jlinzmaier
Premium Member
Gosh I sure hope so, however my plan was to have this entire build done by last February and we all see how well that went. LOL!!
Geez if your willing to take the trip all the way out here just to see the tank, the very least I can do is provide some Hot-N-Now burgers and send you home with a few extras. You can count on that!!
Actually only two pumps are creating the barrell roll. The third pump will turn on for 15min every hour and that is just for random flow coming from omni flex nozzels in from the top. Hopefully it won't be too much trouble to keep the two OM's timed opposite each other. I guess I won't know for sure until I get it running. I had talked with Paul from OM extensively about this build and it didn't seem to be a concern to him to coordinate the function of the two OM's to work with each other and keep them in sync. Really good thought to keep in mind though.
The flow concept on this tank was to create a lot of flow, but not high velocity directed in specific areas. From all that I've read and experienced, corals do best with indirect flow. By using 1.5 inch outlets, that will create a lot of high volume but low velocity flow. It will also create momentum thus further increasing the much desired indirect flow for the inverts.
The two closed loops creating the barrell roll will be set in place once everything is plumbed in, but I have a plan to ensure everything will work properly without creating a sand storm and piling the sand in the corner. Right now I very lightly glued each connection with either a little PVC glue or some GE rubber silicone. That will hopefully be enough to hold them in place to allow me to test the flow pattern and afford me the ability to twist the connection loose if I want to change it up a bit. My next step is to plumb in the pumps (they are arriving next Friday), and put in the substrate. After the substrate is in I'll put in about 4-5 inches of RO/DI water to soak the substrate and leach out any bound nutrients (primarily po4). I'll then drain all that water and fill it up entirely with RO/DI water. I'll turn the pumps on and see what happens. I've got it set up so I can easily remove entire sections of the internal plumbing to tweak an elbow in one direction or another if needed. Once I've got it set so that I'm not continually shifting the sand from one spot to another then I'll drain the tank, more securely glue the PVC connections, and begin my aquascaping. I also bought two containers of Gen-X calcium reactor media just in case I have trouble with sand being blown around in any area that I can't simply adjust the outlet to fix the problem. I'll just fill those areas with the heavier media so it won't be blown around as easily.
The third closed loop will have 8 outlets from omni flex nozzels entering in from the top. This closed loop will turn on 15 min every hour to create some random flow and taget and low flow areas. This will allow me to routinely change up the flow and target new areas by simply adjusting a nozzle direction.
Thanks everyone for tagging along and bringing up any little details that might be troublesome. It's much easier to make corrections now then it will be once my aquascaping is done and that beast is full of water!! The delay in getting the tank done has been a blessing in disguise. I've changed at least a dozen different things through the wait and the entire set up will be more efficient, creative, and quite simply much better in many ways.
One last thing, I decided to go with hammerhead gold pumps instead of darts. Since the reeflo pumps are so efficient and can easily be valved down (which will in turn draw less power) I thought I may as well max out the capabilities of the flow and valve it down if I need to. It was a bit more costly of an initial investment but in the long run I think it will be a very logical choice. (for the CL causing the random flow I stayed with the dart gold since the onmi flex nozzels will create significantly more velocity than the 1.5 inch outlets on the other CL's)
Jeremy
