Addiction wins, 450 gallon system begins

[GregM779]

Lookin good! I love the fact that my stand and canopy are both black, makes it's look like a picture frame.

 

[sellout007]

If the wood in the room(house) wherever the tank is going is white, then I would dfeintely go with white. But if the room has natural wood in it, it would look completely out of place ya know? The tank in the picture looks real nice, but it doesnt bring out any of the wood qualities.

I think its just my taste that is speaking. If its made of wood, i want to see the grain. O)

 

[andycook]

Once the tank is up and running, who even looks at the stand to notice if it is stained or painted?

 

[Hop]

LOL. Thanks guys... Actually The trim in this room is currently white, so there wouldn't be a whole lot of change... But I do agree that once it's done and the blue light from those VHOs is shining through, everything is going to look blue...

The wife has decided to paint the room and get rid of the teracota (?spelling too late...running on coffee). The rest of the room will be a slate or marble or something. Heck I don't care, I want the tank running

 

[Airman]

The tank looks great. You should put your little girl in there when grandpa comes for a visit.

 

[Hop]

The tank looks great. You should put your little girl in there when grandpa comes for a visit.

That's funny... Everyday this week when I came home from work she asked if she could get in the tank... Today when she came home and saw what I had done she looked at me as serious as a almost-4-year-old could and said "Well how am I going to get in the tank now?".

 

[Hop]

Yeah!!! The DSL guy came today and I'm all wired up again... That dial up was going to kill me

I managed to get the rough-in of the plumbing mostly done today. I got the return lines from the sump into the tank, but I still need to tie them into the pipes in the crawl space.

I also got the OM 4-way roughed in. I was kind of going on a wing and a prayer getting this thing in there. I had to make sure the lightrack would still fit and I would have enough room to reach in the tank when needed.

So here is a shot of the basics. You can also see the vent hole going outside, just behind the 4-way.

A slightly different view...

The plumbing is OK here, it's me that's crooked

And the pump... Going to give it a test run here... If it's loud it's going to go in the crawl space.

So I have a meeting today, so I'm going to clean up and call it quits. But tomorrow I'm looking at getting the paint done and finalizing the plumbing. I may do a quick wet test with some tap water to make sure that the OM plumbing is good

 

[jnarowe]

nice work on the 4-way! My only concern is that you will be drawing hot air over the plumbing junctions. I guess it all depends on how cool your input air will be.--J

 

[Airman]

Double cool and neato. When you first run water can you do a video with a little air in the water so we can see how the different nozzles work. It looks like one of the pipes is smaller than the others.

 

[Hop]

jnarowe: You know I did a few hours of thinking this morning trying to figure everything out... I was not certain if having air drawn past the 4-way was going to be any worst than having the fourway centered over the tank. I finally deiced that when I had the 3 175 watt MH running before, it was in a smaller space with much less ventilation and it never raised the tank above 82. So for the ease of installation of the plumbing and light rack, I put it here. You've got my mind thinking again

Airman: I can try to run a video.. Image quality would be a little poor, but it's possible. I think that the image is playing tricks on our minds on the PVC size. All the OM returns are 1". The return from the sump is 1 1/2" and it gets reduced to two 1" lines. I think that 1 1/2" up there is a little deceiving

 

[Whaledriver]

You could wrap your plumbing in foam pipe insulation. The kind they sell at the hardware store to keep pipes from freezing.

 

[Hop]

Whaledriver: Hmm good Idea. I may wind up giving it a whirl. I keep going back and forth due to a few different reasons. I really think that the ventilation will be adequate ( I think 5 X turn over an hour ifn my head is working right) and the second is that I've actually been very concerned over heating the tank at this point. The wetroom stays pretty comfortable and at night, about 66 degrees, but the temp on the floor is about 64. With the 100-gallon fuge, I'm thinking that my heater may be doing a little overtime.

So I keep tossing the ideas around tonight. I may just have to keep notes during the final wetrun test and see what happens during the week or so.

I have a feeling I should take some pain reliever now before I get the headache later tonight

 

[jnarowe]

hey! as long as you have enough cool replacement air coming in it should be OK. Having it in the center would not be a good idea IMO. On the end where the cool air comes in might be better, or below the display maybe. What about any vibration from the 4-way? I haven't seen one operating so I don't know what they do, but I would be careful about anything touching it as well. If it vibrates, it may turn the hood into a guitar!--J

 

[Jamesurq]

but the temp on the floor is about 64. With the 100-gallon fuge, I'm thinking that my heater may be doing a little overtime.

Suggestion: Place any tank that will be that close to the floor on top of a couple of layers of the rigid pink insulating foam.

I run a 100 gallon rubbermaid stocktank and I've place it on top of cinderbocks covered in the pink insulation. The idea is that the air circulation and the removal from the floor and the cinderblocks should help shield it from the cold floor.

 

[Hop]

Suggestion: Place any tank that will be that close to the floor on top of a couple of layers of the rigid pink insulating foam.

I run a 100 gallon rubbermaid stocktank and I've place it on top of cinderbocks covered in the pink insulation. The idea is that the air circulation and the removal from the floor and the cinderblocks should help shield it from the cold floor.

It may be a lazy man's excuse, but it was the original plan (or similar anyways). Unfortunately I ran out of room and 2-3 inches would have messed up the RO containers (no more height above it and I had zero additional room. So I looked at the rubbermaid fuge and saw that with the bottom structure, the bottom would be off the ground by an inch and had air moving through it with the waffle pattern. So here I am with two little problems

 

[Jamesurq]

opportunities...man... opportunities

 

[Hop]

I'm planning on running it and seeing what happens. The nice thing is that the fuge can be seperated from the system rather easily. If modification in necessary, I'll just have to move the RODI and mixing storage somewhere else.

 

[ckuhndog77]

Hop,

This is a awesome system - keep the pics flowing when you have updates. I love wet room - may try to do that on my new system.

Craig

 

[Hop]

Hop,

This is a awesome system - keep the pics flowing when you have updates. I love wet room - may try to do that on my new system.

Craig

Thanks ckuhndog77: I did get some work done last week. I got the OM 4-way all glued back up and ran a quick wet test. It worked really well, but had two leaks at two threaded joints that I need to fix tomorrow. I have some pics and I'll update them here soon. This was a crazy week at work, but I have 10 days off, so I'm planning on getting the supports in the crawl space going in the AM, plumbing the overflow and fixing the two small leaks. If things go right I should have a full system test going in the next day or so. Then on to the finishing of the woodwork and building of the light rack... I thought this was going to be so easy:lol:

 

[Dudester]

No such thing as easy. I'm putting together my miniscule 30gal reef, and I've done-it-myself as you have, and everything takes longer than it's supposed to take. It really makes one appreciate how astonishing it was that Melev was able to get his tank up and running in 14 days.



But I digress ... it's coming along great, Hop! My 30g is my first reef and only a prelude to a 400-500 gal system I'm planning. I'll certainly be referring to this thread for ideas when the time comes. Thanks for your excellent documentation.