Ecotech Vortech wavebox

[Duality]

Back at the end of 2011 I bought my first ecotech products. I purchased two radion's and two mp40's. I loved the features that came along with the ecotech products. How the lights would control the pumps. Well a few months later I ended up trading one of the mp40 for a tunze wavebox. I had seen a lps with a wavebox and like the motion it created. I like the wavebox but hated the stupid light sensor that controls the night mode feature. I had a thought one night when lying in bed, "what if I made a wavebox for a mp40 then I would have the features I like about the ecotech products. Yea I know I could the exact same thing if I went out a bought a Neptune apex controller. But I already have the aquacontroller 3 and it does what I want and my radion's do what I want why go drop another $500 on an apex.

So I first took measurements of the wet side so I could slide the wetside into the box. Then I made an acrylic box. The insides being the exact size of the wet sides depth.

here's a pic of the box before I cut the whole out for the mp40's wetside.

Then I made a bracket out of acrylic that holds the wetside in place inside the box. Sorry no pic when I tried taking pics of this it was super hard to make out what it was inside the box.
I knew exactly where I was going to put the box in my tank so I made it to fit perfect in between the overfolw box.
I put the wet side inside the box and the dry side driver is placed behind the wet side outside of the tank. I use pulse wave mode and spent a few hours perfectly adjusting the pulse and strength of pulse.
Here's a vid of wave before I set the tank up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9bqgnZkVDM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
It has been running on my current tank for almost a year now, flawlessly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yyHqu8iXYM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SPMrctRKZo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[SaltwaterSensei]

Thats really cool. The tank I'm getting made by AGE will have an external wave box integrated with the external overflow, and its being sized for the ecotec mp40. Its cool to see this as a DIY. What settinngs are you using on your mp40?

 

[Duality]

Thats really cool. The tank I'm getting made by AGE will have an external wave box integrated with the external overflow, and its being sized for the ecotec mp40. Its cool to see this as a DIY. What settinngs are you using on your mp40?

Short wave. Blue ring.

 

[SpartaReef]

Is this possible without a wave box? What's the easiest way to make a wave in your tank?

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i am very confused why you would need wave box for a vortech? if you set it right it will easily make a wave in your tank with no box...it took me like 30 seconds to find the frequency of my tank with my first gen MP10...select short pulse, set speed, adjust frequency til it starts a wave, set and forget it...

an external box, built into the tank makes sense i guess if you are worried about seeing the 2" pump in the tank. it pretty much eliminates you from being able to use any other modes though unless you move the pump to the tank wall... but to build an internal box seems, well, silly/unnecessary...

 

[SpartaReef]

With regular power heads how would I create a wave? Would it work with just a plunger pushing into the surface?

 

[SpartaReef]

According to this I've already accomplished my goal, but I don't see a wave... There is some variation though in the flow, just a lot of the flow is still unidirectional.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diywavemakersurgedevic/ss/sssimplewavemaker_4.htm

 

[Duality]

Ecotech Vortech wavebox

i am very confused why you would need wave box for a vortech? if you set it right it will easily make a wave in your tank with no box...it took me like 30 seconds to find the frequency of my tank with my first gen MP10...select short pulse, set speed, adjust frequency til it starts a wave, set and forget it...

an external box, built into the tank makes sense i guess if you are worried about seeing the 2" pump in the tank. it pretty much eliminates you from being able to use any other modes though unless you move the pump to the tank wall... but to build an internal box seems, well, silly/unnecessary...

Say what u want but for a 180 gallon I could not get a 1" wave out of a single mp40 without the box. With the box I can make a 3" wave easy, with my return off. I'm running one vortech mp40 and a reeflo blackfin 3600 connected to a 1" sea swirl on my 180 that's it. My anemones love the flow I'm getting out of those 2 pumps.

Hey but haters going to hate right.

 

[Duality]

With regular power heads how would I create a wave? Would it work with just a plunger pushing into the surface?

A plunger could give u a wave motion but u would need it to b automated some how and be able to workout the timing of each plung some how.

According to this I've already accomplished my goal, but I don't see a wave... There is some variation though in the flow, just a lot of the flow is still unidirectional.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diywavemakersurgedevic/ss/sssimplewavemaker_4.htm

To simply describe the wave motion in our aquarium is to say a rocking back a forth.
The easiest way to do this is with a wavebox usually. I know with controllers and multiple pumps like tunzes, vortechs, even the jebao wp's there are ways to create the rocking motion in the tank. But like I said in an earlier post all I have in my current 180 is one mp40 in the tank and reeflo as my return. I have it setup as an anemone tank and don't want any pumps in the tank that could suck up or chop up any of the nems.

 

[tufkab]

Say what u want but for a 180 gallon I could not get a 1" wave out of a single mp40 without the box. With the box I can make a 3" wave easy, with my return off. I'm running one vortech mp40 and a reeflo blackfin 3600 connected to a 1" sea swirl on my 180 that's it. My anemones love the flow I'm getting out of those 2 pumps.

Hey but haters going to hate right.

This is not a case of haters going to hate; this is a case of you taking a perfectly valid question and and equally valid point and somehow taking that as an attack on you. REMOVED~dc

I'll give it to you, building a wave box for an MP40 is a pretty novel idea, but as was pointed out to you, it isn't needed to get a wave and by using it, you've just rendered all the other modes on the MP40 useless. By not pointing out in your original post that you built this because you weren't getting big enough waves, you left yourself open to comments on this whole endevour being silly/useless.

Now, having owned both a 180 gallon tank and an MP40 myself, I can tell you that if you were not able to get more than a 1" wave, you probably have a defective unit; I was getting near 2" waves in my 180 with a single MP40es.

 

[Mike31154]

I'm with nanoreefwanabe on this one (we canucks need to stick together). But no, really, you traded your second MP40 for a Tunze wavebox, which turns out you didn't like and now you go to all the trouble of building a wavebox for a pump that isn't intended to be used that way? Pretty sure with 2 MP40s you can get a decent wave in a 180.

 

[dc]

Let's discuss this like adults.

 

[smartwater101]

I can understand, with an anemone only tank, the desire to hide the pump. BUT ( as others have mentioned) you're taking a very expensive and versatile waveMaker and rendering the majority of its features useless.

with 180 gallon tank, and the included sponge cover,I wouldn't think you would have much to worry about.

 

[HECS]

I thought of doing the same thing, I have to MP40's in my 150, I can't get a full wave no matter how much time I spend tuning. So, I'm happy to give up other modes (still use night mode) and save 50 watts to boot!
I agree 'haters gonna hate' from another Canuck lol