking for one that would work. Also from your input I used a stainless steel screw on my zip tie velcro blocks skipping the sticky tab for the cords going to the strip.

[vegasgundog]

So frustrated right now with Red Sea. It's bad enough you have to use their plumbing which is metric but in order to get stuff to line up, you have to use their sump. I've been acquiring what I thought I need to plumb this thing and 90% is going back to BRS . When I just get ready I realize the plumbing fitting on the RSM pipes drops down another two inches through the bottom of the aquarium which I was not basing my plans on. Now that drops my original plan of 45* angles to a straight 90* to the trigger sump intake. At this point I believe the trigger is going to be too tall even. Without draining the rear tank and doing a test there really no way of confirming this. And once you attach the RS pipes they can break if you try to remove them from what I've found on the Internet. At this point I'm wondering if I can just remove the RSM bulkheads and use standard ditching their plumbing. So aggravating!

[vegasgundog]

Moved the one spot Fiji last night, in full camouflage mode lying low

[vegasgundog]

It is done....

 

I ended up McGyvering a lot of this plumbing trying to get it to all match up. I modified several connectors by dremmeling out insides of slip connectors. I had to do several emergency plan B's as well when plan A didnt pan out. It literally took two days to finally balance out the return and drain line. It may be the straight line I had to do for the drain. I planned on doing 45* but there was no where near enough room. I didnt count having to place a union but I had to just to connect both ends of the drain. I am not happy with how far down it drains the tank when the Jeabo 6000 DCS is turned off. Im new to sumps but I think I may have to add an extension. The drain pipe seems way too short and takes too long to fill up. Wondering if an extension will raise the display water level as the return spout does not seem to be deep enough as well. I have to point it down as far as I can which causes lots and lots of micro bubbles filling it. As far as the Jeabo goes, I finally have it set at 80%. The Red Sea gate valve is a PITA to get it tuned to the Jeabo but Im hoping I got it. The sump water line has been holding steadier now. Im again wondering if a different siphon will help with this as well. Once I built a box for the Bubble Magus curve 5 to sit on, it works great. Im hoping for good things with this, but I need to go check the water level again. I may go insane if its off again.

 

 

[RollaJase]

Looks like you managed to get around the plumbing pretty well. As for the water in the display dropping a lot when the pump is turned off, this is normal. The tank will drain until the return nozzle is out of water and the water level drops below the overflow teeth. You can increase display volume by blocking off the teeth partially to raise the water level in conjunction with raising up the return nozzle. There will always be micro bubbles when the water comes back on as the return nozzle is breaking surface tension until the water covers it again. One trick to limit this is to position the return nozzle where you want it and drill a small hole in the locline at a higher point of the locline. This will break the siphon on the return nozzle earlier and will hopefully keep the end of the nozzle submerged to limit the bubbles upon restart. As for the drain pipe being too short, are you talking about the pipe within the overflow? If so, making this longer/taller won't increase the volume of water in the display, it will raise the water level in the over flow though.

[vegasgundog]

This is the position of the return, just seems there is not a lot of room to play with.

 

It doesnt really show well here but the drain is 2 inches under the water.

 

 

So if I drill a tiny hole on the top of the return nosel wouldnt it spray water out?

[vegasgundog]

OH WTH!?!?

I was just sitting on the couch. Moments ago I had just check the sump and water was steady. Suddenly I heard water flowing and looked over to see the water level dropping rapidly and the emergency syphon overflow going. I quickly turned down the pump from where it was at. No reason whatsoever for it to happen, no way for main drain siphon to fail. I knocked on the Red sea valve, nothing changed, I turned the pump down more. Walked away mowed the lawn. Came back and the water was stable. I opened the valve full and quickly turned pump full on. I then closed valve and pump back to where I had them and we are back to right where everything was.

 

I'm hoping someone has some ideas on this. I really can't have the red sea valve diaphragm go bad.

[RollaJase]

Yeah, you can't really do the hole trick with a return nozzle like that. The idea is though that the hole you drill is still under the water line but it sits higher up than the end of the nozzle.

 

I'm not sure how Red Sea have designed these overflows but usually the emergency drain is supposed to be set so only the tiniest trickle of water runs down it. Having the primary drain only 2" under the water level which is very close to the emergency drain will make it hard to tune also. Does your primary drain enter the sump water below the water line?

[vegasgundog]

Ya there is realy not a lot of wiggle room between the heights of the main and emergency drains. The drain line ends about 7" under the water and then fills up the box before the water goes into the sock. They really want you to use their sump but I want the refugium. A google search shows people have problems with Red sea valves and several needed replacing. I cant have another sudden failure at this point Im wondering if I need to change things up......

 

 

Would this ball valve work for controlling the flow, not just cutting it off? If I cut the valve away from the pipe and dremmel the slip connectors for the ball valve (what I did at the blue arrow) I can splice it in.

[RollaJase]

You may want to reduce the length of the drain pipe entering the sump under the water. It really only needs to be a few inches under the surface. A long pipe can make it harder to purge the line of air and start a siphon, especially if the power goes out. Yeah, you could use a ball valve instead of the Red Sea thing, I use a ball valve to restrict my primary drain, I didn't want to spend $40 on a gate valve lol. It could be the right angle under the Red Sea box is causing it to perform poorly. From memory the factory design has a fairly straight flow path correct? I'd start with reducing the length of the drain pipe in the sump and seeing how you go.