Help me design my first reef -- 65 gal. starfire cube.

JARJOZ

JARJOZ

New member
Hi everybody "“ I was always amazed by reef aquariums and finally decided to
Have one in my home. This is all new to me --- for last couple of months I am
Learning from this forum about every aspect of having reef aquarium.

My plan is to have walk around rimless cube ( 28 x 28 x 22 ) with overflow
Right in the middle of the tank. The overflow will be surrounded by rock
Formation hiding it. All my filtration will be just below the floor in the basement.
I am planning to have large sump with refugium.

I am starting this thread to get your input and help to design this system well.

This is what I have now:
Got my 1/2" glass from a friend --- 4 starfire sides and regular glass bottom with a hole 4-1/8" right in the middle for my overflow.

DSC00383.jpg


I glued it together and tested for leaks :

DSC00437.jpg


And this is my overflow idea:

OF-1.jpg


OF-2-1.jpg


OF-3-1.jpg


I am thinking to change the drain from 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" ( 1-1/4" inside dia. ) to have more flow through --- what do you think ???

My return will be split at the end in to 4 loc-line outlets returning water back to the tank in 4 different directions. ---- do you think having strong return pump and 1-1/4" inside dia. return I will have good flow ????
Help me with the return / flow issues so I can finish building the return then I will step to getting my sump going.

Thank you !
 
Last edited:
On a 75 gallon tank an 1-1/4" drain should be sufficient I would think.
Are you going to run the electrical for your lighting etc. up through your overflow? Guess it would work if done carefully, just never seen it done before.
Looks like you are well on your way to having a beautiful set-up.
I will be following your progress.
 
Yes --- dry tube is to run electrical for the light and maybe for powerheads.

I was just thinking if it is possible to have good flow without powerheads using only
1-1/4" drain and strong return properly positioned ??

How much water can be drained through 1-1/4 dia. hole with maybe 2" - 3" of head over the inlet ????
 
Did you conisder doing the overflow box as a square?

If you do that you can get powerheads like the koralia magnums that allow magnet mounting with both sides wet. Then you could mount 4 of those to get a LOT more cheap flow. Pushing up from the basement is "expensive" in terms of pump cost as well as long term electrical cost, heat and noise. I have a 240g tank only running 600gph from the sump because of the distance, everything else is from in tank power heads..one of which is mounted to my overflow with boths sides wet. :)

Just make the dry tube big enough to handle 5 or 6 cords AND still pass a 3 prong plug down it.

Also...If you haven't already, check your linear overflow size (the teeth) here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php/drainoverflow-size-calc
..once you know what gph you want from your sump return. You want to over kill it a bit incase something gets stuck to the overflow teeth and restricts the ability to drain.
 
Square ? maybe I will give it another thought –
I chose 4” round clear acrylic pipe so I don’t take to much area form my tank.

I got almost new Iwaki Pump 1536 gph MD70RLT for a third of the price --- I think it should be good considering the head and some restrictions.

I would like to have the overall size of the overflow as small as possible and I am willing to cut all electrical plugs and reconnect them as I need to have small dry tube and have more room for overflow.

Thank you for the input !
 
Using this calc. it loks like i can flow 900 gph or little more
through my 1-1/4" drain and my linear overflow is little over 12"
I can add little more flow feeding more water by adding more teeth / slots
below water line.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php...flow-size-calc

Using the following input parameters
Gallons per Hour = 900

Drain and Overflow sizes are calculated as
Recommended minimum drain pipe diameter = 1.24 inches
Recommended minimum linear overflow size = 14 inches
 
Wow.. nice idea.. I really like the concept.

Couple of points.. as already pointed out... A return flow will never give enough tank current on it's own.. it can give a nice circulating flow sure.. but the head loss and friction loss will reduce it down significantly.. even with a big pump. I know it is a matter of debate all the time.. but I think the idea of 20 X volume is the desired level of flow in the tank.. not sump flow.. which is closer to the 7 - 10 X. So 600 GPH for sump return is a good goal.. but closer to 1200 or 1500 gph of Display Tank Current Flow is better. So I think some additional powerheads in the Display is needed.

Secondly.. as was pointed out above.. your overall Sump effectivness will be limited by how much overflow there is. A circular tower of your size will only allow a certain amount of water into the overflow chamber.. no matter how fast you drive your return, the actual overflow and drain will limit you. A slightly larger square design will give much more overflow capacity.

Thirdly.. what are you planning on for lights? Pendants? or a a cap and cover arrangement? In other words, if you are running electrical lines up through the conduit, where are they ending up? Hanging in space up to the Pendants? you might be better off running the lights down from the ceiling instead. Also, what sort of lights. .and what is the distance from Ballast to Bulb? I am not an expert here by any means.. but I believe there is maximum distances from Ballast to Bulb.. going from the basement up might exceed those tolerances.

What about a set of nice wooden columns that go up the corners of the tank? Nothing really big, just sort of acting as though the four sides are capped with say a 6" x 6" square column. You might be able to put your ballasts in the columns and run to the lights that way... maybe I am thinking of your design wrong.

Anyways.. just my 2 cents worth.. I really like the concept though!
 
What did you come up with for GPH?...I guessed it at about 1000gph which is only 15x, probably less if you're splitting and back pressuring multiple outputs. That's not TOO bad..but I think you'll need more. Plus if my math is right your 4" pipe will only give you about 800gph flow (12x) through the teeth...double check that though, I'm no expert there. I think you'll also what at least 1 1/2" drains if you're trying to push all the flow through the sump through one drain pipe.

Personally I would never try to get all of my flow from a sump return. IMO you either need a closed loop or power heads to supplement flow.
 
JARJOZ said:
Using this calc. it loks like i can flow 900 gph or little more
through my 1-1/4" drain and my linear overflow is little over 12"
I can add little more flow feeding more water by adding more teeth / slots
below water line.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php...flow-size-calc

Using the following input parameters
Gallons per Hour = 900

Drain and Overflow sizes are calculated as
Recommended minimum drain pipe diameter = 1.24 inches
Recommended minimum linear overflow size = 14 inches
Click to expand...

Ha..we were typing at the same time!

You can't add teeth below the water line unless you're planning a HUGE amount of reserve space in your sump for power outages. Since your drain pipe is high it's not too bad..but whatever that height is, that will be your water line on power/pump failure.

You also might not like a straight pipe to the top...very loud without a durso or some other mod...which would lower that drain height even more.
 
Fizz71 this is about 24" linear overflow:

DRAIN-2.jpg


and water will only drain as low as the top of my drain which is going to be maybe 2" - 3"
below water line. It looks like I can push about 1000 gph with this idea through the DT.

Regarding sump ---- I am open to anything ----- I can only go 600 - 700 gph through
the sump and have the rest bypass it. Regarding reserve -- same thing --I have room.

jtreath --- I like LED lighting and my initial idea is to build my own with 48 LED kit from rapid-led
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-25/48-Premium-LED-Do-dsh-It-dsh-Yourself/Detail

first idea to have the light hanging over the tank - since LED are usually close to the water level you should not see the electrical wires that much.
Or I can hide everything in the wall since the tank will have one side close to one wall.

Your column idea is cool --- will think obout it.

Thanks everybody !
 
Last edited:
Fizz71 My idea is based on the overflow design that D2mini ( member here ) did for his 120 gal. cube. I hope he will let me use one of his pictures to show you his design.
I am just making it a lot more confined ( all in 4" round pipe )
It is completely silent.
DRAIN-3.jpg
 
Fizz71 or anybody --- do you think I can have maybe 2 powerheads mounted somehow within my
middle overflow and blowing water towards the corners or maybe towards the glass ???

Because my overflow will be in the middle is it ok to do that ------ most of the time powerheads are monted on the ouside and blowing towards the middle of the tank.
???????????

Comments ?

Thank you !
 
I thought of doing a similar design on a shallow cube and actually having a pair of Vortec MP10s attached to a square overflow in the middle leaving the glass completely free of any kind of clutter. Subscribing to follow your progress, good luck!
 
JARJOZ said:
Fizz71 or anybody --- do you think I can have maybe 2 powerheads mounted somehow within my
middle overflow and blowing water towards the corners or maybe towards the glass ???
Click to expand...

That should be OK, most powerheads are aimed towards the surface to ripple or against the glass to create random flow anyway.
 
Hi

Great idea but how are you planning on passing the PVC pipe (drains, return and dry pipe) through the bottom of the tank? If you are going to use bulkheads then the size of your overflow is going to have to big and therefore take up a lot of room in your tank.
I know one 1" bulkhead is almost 3" in diameter!

Good luck!?
 
shaggss as you can see on my drawings in the first post everything will run inside a 4" acrylic pipe. My tank has a 4-1/8" hole right in the middle bottom glass. I will make custom bulkhead for that 4" pipe and all the pipes will be inside. All I will have is 4" acrylic pipe in the center of my tank and my plan is to hide it with some kind of rock aquascaping. I will try to make some photoshop editing on some pictures and show you a rough idea how I want this to look.
 
For the herbie method to work, you are going to have to seal the bottom of your tank somehow so the 4" pipe fill up with water and then goes down your 1.25" pipe.

I'm looking forward to see how you do this, sounds like I great idea :thumbsup:
 
There is a acrylic plate sealing all pipes inside the 4" pipe.
The water will be only in that area from the top of the pipe
down to that plate the rest is all dry.
The overflow is only in the top part of the 4" pipe, it is like a
round overflow box.

OVERFLOW-3.jpg


The bottom part ---- I have designed custom bulkhead that will seal the 4" pipe with
tank bottom which will be covered by sand or rock.

I just want to get as much feedback as possible to design this the right way. As soon as I am sure it is ok I will make all the parts and post all pictures.

Thanks for all the help.
 
Help me design my first reef -- 65 gal. starfire cube.

ok gotcha now. but remember you may need approx 6" between the height of your main drain and emergency drain to allow for fine tuning.
 
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