New commer, few questions

[Clint Jorgensen]

Hello all...  newbie to the forum but some what a novice to marines, i haven't had a tank setup in nearly 15 years but now its finally time to go ahead.  ive had all these ideas floating around for years now and since my last brush with marines i see there has been some significant leaps ahead in technology, so my methods may be still somewhat primitive but they should work like they always did lol.  So im setting up a 400 odd Litre curved tank in the loungeroom but plumbing it down under the house in where all the clutter will live, then pumping it all back upstairs again.  I know what im doing there but i have some ideas to run by the brains-trust to see if im not seeing something obvious....  Ok so a brief description would be 400L tank upstairs, drains down thru the floor into a sump with all the fruit, which then drains into 2x 240L bins as bulk volume, which is then pumped back up into the main tank to to continue the cycle.   Giving around 1000L volume in the circuit.  Now my ideas for keeping running costs to a minimum as it will be quite the pump would be to wire the pump and sump electrics onto the off tarriff grid (australian here incase its different elsewhere) which is what our electric hot water units are powered by essentially only being powered 8 hrs a day, cheaper electricity and all that should hopefully keep running costs down a little better for what would essentially be considered a small scale above ground pool setup.   So my ideas were to have a timed system that would run the main pump for approx 1hr at start of tarriff, then 1 hr before end of tarriff, cycling all 1000L probably a few dozen times, twice a day thru the upstairs tank and then down thru the sump.   meanwhile upstairs inside the 400L tank would be a series of powerheads on a timed system to continuously rotate the main tank all 24hrs of the day.  Can anyone see a problem with this?   only thing i can think of will be a diff in water temp from downstairs to up, which may be as much as 2 degs really, its the tropics here and we have pretty mild temp swings all year round.   So im not thinking it its going to be too much of a drama.   Reason for bulk storage is to reduce maintenance and larger volumes tend to keep cooler thruout the days heat so hopefully negating the need for a chiller..  a good sized heater would be a must during winter however upstairs and down. Also i can dump and replace the 500L storage completely without disturbing the reef upstairs in any way shape or form reducing stress and exposure to the inhabitants.   So friends..  What are your thoughts?  I have no pics sorry as this is all in my head, ive started collecting parts however and will need to build a stand and hood first of all i think so that i can work out tank placement in the room then go from there.

 

Thanks :)

[jservedio]

Probably not a great idea since all of your filtration, ATO, and most importantly, temperature control, would be down there - especially if your house isn't a dead constant temperature. Can you make it work? I'm sure you can, but there is little room for error if your house gets too cold or too hot. Having the sump in the basement will also save you if it gets too hot in your house since it'll probably be a bit cooler down there with the AC off. My crawlspace is typically 20-30 degrees cooler than outside in the summer at noon before it starts to catch up in temperature.

 

That's a fairly big system, so it's not going to be cheap to set up - why skimp when it comes to keeping it running 24/7?

[Clint Jorgensen]

Ok thanks, can anyone reccomend a reliable dc option then? Becuase i can power it with solar quite easily.  Something around 1500-3000gph?