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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8493744#post8493744 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefWaters
Where does Bill build all of this stuff? Im assuming he has a VERY nice shop as well. Any pics of that??????
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bills shop is locate in his basement of his current house. its about 400 sq feet with a CNC router, table saw, compressor, and such. he has posted pics of his CNC before. his next shop will be located in the basement also. when you look at the pics of the basement you can see the service door to the fish room. outside of that will be bills new work shop. I estimate it will be about 1500 sf. if I remember right he wants to have a milling machine, lathe, bigger CNC router, and a big building table to start with. most of the equipment will have to be lowered into the basement with a crane. LoL sorry I never took pics of bills laboratory/shop. he also has a very nice shop at his business for bigger stuff. including a full spray booth with proper filtration, welders, plazma cutters and such. its vey nice for doing diy stuff. ;)
 
CNC Router.......:smokin:

Hell, why not a full blown CNC mill????? He could make his own valves, impellers, or whatever else you could think of....

:cool: :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8459536#post8459536 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
I hear ya on the SS but I have had several nylon screws break and that is a total pain. I use 18-8 SS screws (which really isn't the best blend of alloys) and run them in and out with a cordless drill. SO far it is working really well and I can yank 20 screws in under a minute. Like I wrote, Bill may be able to source higher density nylon being in the business he is in.
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bill said he will always use nylon because he dont want any rust in the system and that he uses orings for gaskets so he dont have to tighten down the nylon screws so hard that they break. he has never has any scrwws break on him.
i think the person that tapped out the threads didnt chase them out afterwards and htere was plastic residue left in there. it will bind up to the point you will snap off the heads if you try to tighten them.
alot of gaskets are made form oring material so it will crush down and make a tight seal. this is why they dont use flat gasket material. flat gaskets take too much torque to keep them tight. your flanges will warp before they seal properly.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8489188#post8489188 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tigger240
hey spazz i actually got an idea while "trying to keep an open mind" lol - if you capped off the elbow thats pointed towards the bubble diffusor and then drilled holes around the circumference that were in quanity and in size to support the flow of water to the skimmer. this would force the new water across in a thin sheet instead of a downward like tube. it may help with turblence and also dwell time, but im sure it probably splitting hairs and not make too much of a difference, if at all. the thinking behind it is that the new bubbles would tear into the new water more evenly and throughly because of the even disfussion of the new water into the diameter (instead of height) skimmer body, but i already see some holes in my idea, the water is forced into the central part of the skimmer, where the bubbles are most likely in highest percentages. just a thought - also is bill still using flexible needles or has he switched over to stiff ones?
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bill tried that. actually he tried just about everything you can think of to diffuse the incomming water. he found out its better to just leave it alone and have it flow in just the way it is now. it skims better this way.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8494018#post8494018 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spazz
bill said he will always use nylon because he dont want any rust in the system and that he uses orings for gaskets so he dont have to tighten down the nylon screws so hard that they break. he has never has any scrwws break on him.
i think the person that tapped out the threads didnt chase them out afterwards and htere was plastic residue left in there. it will bind up to the point you will snap off the heads if you try to tighten them.
alot of gaskets are made form oring material so it will crush down and make a tight seal. this is why they dont use flat gasket material. flat gaskets take too much torque to keep them tight. your flanges will warp before they seal properly.
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Yeah, I am not sure that rust is bad for the system but I understand the concern. I stopped using the flat rubber for that very reason. It worked well for a while and then I ended up with problems. I wish I could create o-ring slots but I just don't have the right tools or ability (yet). I am now using a EDPM weather stripping from HD that is performing well but starting to show signs of losing its resiliency.
 
3" thick acrylic

I think the length and width dimensions were posted but don't remember them off the top of my head.
 
Won't that create a lot of distortion? I have an acrylic tank and it's only about 1/2" thick, but the distortion is kind of annoying. It only affects you if you are looking at an angle, although, on a tank that size, you would almost always be looking at an angle unless you move around constantly so you're only looking strait in.
 
it all depends on the thickness of the acrylic and how much deflection is in the front pannel. the more it is pushed out the more distortion you will have. bills tank will be 3" thick pannels that are 10ft x 6 ft. there should be very little distirtion in the front pannles of the tnak. there framed in with cement all the way around. the 2 biggest things about making a tank is to reinforce the top to prevent bowing and to use the proper thickenss of acrylic in the first place. alot of companies use thinner sheets then thy should for tanks. this causes stress on the joints and distortion in the viewing panes.
if you were to use glass the distiotion would be really bad because it would have to be laminated glass 3 layer thick. even if you used starfire glass it would be distorted worse than acrylic.
 
well we are about half way to making this thread split. ha ha ha ha ha and the tank is not even finnished yet. im hoping bill will be able to send me some more pictures this weekend. the 2 sheets of 3" acrlic are there and awaiting the rest of the tank to be finnished. they are putting up wall and should be roofing the house in another week or so. if i remember right they have 24 guys just doing the framing of the house. there is one huge crew or carpenters there. they alos found out they have to get the tank wall up right away. there is one beam that is tied into the design of the house that has to go into the tank wall. so they have to finnish the tank in order for the rest of the house walls to be finnished. so things may speed up a little on the tank. once the tnak is done and cured bill will paint the inside front of the tank and the rebates for the acrylic sheets. then he will let those cure and install them. once thatis done he will finnish off the rest of the inside of the tank with epoxy.
so i think this thread will split at least 3 times before bill even has the tank finnished. ha ha ha ha i think that will be some kind of a record for a reef central tank build thread. :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8518110#post8518110 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spazz

so i think this thread will split at least 3 times before bill even has the tank finnished. ha ha ha ha i think that will be some kind of a record for a reef central tank build thread. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Well, from the threads I have read so far, this tank in and of itself a record for reefcentral.

This is an ambitious project to say the least. It speaks tons for Bill to have the patience, the intelligence and plain willpower to do a project like this.

Actually from my little nano world, anyone with a tank larger than say 30 gallons a fish idol to me. :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8488493#post8488493 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spazz
well bill decided he didnt like the amount of skimmate he was getting so he did some expermenting. it turns out it increased the skimmate by making it run counter current. it pulled alot of skimmate by puttingthe wate into the pumps and running it through the diffuser but making it counter current pulls even more. the turbulance inside the skimmer are minimal. the best way to describe it is like this.
all the water has to go through millions of bubbles before it can reach the bottom of the skimmer. that would be like trying to ga against the flow of rush hour traffic. your not going to get there real fast. so its increasing dwell time and being mixed around inside the main chamber. bill did a test one time with some food coloring. he injected food coloring into the intake pump that feeds the skimmer. it took 15 mins for the skmmer to clear up. so that gives a good indication of how long the water really dwells in the skimmer. the longer the water can be inside the skimmer the cleaner it wil be when it exits the skimmer. alot of that has to do with bombardment rate also. you need to have a high air to water ratio in order to clean the water properly. so to do that you need tones of super fine bubbles.
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Just out of curiosity, would anyone have any links or book recommendations for that I can understand what all you guys are talking about??? The only real skimmer method I understand is the beckett skimmer using venturis to draw air into a vortex formed inside a tube. And that's about it. Any help would be much appriciated.
 
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