Derek's Aussie 240gal Reef
- Thread starter DerekR
- Start date
DolphinLVR
New member
Incredible setup Derek! I love how clean this all is! Very well done.
I look forward to following your build.
Jeff
I look forward to following your build.
Jeff
Here are a few more pics
Back of the tank finished
Thats a setup! nice plumbing! hope you can do my tank's pipework!
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Thanks Jeff and ptan 
Ptan, if you supply the plain ticket I will come and plumb your tank for sure!!
Hi Eran,
There are 3 CL pumps:
- CL1/2 pumps to the 6 outlets on back left/right
- These are about 1" holes through the spa ball outlets but the pipework is all 1.5". All the outlets are reasonably close together and each goes through a Tee so I assumed that the headloss through the outlets would be a fair bit more than the pipework itself. This design leads to reasonably equal flow through each outlet.
- CL 3 pumps to the 6 outlets on the bottom
- This one is a bit different, however, they are all 1” outlets again and the pipework is all 1.5” again. The outlets are spaced out a bit more so the far outlets have a fair bit more pipework to go through than the closer ones. Therefore I put a valve on the first 2 outlets, I will adjust the flow to these 2 outlets as they would get way too much flow without a throttled valve. The last 4 outlets are well spaced using similar pipe/fittings so I assume they will split the remaining flow reasonably equally.
However... this is all in theory...
So all the outlets should get around the same flow. And then if we need to adjust the flow anymore we can adjust the direction of each but not the flow splitting.
Ptan, if you supply the plain ticket I will come and plumb your tank for sure!!
Hi Eran,
There are 3 CL pumps:
- CL1/2 pumps to the 6 outlets on back left/right
- These are about 1" holes through the spa ball outlets but the pipework is all 1.5". All the outlets are reasonably close together and each goes through a Tee so I assumed that the headloss through the outlets would be a fair bit more than the pipework itself. This design leads to reasonably equal flow through each outlet.
- CL 3 pumps to the 6 outlets on the bottom
- This one is a bit different, however, they are all 1” outlets again and the pipework is all 1.5” again. The outlets are spaced out a bit more so the far outlets have a fair bit more pipework to go through than the closer ones. Therefore I put a valve on the first 2 outlets, I will adjust the flow to these 2 outlets as they would get way too much flow without a throttled valve. The last 4 outlets are well spaced using similar pipe/fittings so I assume they will split the remaining flow reasonably equally.
However... this is all in theory...
So all the outlets should get around the same flow. And then if we need to adjust the flow anymore we can adjust the direction of each but not the flow splitting.
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We have filled the tank for a fresh water test. Found a couple of leaks but nothing major this time.
One is a solvent welded joint... out of close to 300 joints - 1 is not too bad ey?
The return pump has some very good flow and is as quiet as I expected.
The overflow is silent without any bubbles and the siphon restarts automatically.
The CL pumps are a bit louder than I expected, but I have read that they are quieter after running them in for a few days as the bearing oil disperses.
Otherwise, I am confident the insulating of the cabinet will keep the noise down.
One of the Hammerheads had a broken fan.
Reeflo are sending a new fan, but I will tell you, the noise it made was very scary!!
I thought it was about to explode! But at least it was just the fan and not the motor/bearings.
Here are some more photos
Fill her up!
Just the return pump running, we have taken out the CL to seal the connections tomorrow.
This is the overflow at the moment.
We have turned the aqua-medic comb upside-down to create a combless weir and the water height in the tank is perfect.
The overflow box is working perfectly and the ball valves are easy to tune making the overflow silent.
There is a fair bit of flow through the sump over the baffle, it makes a very small amount of noise.
Once we tee the return to the chiller, the flow will be reduced a bit.
We spent the afternoon mounting the light ballasts and finishing off the timer setup.
The ballasts fit snugly up under the stand above the power panels.
Trish has re-done the aquascape totally! She has used the exact same rocks + 1 rock.
It is more lagoon/low profile, and has more hiding holes/caves I think. Looks good and hides the outlets better than before.
It is hard to get good photos of the new aquascape, but here it is from the right.
One is a solvent welded joint... out of close to 300 joints - 1 is not too bad ey?
The return pump has some very good flow and is as quiet as I expected.
The overflow is silent without any bubbles and the siphon restarts automatically.
The CL pumps are a bit louder than I expected, but I have read that they are quieter after running them in for a few days as the bearing oil disperses.
Otherwise, I am confident the insulating of the cabinet will keep the noise down.
One of the Hammerheads had a broken fan.
Reeflo are sending a new fan, but I will tell you, the noise it made was very scary!!
I thought it was about to explode! But at least it was just the fan and not the motor/bearings.
Here are some more photos
Fill her up!
Just the return pump running, we have taken out the CL to seal the connections tomorrow.
This is the overflow at the moment.
We have turned the aqua-medic comb upside-down to create a combless weir and the water height in the tank is perfect.
The overflow box is working perfectly and the ball valves are easy to tune making the overflow silent.
There is a fair bit of flow through the sump over the baffle, it makes a very small amount of noise.
Once we tee the return to the chiller, the flow will be reduced a bit.
We spent the afternoon mounting the light ballasts and finishing off the timer setup.
The ballasts fit snugly up under the stand above the power panels.
Trish has re-done the aquascape totally! She has used the exact same rocks + 1 rock.
It is more lagoon/low profile, and has more hiding holes/caves I think. Looks good and hides the outlets better than before.
It is hard to get good photos of the new aquascape, but here it is from the right.
StripestheEel
Premium Member
Hi DerekR,
I have seen a similar tank design on another forum, have you copied this? (haha)
Good to see you here.
I have seen a similar tank design on another forum, have you copied this? (haha)
Good to see you here.
Thanks alot ptr13
:thumbsup:
Hi Matt! Slowly but surely, we will take over RC!
Even though these are my only posts, I am over here a fair bit researching and reading build threads.
:thumbsup:
:lmao:
Hi Matt! Slowly but surely, we will take over RC!
Even though these are my only posts, I am over here a fair bit researching and reading build threads.
We have had some decent progress since our last update. We have all the aquascape done and we are very happy with the results. :thumbsup:
Here are some photos of what we ended up with. Very similar to the plan.
We had thought of a few options to cover the CL outlets on the base.
In the end we chose to break up a couple bits on base rock and superglue little pieces onto the outlets.
This turned out to be a bit time consuming, but it is very easy to do and hides the outlets very well. :thumbsup:
From this...
...to this...
... to this. :thumbsup:
Here are some photos of what we ended up with. Very similar to the plan.
We had thought of a few options to cover the CL outlets on the base.
In the end we chose to break up a couple bits on base rock and superglue little pieces onto the outlets.
This turned out to be a bit time consuming, but it is very easy to do and hides the outlets very well. :thumbsup:
From this...
...to this...
... to this. :thumbsup:
The tank looking great, all the hard work paid of. I almost threw my Md 70 in the trash can after working a while and than stopping making a hellava noise. Thereafter my wife checked that the fan outlet was kind of blocked with fluff from the carpet and after she cleaned it its working fine. I hope thats my problem solved. My pump makes quite a noise.
camoausreefer
New member
good to see you here Derek coming along nicely 
Thanks everyone! And thanks Camo (is that you Ryan?)
It has finally come together, we got the tank wet a few days ago!
Here are some more photos of the finished aquascape.
The full tank shot shows everything hidden perfectly
And here it is with water, still a little cloudy in these photos but is crystal clear now.
Sorry, I forgot to turn my TV off in this photo...
:thumbsup:
It has finally come together, we got the tank wet a few days ago!
Here are some more photos of the finished aquascape.
The full tank shot shows everything hidden perfectly
And here it is with water, still a little cloudy in these photos but is crystal clear now.
Sorry, I forgot to turn my TV off in this photo...
:thumbsup:
Lyfey
Member
Absolutely beautiful!! I admire your skill and your accomplishment sofar!
Quick question. your intake strainers are very low. I thought at first your were going to be running a BB system. What are you going to do to stop sand from entering your closed loop? Fish will churn up alot of sand.
Beautiful though!!
-Chris
Quick question. your intake strainers are very low. I thought at first your were going to be running a BB system. What are you going to do to stop sand from entering your closed loop? Fish will churn up alot of sand.
Beautiful though!!
-Chris
Hi Chris, thanks for the comments mate.
Yes, the strainers a quite low, the sand is about an inch below the strainers at the moment, but you are right - if something disturbs the sand near a strainer, a little bit of sand goes through the pump.
If this becomes a problem with the fish, I will have push the sand away from the strainers and make a little rock wall around each strainer. Maybe 3 inchs tall with a 1 inch gap between strainer and rock.
I will try anything and everything before I remove the sand and go BB!! :lol:
Derek
Yes, the strainers a quite low, the sand is about an inch below the strainers at the moment, but you are right - if something disturbs the sand near a strainer, a little bit of sand goes through the pump.
If this becomes a problem with the fish, I will have push the sand away from the strainers and make a little rock wall around each strainer. Maybe 3 inchs tall with a 1 inch gap between strainer and rock.
I will try anything and everything before I remove the sand and go BB!! :lol:
Derek
Been a bit slack on the updates, but better never than late... right?
We had a few leaks with the fittings on the back of the tank, so Operation Leak Buster was put into action. By all accounts, it was a complete success!
We have cycled the tank using the Prodibio products Biodigest and Bioptim. In addition we used some fish food and raw prawn. I left the prawn in the tank for too long though and had a big ammonia spike so the cycle has lasted a fair while. And boy, did that prawn stink!!
So on with the show!
This is before the cycle began, oh how I with it looked this clean forever...
Here are some algae cycle pics
And here are yesterday's pics. Gives you a good idea of what a base rock tank looks like when it cycles.
I need to clean the algae off the back panel.
We are getting a few tufts of hair algae like this one pop up
This is what the rock mostly looks like
We had a few leaks with the fittings on the back of the tank, so Operation Leak Buster was put into action. By all accounts, it was a complete success!
We have cycled the tank using the Prodibio products Biodigest and Bioptim. In addition we used some fish food and raw prawn. I left the prawn in the tank for too long though and had a big ammonia spike so the cycle has lasted a fair while. And boy, did that prawn stink!!
So on with the show!
This is before the cycle began, oh how I with it looked this clean forever...
Here are some algae cycle pics
And here are yesterday's pics. Gives you a good idea of what a base rock tank looks like when it cycles.
I need to clean the algae off the back panel.
We are getting a few tufts of hair algae like this one pop up
This is what the rock mostly looks like
