--75g Barebottom/Starboard Reef Project--
- Thread starter arconom
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arconom
Premium Member
Well tonight everyone I have a big surprise for you
The crowd pleaser is coming.
Lets just say I gave major props to G_cuvier for his rail idea
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=646829
I give major props to my bro-inlaw Sean H for putting it in motion. Pictures to come. I saved this for the last
The crowd pleaser is coming.Lets just say I gave major props to G_cuvier for his rail idea
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=646829
I give major props to my bro-inlaw Sean H for putting it in motion. Pictures to come. I saved this for the last
arconom
Premium Member
First I would like to Thank my brother inlaw and best Friend SeanH. Without him none of this would be possible. He has done it all from Plumbing to Engineering.
Special Thanks To:
The Barebottom Cooking Crew SeanT & Bomber
The Babysitter and Design help/phone support Wagerja
Tips and ideas and everything else/also for making me love the BB look Travis
For /ideas/support Lunchbucket and his dreamy tank
Thanks to Reef Central!
My new Reef Club http://hvreef.org/yabb/index.php
Many more people I have to thank but I have to post this and then I will realize who I missed
I also miss Joefishs tank
Only Reefers and a select few will ever realize why we do it
Special Thanks To:
The Barebottom Cooking Crew SeanT & Bomber
The Babysitter and Design help/phone support Wagerja
Tips and ideas and everything else/also for making me love the BB look Travis
For /ideas/support Lunchbucket and his dreamy tank
Thanks to Reef Central!
My new Reef Club http://hvreef.org/yabb/index.php
Many more people I have to thank but I have to post this and then I will realize who I missed
I also miss Joefishs tank
Only Reefers and a select few will ever realize why we do it
Travis
10 and over club
Me likes the sliding canopy.
Is there any way for you to raise/lower it? I have been trying to figure something out to easily raise/lower mine now that I'm running 250's and would like to drop them a little lower to the water. I can drop the height but the whole process takes over an hour. The problem is, when it is dropped down much lower I can't clean coralline off of certain parts of the tank. I need something that can be adjusted in a few short minutes and can still handle the weight of my canopy.
You may want to just use a standard bulkhead strainer on your tank drain. That screen could clog up pretty fast with bubble algae or something similar leading to a flood. At least a bulkhead screen would only clog at the bottom and just force the water level in the tank to go up a bit so it would drain down the unclogged portion.
Is there any way for you to raise/lower it? I have been trying to figure something out to easily raise/lower mine now that I'm running 250's and would like to drop them a little lower to the water. I can drop the height but the whole process takes over an hour. The problem is, when it is dropped down much lower I can't clean coralline off of certain parts of the tank. I need something that can be adjusted in a few short minutes and can still handle the weight of my canopy. You may want to just use a standard bulkhead strainer on your tank drain. That screen could clog up pretty fast with bubble algae or something similar leading to a flood. At least a bulkhead screen would only clog at the bottom and just force the water level in the tank to go up a bit so it would drain down the unclogged portion.
arconom
Premium Member
It can be raised and lowered to some degree. Take a look at those white knobs. They can can be turned to give you some play. But not the amount of room I think your looking for.
If I want alot of change in height I have to loosen 2 nuts on the theaded rod. It does take a little to adjust the height. I would guess 5 minutes for each threaded rod.
Also I siliconed plastic mesh to the 90 elbow. The standard strainer was restricting the water to much.
If I want alot of change in height I have to loosen 2 nuts on the theaded rod. It does take a little to adjust the height. I would guess 5 minutes for each threaded rod.
Also I siliconed plastic mesh to the 90 elbow. The standard strainer was restricting the water to much.
masterswimmer
New member
Erik, looks fantastic man. Looking forward to sitting in front of that baby with a nice cold one with ya.
Russ
Russ
Lunchbucket
Premium Member
arconom - gee thanks for the thanks don't know what i did but hey i guess i'll take a little praise
Lunchbucket
don't know what i did but hey i guess i'll take a little praise Lunchbucket
WAGERJA
New member
Woohoo!! looking good man!
Trav has a point about the overflow strainer... I was looking on RC the other day for a pic of the DIY strainer I thought would work well for you but got BUBKUS...
Anyway, I would put a 1" to 2" reducer on that 1" 90. Than take a piece of that gutter guard and roll it up in a cylinder to fit inside the 2" end of the reducer... Follow? If not give me a call I can explain on the phone much easierââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦
-J
Trav has a point about the overflow strainer... I was looking on RC the other day for a pic of the DIY strainer I thought would work well for you but got BUBKUS...
Anyway, I would put a 1" to 2" reducer on that 1" 90. Than take a piece of that gutter guard and roll it up in a cylinder to fit inside the 2" end of the reducer... Follow? If not give me a call I can explain on the phone much easierââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦
-J
bigben
Premium Member
Travis said:
do a search for stainless steel "airline cable" on here. there are a few guys using this and it looks very nice for adjusting easily and very strong. unfortunately, i don't have a subscription for those threads. maybe post a thread for it. when i do my next tank, that's what i'm going to use. much better than using chains.
actually, nevermind, i think it's in here somewhere (?): http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=348059
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=498131
enjoy
Travis
10 and over club
bigben, thanks. That is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I've seen pictures of those grip locks before but never knew what they were called so I couldn't do a search.
arconom, these would also make a great overflow strainer: http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/8559/cid/2079 I think what would work best is to have a 90 el at the top of your drain inlet so that you can put the screen horizontally. When the return pump is running, the 90 and screen should be about half submerged and 1/2 above water. Then use several inches of the screen material to maximize the surface area. This would greatly reduce the chances of drain restriction. It would work even better if you used a reducer fitting on that el and used a larger diameter screen.
Trus me you don't want to have a drain restriction of any kind. I crashed this tank: <img src=http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/17792full_tank_12-30-03__Small___Custom_.jpg>
when something restricted my overflow drain while I was at work. By the time I got home, over 15 gallons had overflowed the tank and was all replaced by supersaturated kalk due to my auto top off using a float switch. Even without the kalk being on the top-off, the decrease in salinity would have been enough to do some major damage. Please don't use the screen the way you have it set up. It is far too likely to fail.
arconom, these would also make a great overflow strainer: http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/8559/cid/2079 I think what would work best is to have a 90 el at the top of your drain inlet so that you can put the screen horizontally. When the return pump is running, the 90 and screen should be about half submerged and 1/2 above water. Then use several inches of the screen material to maximize the surface area. This would greatly reduce the chances of drain restriction. It would work even better if you used a reducer fitting on that el and used a larger diameter screen.
Trus me you don't want to have a drain restriction of any kind. I crashed this tank: <img src=http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/17792full_tank_12-30-03__Small___Custom_.jpg>
when something restricted my overflow drain while I was at work. By the time I got home, over 15 gallons had overflowed the tank and was all replaced by supersaturated kalk due to my auto top off using a float switch. Even without the kalk being on the top-off, the decrease in salinity would have been enough to do some major damage. Please don't use the screen the way you have it set up. It is far too likely to fail.
masterswimmer
New member
Travis said:
Travis, I have an auto top off also. I connected my float switch to an Intermatic digital timer. The timer is programmed to come on every 4 hours. If at that time there is no 'call' for topoff by the float switch, the timer shuts off after 2 minutes. This prevents any accidents like you had. I also have a ball valve on the topoff. This prevents the unrestricted topoff flow from dumping 10's of gallons into the tank over 2 minutes. I have the ball valve dialed back to maybe 1/2 gallon a minute. Since the timer is programmed to switch on 6 times a day, it can't dilute my salinity by all that much. Just a nice fail safe. Arconom saw it in person.
Russ
Travis
10 and over club
masterswimmer, it sounds like you have a good fail-safe in place on your top-off. my top-off was very slow because it was a maxi jet 400 pushing through 4 vertical feet and over 10 horizontal feet of airline tubing. So it probably took a few hours to add that much water to the tank. I recently ceased the use of kalkwasser but still use my LitermeterIII for topping off fresh water. With the LMIII I will never have to worry about that kind of accident again. I was also using an aquacontroller to call me if the ph went to high but recently sold that.
masterswimmer
New member
Travis, make no mistake about it, I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. The pic of your reef was beautiful. Truly a huge loss. I was hoping to be able to offer you another viable alternative to your topoff.
I hope your new system is working well and you have a fail safe built in. When we strive for automation the way we do in this hobby, it is sometimes very difficult to foresee some of the potential disasters awaiting us. That's one of the great things about RC, we can share some of our positive and negative experiences with other 'nuts' of the hobby and maybe all learn from someones unfortunate occurance.
Lets see some pix of your new setup. I'm sure it's bigger and better than the first.
Russ
I hope your new system is working well and you have a fail safe built in. When we strive for automation the way we do in this hobby, it is sometimes very difficult to foresee some of the potential disasters awaiting us. That's one of the great things about RC, we can share some of our positive and negative experiences with other 'nuts' of the hobby and maybe all learn from someones unfortunate occurance.
Lets see some pix of your new setup. I'm sure it's bigger and better than the first.
Russ
arconom
Premium Member
Tomorrow I will be going to lowes to find some Material to put around my overflow.
I will also be changing my Mag 9.5 to a 7 if everything goes according to plan.
I'm also seriously debating buying a UV unit. Sizing one is the difficult part. I'm a UV newbie. Do I have to have it plumbed to my return pump? I'm looking for it to be a clarifier and Sterilzer so low flow? a 25 watter? http://www.emperoraquatics.com??
I wish I had a good resource to read about UV filters other then product sales sites.
I'm also looking for a pump that does around 100-125 GPH to feed my skimmer. The maixjet 400 at 106GPH can't take the head pressure of 2-3 feet of hose going to the skimmer from the sump. It is a GPH that has hardly any choices.
I will also be changing my Mag 9.5 to a 7 if everything goes according to plan.
I'm also seriously debating buying a UV unit. Sizing one is the difficult part. I'm a UV newbie. Do I have to have it plumbed to my return pump? I'm looking for it to be a clarifier and Sterilzer so low flow? a 25 watter? http://www.emperoraquatics.com??
I wish I had a good resource to read about UV filters other then product sales sites.
I'm also looking for a pump that does around 100-125 GPH to feed my skimmer. The maixjet 400 at 106GPH can't take the head pressure of 2-3 feet of hose going to the skimmer from the sump. It is a GPH that has hardly any choices.
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