220 Setup

Yeah, Oceanic. That's what the folks at ABC told me. It's MASSIVE! The bottom of it doesn't look tempered, and looks even thicker than the walls, which are a half inch thick.

My girlfriend and I slid it off the truck, back on the stand it came with, then onto a Harbor Freight hydraulic table, where we balanced it and brought it down onto two wheelie tables.

We then rolled it up to the house and built various ramps and things to get it in the door on the wheelies.

We then rolled it into the kitchen and had some excitement this morning when it slid off the hydraulic table from a few inches up and hit the tile floor with a reverberating bang. I think I ate the same breakfast twice and suffered a minor heart attack, but the tank is fine!

We jacked it up progressively until it was balanced on the table again about two inches below the stand, and we slid it onto the stand. The polyurothane was dry, so the tank slid into place nicely! I've got exactly 5" to spare for plumbing, so this will work!!!

The top of the tank is about 2" higher than eye level for me, 6'2", in the sunroom, and I can reach in and hit bottom from the kitchen. COOL!!!

Thank you so far to all who provided assistance and commented! I have to say that moving 7 feet of what I believe to be over 400 lbs of glass with just two people and a hydraulic table is a bit frightening!

Now for the plumbing!
 

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sweet build. i love having tanks that arent the "usual" dimensions....cant wait to see this take off. You in the syracuse area?
 
I'm in the Rochester area.

Gary, I've been told that I'm going to use your "method" of return flow. Do you have a thread on this?

I plan on taking the return and running it down the side of the tank, splitting off smaller diameter outlets for jets to drive some current in the tank.
 
OK, I received the pumps and they're... HUGE! I don't think I'll have any trouble with return flow, even from the basement.

Now I'm turning to my lighting. I plan on using two 4 bulb T5HO 48" fixtures (4 actinic and 4 daylight) and two 4 bulb T5HO 36" fixtures (same thing) to cover the full width and length of the tank. These will be suspended a few inches above the water.

I'm still stuck between the draw of the beautiful Metal Halide shimmer and the economy of the T5 fixtures. I've read alot of lighting threads, and it seems the T5 HO is cool stuff.

Is this really enough light to grow corals? Any limitations with this lighting?
 
I've seen plenty of successful T5 lit reef s. An alternative would be LED supplementation for a shimmer effect. Couple guys here have a lot of experience with them.
 
Thanks Cap'n!

Mmmm... So I could add a few LEDs to get the shimmer, yet the bulk of the light would be the T5s... I could probably do that with any white high output LED then.
 
Looks good so far!

In regards to the lighting. If you were to go with the T5 fixtures, IMO it would take maybe 6+ Powerbrites, or their equivalent, to achieve the "shimmer" that your after...I could be wrong however, and hopefully others can comment.

Regarding the stand, I somewhat agree with Todd on being concerned with the sturdiness of it. I can't see it all exactly but I might add some "stiffener" 2x4's to each corner to add some beef and to aid in any deflection. It would just be adding material and not taking anything out so you wouldn't have to worry about removing the tank ;). Basically you would just be making an 'L-shape" at ea. corner. Screw the top and bottom in place, then throw some screws into the existing corner pcs.
 
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Thanks for the input on the lighting.

Regarding the stand... I'm not done! What happens next is that maple plywood and hardwood will be installed both inside between the supports to build shelving and cabinets, and on the outside, all around. Hope that makes sense. What you are seeing is only the initial frame.

Pics of that soon!
 
Nice build thread! I have a question for you...how did you calculate your head loss? 40' seems awfully high. I have a basement sump and I estimated 16/18' of head losses. I'm currently running a Reeflo Hammerhead pump and I have more than enough flow through the display tank. I'm trying to get my hands on one of those watt meters to confirm my estimate, but I think that pump is costing my around $25/month to run. That's at $0.098kWh.

If you look at the electrical draw on the March pump, here are a few montly electrical costs for it (@ $0.098kWh):

Max draw: 1231W - $88
1000W - $72
800W - $57
400W - $29

If your system's head losses are similar to mine, the pump will probably run you $60-$80 a month.
 
Head calculation was as follows:

1 1/2" PVC pipe
10' from pump to tank inlet - 2.5' of friction loss + 10 feet of real head
4 90 degree elbows = 4 * 4' of loss
2X ball valves = 2 * 7' of loss
2X disconnects = 2 * 1.5'

Sooo... about 37.5' of head is my estimation...

This is stuff I got off the web.
 
I see what you did. The losses for the valves, 90's and disconnects are used as part of the equivalent pipe length method to calculate frictional losses. In other words, the losses from each fitting are given in the equivalent number of feet of straigt pipe.

In your case, the total head loss for your fittings and valves is equivalent to 33' of straight pipe. Add that to the total length of 1.5" pipe you will use in your system (I'll assume 20'). Your grand total comes to the equivalent of 53' straight pipe.

At 1200gph, the head loss for 1.5" diameter PVC pipe is 2.6ft/100ft of pipe (from www.engineeringtoolbox.com). Do a little math, and the head loss for your plumbing to 1.64'.

We're not done yet...you need to add the 1.64' to the vertical distance you need to pump your water too (10'). The grand total for your system is 11.64'. Use this number when sizing your pump.

For the case of those March pumps, you should expect to get 50+gpm! I think you're looking for 20gpm, so those pumps are monsterously oversized :).

You can always use the Head Loss Calculator from the RC main page to simplify everything. There may be more energy efficient pumps, but an Iwaki 70 RT-2 will give you exactly what you're looking for.
 
So, I'm prepared for the 500... THOUSAND gallon tank.

When I received the pumps, I kind of went uh-oh...

That means I'll switch back to the small March pump I have. It's 1/8 HP, with a zero head rate of about 16.5 gpm. It may be a little undersized. (March AC-5C-MD-AM)

Either that, or based on the fact that I was going to generate all of the flow in the tank with the pump, I might still play with the idea. Although, 50 GPM will probably flow fish and coral right out of the tank and never allow my substrate to settle! Plus, I'd lose the redundancy of having flow in the tank if the pump failed if I used other power heads or accessories.

Guess I'll have to experiment...

Does throttling a pump back force it to consume a greater current?
 
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Yeah, you're ready for that enormous tank with those pumps!

The Reeflo site states that as you throttle back pump's discharge, it moves the pump further back on its performance curve. This causes the motor to work less and consume less electricity. Reeflo pumps are centrifugal pumps.

The March pump is a mag drive pump and I'm not sure the same theory applies. I looked at the pump curves for Reeflo's Blowhole pumps (magnetically driven), and it appears the electrical draw is constant along its flow curve. No matter how much you throttle that pump down, it still will draw the same. If that truly is the case, then you'll draw 1231 watts all the time with the March pump.
 
Ok, I'm confused about one thing...

The specs on the pump state that the KW rating is 0.559 KW. Where are you getting the 1.2 KW? Is there another curve?

It seems that mag drive pumps are centrifugal as well. The mag drive only defines the linkage between the pump shaft and the impeller. There is a magnet cup on the shaft that surrounds a magnet with an impeller on it, ridiing on a shaft in a fully enclosed system (no seals).

That would mean I could throttle back the pump pretty nicely.
 
Right on that mag drive pumps are centrifugal...I had a brain fart there!

Anyhow, the 0.559kW is if you wire the pump 3-phase, 230V at 50Hz. I assumed you planned to wire it single phase at 60Hz
 
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