Chipp's 5 Gallon ADA Mini M: Fake Sump

[Timfish]

11 hours ago, kekke1082 said:

😅 well i will only borrow it then and make sure to give you credit for the inspiration lol. Do you have a thread for how your idea was done? Id love to check it out! 

Actually it is Chipp's idea.  I'm just annoyed I didn't think of it and he did.  (But by all means give me the credit instead of Chipp 😉 )

[Timfish]

1 hour ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

In my 4.7 gallon tank (about 3 1/2 gallons of total water volume, after the 5lb rock was put in) I go through about a gallon a week of top off water. I'm guessing you'll need to come up with something for your tank. 

Chippwalters and I have discussed the the likely hood it will be needed and the possible ways to do it.  As Chipp mentioned above one way to avoid an ATO would be reducing the amount of evaporation with a lid.   Also, most corals reefers keep can tolerate moderate changes in salinity fairly well so diluting the new saltwater a little bit so the corals see a weekly variation would be an additional step.  But if an ATO is needed some of the ATO sensors on the market are fairly small and would fit easily through the neck of the "fake sump".  A probable solution would be a custom bracket that would hang on the "fake sump" holding the sensors and the ATO supply at the water line

[chippwalters]

2 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

In my 4.7 gallon tank (about 3 1/2 gallons of total water volume, after the 5lb rock was put in) I go through about a gallon a week of top off water. I'm guessing you'll need to come up with something for your tank. 

Do you have a glass cover for your tank?

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

12 minutes ago, chippwalters said:

Do you have a glass cover for your tank?

I do not - I'm sure a lid would help minimize loss, but I'm in the phoenix area, and it'd create more issues with heat for this little tank if I did have one. 

[chippwalters]

Got my ADA in:

 

 

OK, Timfish came by today and helped me with the tank. He drilled 3/4 and 1/2 bulkhead openings and we installed the overflow and return, then tested it out with 10 gallons (5 in the tank, 5 in the fake sump jug).

 

Tim found this super little pump:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y2T63PX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

Fits right in the plastic 5 gal jug without issue. Problem is we figured we'd need 2 of them to move the water up to the tank. Boy were we wrong! This little DC pump gave us well over 50 gph and was in fact too strong for our overflow. If I had to do it over again, I'd use a 1" bulkhead for the overflow. We ended up cobbling up a 3/4 to 1" overflow "back end" to handle the flow, and it worked, but getting some gurgling. So I bought a DC power control, which should get here tomorrow, to help calm down this little guy.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R4NK3D1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

Gotta say, for under $36, it's a pretty powerful combo for an adjustable DC pump. Course we'll have to see if it lasts.

NOTE: It didn't last. I don't recommend the pump!!

 

Hooked up the Aqua Illumination Prime and Nero 3, and it just couldn't be easier. Did some PAR readings and was surprised at how low they were. Probably good enough for softies but not so good for acros. I may have to create some sort of stand to get the light closer. 

 

All the tubes, heater and pumps fit in just fine. Got 2 titanium 100W heaters, one for each jug, and the cool thing is I can operate both using the one controller-- so they stay in sync. Not to mention the temperature probe goes upstairs in the DT. Cool beans.

 

Here we are running tap water through the tank as we get it set up. No cable management or anything, just want to get all the parts working. Nero 3 created a pretty great standing wave.

 

 

We'll paint all the PVC tomorrow as we add saltwater, LR, coral and critters.

 

Here's a shot of the setup with the fake sump below:

 

 

 

And here's a close up of the fake sump:

 

 

More tomrrow 🙂

 

 

[Timfish]

We defintiely should have gone with a 1" bulkhead considiering how often we had to redo the overflow plumping to keep up with the pump.   We need to time how long it takes that pump to empty a gallon.  I'm quessing we're getting more than 50 gph. 

[farkwar]

Pump states 600 liters per hour

 

That's 160 gallons per hour, much doubt that

 

But 50? Seems plausible

 

From the pic, the prop shaft looks metal.  Is it?  Any other non marine parts in it.

 

I've been looking for a pump like that for a while.  The Tunze ATO pump is close, but not enough juice.

 

I was looking at that water jug, or the 5 gallon water jugs I currently use, you have not for a sump.  But water changes.

 

 

[Timfish]

11 hours ago, farkwar said:

Pump states 600 liters per hour

 

That's 160 gallons per hour, much doubt that

 

But 50? Seems plausible

 

From the pic, the prop shaft looks metal.  Is it?  Any other non marine parts in it.

 

I've been looking for a pump like that for a while.  The Tunze ATO pump is close, but not enough juice.

 

I was looking at that water jug, or the 5 gallon water jugs I currently use, you have not for a sump.  But water changes.

 

 

160 GPH is with no pressure head.  I didn't time it to the second but checking how the system was running before putting in saltwater it took about roughly 3 minutes to empty 5 gallons, that's roughly 80 -100 gallons an hour with a ~3' pressure head.  

 

Since when does having metal parts make a pump non marine?  Many pumps and power heads have stainless steel shafts besides a metal rotor.

[chippwalters]

So, Tim came over yesterday and we got this thing up and running. Took some pictures this morning...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chippwalters]

Here's how I do a 50% water change in less than a minute. Thanks Tim for taking the video and bringing me that great new Wyoming White clown!

 

 

 

[Timfish]

Your welcome!  Gotta say you make a 50% water change look pretty easy! 😁

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Show off. lol 

[chippwalters]

Some tank pics after Tim's kind donations yesterday. Had to remove the Damsel as he was beating up the clown.

 

 

 

[kekke1082]

LOOKING GOOD!  That really is a good way to do a water change. So far have you had to do any top offs or noticed significant evaporation? 

[chippwalters]

6 hours ago, kekke1082 said:

LOOKING GOOD!  That really is a good way to do a water change. So far have you had to do any top offs or noticed significant evaporation? 

Thanks for your kind words. I put a cup of fresh water in the jug every day. I just do it when I feed.

[chippwalters]

Tank going well-- working through some issues. Went through 2 return pumps before finally settling on the ATO pump from Neptune called "PMUP." Seems to be working well. Had a huge GHA issue which Tim took care of by just pulling the rocks out of the tank and giving them a good H2O2 scrubbing. I'm also using an in-tank UV light filter as well. I'll remove it later. I've been dosing with Start Smart Complete and the GHA was mostly gone-- the Tuxedo Urchin and a few turbos got what was left.

 

I'm thinking about moving to a cryptic sump, like I had before on a 17 gallon build, but things are just going so well and 60% water changes are only 5 minutes, including mixing up the next batch. I'm using well water (which I've checked) and everyone seems to like it. I take reading and the pH is right on target but the KH is a bit high at >10. The nitrates are slight but the tank absorbs most of them quickly and after a day we're back to a tad bit over zero.

 

 

 

 

 

[Subsea]

Nothing fake about this tank.  Only you and Tim would come up with “fake sump”.

Everybody else has an algae refugium, but you and Tim have Cryptic Refugiums.  What’s next,

“Tails from the Darkside”?

 

I saw @Timfish earlier last week at Aquadome.  He looked haggard.

Many on Austin Energy lost 100% of their reef tank.  I lost power for only 2 hours

[chippwalters]

Well, it's been a few months, a couple ups and down including surviving through the infamous Texas storm without power and heat, and we're still on track. Here's my latest FTS. Things are doing well. I still have the in-tank UV light, though I should probably take it out as I haven't seen any sign of algae for quite some time. I also am still adding Start Smart each week when I do a 50% water change. I've also started dosing iodine every other day (1/4 capful) to see if I can't get the zoas to color up a bit.

 

The clown now hosts in the xenia, which seems fun for her. She sleeps there at night.

 

Everything is very healthy. I'm going to give Tim my tuxedo urchin as almost all the corraline algae is now gone and I'm sure the little guy is starving.

 

I'm still using my fake sump. I thought about swapping for a refugium, but in the end decided not to because everything is doing just fine. My workflow is extremely simple. Each day I feed and then add 1 cup (red plastic cup on side of picture below) of tap water (from our well-- high in nitrates and calcium, very hard), for ATO and sometimes wipe down the glass with the magnet cleaner. Then, each Monday I do a swap of the 5 gallons with a new mixed 5 gallons. I again use tap water and I use those 2 Little Fishies premade 5 gallon salt mixes, shake it a bit, then put a heater and another Neptune pmup down in it and it mixes quietly for the next week.

 

By my calculations, changing 50% a week, I'm doing a 100% water change every 5 weeks, which is about as good as it gets.

 

This whole process takes me 5 minutes or less. That's the whole sum of maintenance I do each week. That is the huge upside.

 

Here are the downsides for this approach:

• Super small tank (4 gallons in DT) means it's super sensitive to any changes-- especially external changes like water quality, temperature, oxygen, etc.
• Return pump in lower sump jug quitting can potentially lead to a tank crash as the heater is also in the lower sump jug.
• Constant moving of heater and return pump can create robustness issues as well.
• Well water could go bad, though we pump it into 2 800 gallon containers and then filter it from there. 
• Because no auto-feeder or auto-top off, must feed and top-off each day.

 

 

 

[chippwalters]

So, this process works exceeding well for me. I only need to change the one 5 gallon jug of saltwater each week. FWIW, I added a filter sock I stuck in the top of the jug which also gets swapped out each week as well.

 

I am thinking of doing this with a smallish real sump, as then I can do ATO as well, plus charcoal and more live rubble. So, Tim and I sat down today and sketched this out (sorry for the poor quality-- sketched on an LCD Tablet. 

 

 

The idea is the 10 gallon sump will sit below the display tank, and have two compartments. The first will be the live rock and the second will be volume controlled with baffles and house the return pump, heater, ATO and possibly a small reactor. This sump tank will be flanked either side with two 5 gallon jugs. The one on the right is fresh water and is controlled by the ATO. The one on the left is for saltwater and has a bulkhead installed with a quick disconnect from BRF which acts as it's own overflow. I run the display tank overflow into it and then it overflows into the sump.

 

When I want to do a water change, I just turn off the pumps, quick disconnect the 5 gallon saltwater jug, pull out the overflow line from it, swap it with a fresh 5 gallon container and place the overflow back in and do a quick reconnect. Pretty much as simple as the current process. 

 

I'll be building this in the next weeks and am excited to see how things work.