430gal., L-shaped display

["Umm fish?"]

Aha! Good to know. I have two darts and 4 2" intakes for them. The installer guy had come up with another option, too, but he didn't want to use them because they were huge. I will get them replaced. Thanks for the link!

 

["Umm fish?"]

Minor correction: They are two hammerheads, not darts.

I went over to take a bunch of pictures of the house tonight and promptly ran out of battery for the camera. Sigh. I did get a couple of tank photos, though.

Eductors on the closed-loop:

Overflow:

 

[miwoodar]

Wow Andy, everything is coming along great! Why hasn't this build been thread of the month yet?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks, Mike! I'd assume that the self-portrait has to be a big knock against it.

 

[miwoodar]

:lol: See, humor like that is worthy of a ThOTM nomination alone!

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

it is pretty near bordering on Thread Of The Year now...but man i love the progress shots...very inspirational for me, as i am going to be building my addition in the coming months...the drawing are in approval stage now...my wife hasnt figured out yet why we need a 10x15 room for the water heater and furnace...LOL

UMM fish....i have to say i too am extremely impressed with the details, and i love the courtyard landscape...wish i could round up a couple clients like you in my neck of the woods...the freedom of design you allow your contractors to employ is amazing, and obviously well desserved as their work looks impeccable from all standpoints, millwork, tile, brick, bead board, dryway etc...

hats off to you my friend..

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, thanks. Let's see if it holds water first, though, yeah? Good luck on your build! I want pictures! Or at least designs!

I'm not sure we count as giving the contractors freedom of design, though. We certainly talk over all of the decisions with them. We work at home (next door), so it's pretty easy to pass stuff by us whenever they need. We both have a very strong sense of our aesthetic and don't really suffer from buyer's remorse, so we make decisions pretty quickly and don't tend to revisit them much. I do ask the opinions of the guys that have to do the work, though. Unless we have some really good reason we try not to make their lives miserable by asking them impossible things. The contractor told me that they had a client once that didn't like the placement of the expansion joint on the driveway that they had just poured. She made them dig the whole driveway up and re-pour in order to move the joint by about 6 inches. :rolleye1:

I'm pretty hacked at the plumber right about now though. My lovely bride wasn't feeling very well this evening so she went next door to take a bath in a nice tub (the one in the kiddo's room). Well, I guess draining a whole tub full of water was a bit much and it popped the seal on the toilet sewer plug in the aquarium bathroom, flooding the room (and some of the foyer) with raw sewage. How was your Saturday night?

Ugh. At least the contractors had left a wet/dry vac accessible. It was a _lot_ of water and ... other stuff. It sucks, 'cause they had just finished trimming out that door last week and sewage certainly soaked up into the end grain of that. The floors in the foyer were pretty wet, too. At least the solid stuff didn't get out that far. Sigh. Boy, they just don't even make a smiley to cover that situation....

 

["Umm fish?"]

Given some concern that the strainers on the closed-loop intakes would clog too quickly and create too much suction, I talked to the installer about possibly going with his first choice of strainer. He is concerned that we can't hide it without using up way too much room in the tank and without it looking good. So, I decided to give it a try today.

Here's the strainer:

I added the old pieces of garden irrigation tubing too keep the rock off the strainer (I don't want to impede the flow) and to give me easy points at which to attach rock.

In progress:

And here's what they look like in the tank. It's a mushroom:

The idea is that I would later aquascape under and around the mushroom pillars, blending them into the rest of the aquascaping. The rocks on top are not attached so I can periodically remove them and clean the strainer. I used zip ties this time around because it was easy and not permanent in case we go another direction.

It's a bummer to see some of those coral skeletons again. Failures past. Ugh.

Thoughts or comments?

Also, two monster water containers. One fresh and one salt:

Return pumps and sump baffles:

Overflow on one of the 90s:

Whew! Thanks for looking!

 

[brodden]

I think the filter is sufficiently hidden. It looks like the holes are big enough to take in even some small fish; but I guess that would probably be ok since it is a closed loop...

Those are MASSIVE water containers! What are they 150g, 200g?

 

["Umm fish?"]

The 150 gallon mark is right below the top reinforcement (3-4" below the bulkhead). So I think it's probably about 175-180.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13800282#post13800282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"
Well, thanks. Let's see if it holds water first, though, yeah? Good luck on your build! I want pictures! Or at least designs!

will do, mine will however be nowhere near as involved as yours..

It was a _lot_ of water and ... other stuff. It sucks, 'cause they had just finished trimming out that door last week and sewage certainly soaked up into the end grain of that. The floors in the foyer were pretty wet, too. At least the solid stuff didn't get out that far. Sigh. Boy, they just don't even make a smiley to cover that situation....

i have been in a very very similar situation myself...however lying on my back in my crawl space directly below the toilet, with a power plumbing snake at my side throwing god only knows what into my face, as i tried to unplug my septic line below the house...

 

[Untamed12]

That's pretty crappy about the sewage backup... (ha...ha...?)

You've certainly hidden that strainer nicely. You can still remove the entire strainer, right? It is threaded, right?..so you'll have to unscrew it....

I've found it easiest to have a spare strainer and just reach in and replace one....then clean the one that I just pulled out.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i am worried the weight of the strainer and all the rock on it my cause the glass to fail.., i cant imagine swapping them would be a possibility once the rocks have corals etc on them since they are fixed to the strainer...

 

["Umm fish?"]

i have been in a very very similar situation myself...however lying on my back in my crawl space directly below the toilet, with a power plumbing snake at my side throwing god only knows what into my face, as i tried to unplug my septic line below the house...

Ouch.

You can still remove the entire strainer, right? It is threaded, right?..so you'll have to unscrew it....

I was hoping to have the connection below the threads on a slip fit so that I could just pull the whole thing out.

I've found it easiest to have a spare strainer and just reach in and replace one....then clean the one that I just pulled out.

Good point. Sigh. I guess I need to re-think that. This is my first attempt at doing a closed-loop, so I haven't worked through all the details. I guess I was thinking that the rocks on top would keep algae from growing in there and I could just pull the rocks and pull out anything stuck without having to remove the entire deal. Hmm.

i am worried the weight of the strainer and all the rock on it my cause the glass to fail..

Well, it's only 25-30 pounds or so. Much less weight than the guys that have been walking around in there on a regular basis and much less than the amount of rock that'll eventually be in there. I guess the weight is right on a hole in the glass, so there is that to worry about.

i cant imagine swapping them would be a possibility once the rocks have corals etc on them since they are fixed to the strainer...

Yes, that is true. Back to that drawing board. Maybe a PVC frame around the strainers....

Hmm.

Thanks, y'all!

 

["Umm fish?"]

Wow! The GC gave us a great big ol' gift certificate to a very nice local restaurant for dealing with all the sewage (and for not making him come down the mountain on the weekend). Pretty cool! As it turned out, it _was_ the plumber's fault. They forgot to pull out an inflatable bladder that they had in there when they were pressure testing the lines. So, they are going to pay to replace the flooring that was affected.

 

[EnglishRebel]

That's good but I'm sure you would rather have a clean floor as opposed to a nice dinner.

 

[lovetoreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13809389#post13809389 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EnglishRebel
That's good but I'm sure you would rather have a clean floor as opposed to a nice dinner.

depends on the dinner

 

["Umm fish?"]

We actually went there for a late lunch/early dinner tonight, but I forgot the card. Good dinner, though.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13807530#post13807530 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"

Yes, that is true. Back to that drawing board. Maybe a PVC frame around the strainers....

Hmm.

Thanks, y'all!

PVC and some eggcrate will double as a secondary fish guard too...as well as giving you somewhere to tie the rock to...

you might even be able to make something with LR and hydraulic cement, basically a gigantic rock cave to cover the strainer...and never worry about it falling apart when you move it...just make sure you have somewhere in the sand bed big enough to house the fixture( and any grown out corals on it) once you lift it off the strainer...with the cement you could even place a small rock on the top as an imprompt-to handle for easy lifting....

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, I'm not really keen on the time it'd take to let the cement cure. Not that it wouldn't be cool to be able to make some cool structures. But, I'm starting to think that it might be easier and just as effective to go with a slip-fit, long, slotted 2" PVC piece. Long enough to reduce the pressure. Easy to make. Easy to pull out and replace. Easy to hide. Heck, I could make it long enough to almost go to the surface and make the sucker into a _real_ pillar.