240 Inwall Construction (Image Intense)

[george1098]

Incredible tank, I hope you donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t mind, I may have made the snapshot of your fish room my desktop background. It gives me something to aspire to for my 33 gal .
My question is about your home made protein skimmer. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve been searching the net gathering ideas on how to go about making my own downdraft, but I seem to be coming up short. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢d like to make it out of mostly acrylic and pvc piping. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to make it work as well or better than a store bought?
thanks

 

[Stile2]

You got my nomination, I pm'd skipper!

Keith

 

[Pewe]

Awesome tank and setup!!!! Truely inspiring! Great job!!!!!

:eek1:

 

[weatherson]

NexDog, bheron, resplendantreef, wonrib00, GregM779, jarhed, DerekW, Stile2, Pewe: Thank you all so much. You are all very kind and I appreciate your comments.

elephen: It's fairly hard to count but I came up with 80. :eek2: That surprises even me as I would have never thought that many. Many are frags though.

jwedehase: I want to go on record here stating that I never publicly said those several thousand kids were annoying. Perhaps inferred, but never stated in those blunt words.

Thanks for the kind words but no, I will not build you a skimmer. Seriously, you are way too kind. It's easy to be humble when you love this hobby and the animals it allows us to keep as much as I do. It simply never seems anything less than fun and interesting on a daily basis.

george1098: Thanks for the kind words. As to the skimmer, in all reality, it isn't all that difficult to make your own skimmer that will perform equal to and often better than a store bought, commercially made unit. While there is a certain amount of knowledge required, skimmers in general are pretty simple devices.

There are many options available as far as which design to go with but the Beckett type is probably one of the most common these days. There's also a resurgence of air-stone type with the improvement in design of air-stones and their ability to produce finer bubble along with longer lasting, higher output air pumps. When you say downdraft, I picture the older style ETS type with a jet of water shot into tubes where water mixes to a froth. This was the type I made in my first attempt at working with acrylic. Interestingly, at least to me, this unit is still in service but with many alterations throughout its life. It's currently a Beckett if that tells you anything. I'd strongly suggest following the DIY forum here as there's always great ideas and projects to find there.

Joseph

 

[weatherson]

OK... here's a few updates to share. I've made a few changes to the tank recently in an effort to increase flow. But, before I get into that, let me start with my water-change system. I'd previously used two of the Rubbermaid, 30-gallon trash cans and they worked well... until recently. Apparently, the mixing side tank decided it had enough and decided to acquire a very small, hairline crack near the bottom. I was getting ready to do a water change by filling this container with RO/DI water. When I returned a couple hours later to check on the progress, I found a puddle of water on the floor. A little investigation lead to the crack. I wasn't too bothered by this as I knew I'd been wanting to upgrade the tanks to slightly larger versions anyway. So, I did just that and picked up a couple of 50-gallon units, Rubbermaid also, from Home Depot. These are made of a much thicker plastic and have hinged lids as well as wheels (not that I will be using the later). A few holes drilled later and they were ready to go. I do like the fact that I now change almost 50-gallons per water change compared to the previous 30. Here's a shot of them and sorry I couldn't get a better, full one but this the best I could do with the lens I have. I need to get a good wide angle lens for my new camera.

 

[weatherson]

So... about the plumbing changes. Oh... let me first mention another change I recently made. My light box, of which is aluminum, had two air moving fans attached, one at each end. The left side fan forced air into the box while the right side fan pulled air out and vented it out to the attic and then outside. This had worked very well at eliminating a lot of the heat generated by all the lighting. But, the box was always cool at the far left and progressively became hotter as you moved to the right ending with a very hot right side. This is to be expected as the air, as it moved across the inside of the box, acquired more and more heat as it passed each individual light. My concern was that this radiating heat from the box was helping to raise the heat level within the room. So... what I decided to do was to convert the left side fan to also exhaust air and add a second vent to the attic. I then created a gap between the two innermost acrylic shields so air then enters the box here, splits and heads in opposite directions towards the far ends where it evacuates the box. I'm pleased to announce that this idea works quite well with the far ends of the box now only getting slightly warm and adding only minimal amounts of warmth to the room. Keep in mind that I live in the Central Valley of California where we often see triple digit numbers during the summer months. It's currently 94-degrees and this is somewhat mild for this time. Every little bit helps.

Here's a shot of the right vent. By the way, I changed the vent hose and added some very well insulated 4" hose typically used for AC ducts. This also helped in keeping the heat contained while being evacuated.

And here's the new vent on the left side of the hood.

 

[elephen]

My sixline killed my green clown goby and a true cleaner wrasse. Both of those 2 fish were eating brine shrimp too!

Not a big fan of my cleaner wrasse, might pitch him and get another little clown goby - my girlfriend loves those little guys and the only thing the sixline wrasse does is eat and eat and eat.

Weatherson - your tank is looking good, quite a setup you have.

 

[weatherson]

Note that in the previous photos, you see I also added a couple of fans mounted to some brackets I made that mount to the light box. These turn on when the lights fire up and turn off an hour after the lights turn off.

OK, OK... finally, here's what I did to increase the flow of water that circulates from the sump to the tank and back. Mainly, this allowed me to run my pump wide open without the fear of overflowing the tank. The weak link was the weirs and the minimal sized return plumbing within the prefilter boxes. This is one thing I wish I'd paid closer attention to when I ordered my tank. The stock Oceanic bulkhead size for the drains is 1". Too small for this size tank (240) as I found when upgrading my circulation pump some time ago. The amount and size of the weirs also played a part but not as much as the 1" drain line limitation. What they did do though was to incorporate the main return lines in the prefilter boxes also, albeit only 3/4" in size. But, this allowed me to convert these to drains also. I already had disconnected the left one as I use the sinusoidal valve as one of the main returns. All I had to then do was alter the plumbing below to convert this to a drain and add a Durso to the rigid pipe in the prefilter box. Here's a shot of this (actually the right side).

I then did the same to the other, right side return line but this side required the rerouting of the circulation return line. I simply drilled a new hole through the right side of the stand, extended new plumbing through this and continued up to the top edge of the tank. A couple of 90's and a fan Lockline nozzle end to agitate the surface and this was good to go. Here's the new return line end seen just behind the closed loop Penductor.

 

[weatherson]

elephen: Sorry for your losses. My sixline behaves quite well and never bothers any other tank mate. Thanks for the kind words.

Joseph

 

[weatherson]

Now for the weirs. With the new drains in place, I could still raise the water level within the tank by opening up the return pump's output. Obviously, the weirs were restricting too much flow. Time to break out the Dremel tool. Here's what they look like now after removing three teeth for every one.

Also obvious, the new gaps are too large to keep small fish, crabs and snails from riding the wave up and over. I found some perforated pipe at Aquatic Eco Systems that fit the bill for what I wanted. I needed some mesh small enough to block small critters but that had enough surface area to allow enough flow through. Here's a shot of some 2" to give you an idea of what it looks like prior to any alterations.

I used the 1" diameter pipe and cut it down the length to make an opening. This allowed the pipe to be slid down over the top edge of the prefilter box wall. The curvature of the pipe meant there was more area exposed for the water to pass through. At first, this allowed enough water through but I wanted there to be a "cushion" for safety sake so I drilled out each hole slightly larger and removed every other "post" to create ovals where there were previously two holes. Worked like a champ. Here's a shot of the guards in place.

So there you have it, my latest alterations to my tank. The fun seems to never end.

Joseph

 

[Briankook]

Joseph, your tanks looks amazing. Your skills are impressive!
I got the "water mixing station" idea from you last year & it works great! Your ideas have made my reefkeeping hobby a lot easier.

Thanks again!

 

[Bax]

Another great idea!

I look farward to ever weatherson post with anticipation of amazing pics and some new tip from your ingenious fish room!

 

[LittleBlueGT]

Instead of having 2 Dursos per overfow I would recommend just one. I have one of my pipes in my overlfow taking in water from the bottom of the overflow (less stagnant water). On that line I have a ball valve. 95% of the water goes through that line. (the ball vlave is to adjust the amount) The other is a Durso that only has to handle 5% of the load. It is extremely quiet (quieter then a Durso) and flows with hardly any bubbles at all.

 

[jarhed]

(frantically writing down (stealing) ideas from Weatherson to make changes to my own setup.....)

 

[melev]

Very nice updates, Joseph. Have you considered or perhaps already tried installing larger dursos on the pre-existing bulkheads? For example, if the drain is 1" (which granted is far too small for this sized tank...), the Durso can be built out of 1.5" plumbing. This might allow enough water to drain down, and I bet it will congeal and gush out of the drainline into your sump.

My tank has 1.5" drains, so I didn't have to try this.

I like your overflow mods. As always, clean and simple. And they sound simple to remove for cleaning. Did they alter the way the black acrylic lids fit?

 

[Snoopdog]

Sooo did the changes to the light box make a noticeable improvement.

 

[melev]

I'm pleased to announce that this idea works quite well with the far ends of the box now only getting slightly warm and adding only minimal amounts of warmth to the room.

 

[weatherson]

Briankook: You are very welcome and I'm pleased it worked out for you.

Bax: Thanks for the kind words.

littlesilvermax: Your suggestion is essentially what I had done on my old 65-gallon tank. Unfortunately, this tank has two prefilter boxes that each hold 10-gallons. So that's a total of 20-gallons that would make it to my sump if I had a system that allowed them to drain completely. For this reason, I prefer to keep this water in the prefilter boxes during a time when the circulation pump is off. My sump is only 55-gallons so 20-gallons more water draining to it in addition to the tank surface water and associated plumbing water would cause a wet floor. Not a good thing. So, two Durso's it is with the prefilter boxes essentially small reservoirs. Thanks for the suggestion and comments.

Marc: Way ahead of you. The original 1" drains have 1 to 1.25 to 1.5" fittings with 1.5" Durso's. Even with this, the flow wasn't great enough.

The guards slide all the way down onto the top edge of the prefilter wall. So, the additional height is just that of the thickness of the perforated pipe, about 1/64th of an inch. The prefilter box cover now sits on this. And yes, the fact that the guards simply slide off for cleaning is a great benefit.

Snoopdog: Umm... what he said... or was it I? Either way, the answer is a resounding yes.

Joseph

 

[bheron]

Weatherspoon, youre nuts!

Seriously, just when I start wondering if you were getting bored with your super setup, you come in with something like this. I love it.

As I was reading this latest improvement I was thinking along the same lines as LittleSilverMax but you covered that. Then, I was worried about the wiers and critters. bam, you got that one too.

Its nice to have you catch that saltwater mixing container issue for us . Seriously, I always worry about that happening. Are you ever worried that if a small hairline crack were to occur (like in yours) it wouldnt leak but lead to weakness and the whole container busting at once?

Nice work Weatherson. Always an enjoyment following along.

 

[LittleBlueGT]

Your suggestion is essentially what I had done on my old 65-gallon tank. Unfortunately, this tank has two prefilter boxes that each hold 10-gallons. So that's a total of 20-gallons that would make it to my sump if I had a system that allowed them to drain completely. For this reason, I prefer to keep this water in the prefilter boxes during a time when the circulation pump is off. My sump is only 55-gallons so 20-gallons more water draining to it in addition to the tank surface water and associated plumbing water would cause a wet floor. Not a good thing. So, two Durso's it is with the prefilter boxes essentially small reservoirs. Thanks for the suggestion and comments.

I had the same problem so I ran a U-shaped pipe from the bulkhead up the the surface and back down again. At the top of the upsidedown U I drilled a couple of ant-siphon holes. The overflow water stays in the overflow because of the holes, but still the majority of the water is drained from the bottom of the overflow.