Looking for advice on Fishroom and Flow

[braid11]

I have been reading and researching for a long time.

I'm hoping for comments on my system design pictured below. The Display will be upstairs in living room, and the 110 and 240 gal acrylic tanks in the basement fish room.

The basement fishroom will have a cement floor with a drain, next to the 240 fuge/sump. There is an exterior window beside the 110g.

The drawing is self explanatory, but here is the desciption. Drains and returns will be 2" spaflex. Big returns to reduce head pressure on return pump. Return pump is an ampmaster 4700, but I may swap it for a pressure rated Sequence.

The main tank will drain to the basement and Tee off, with one drain to the upper 110 gal tank, the other down to the 240 gal below.

The upper 110 will be unlit. The first 1/2 will be the remote sand bed, 6-10" deep, and it will flow into the next 1/2 which will be an unlit cryptic fuge for pod production.

The 110 will drain down into the "sump" return section in the 240g below, so any pods etc are not removed by the skimmer.

The lower 240 gal will have 4 sections: skimmer; cheato fuge; gracilleria fuge, then the sump propper for return. Idea is for fuge to both absorb nitrates, and produce pods etc. Some of the harvested Gracilleria would be fed to fish in display.

The return flow will Tee off to a tank to be used for frags or quarrantine which would be taken off line when used to Quarrantine.

QUESTION What do you think about using sump portion of lower 240 gal tank as a Frag tank as well?

Please post any crticism, or ideas. Here is the flow diagram:

Thanks for any help, Tom

 

[Bax]

Why not? I keep frags in my fuge. I know, I know! A fuge should be a fuge with no predation of any sort, but the frags do well in there and my fuge flourishes so why not?

 

[ycnibrc]

are you asking question for flow in the return system or flow in the display? As far as frag how much frag do you think you will have?In your system already have a frag tank and you still want to put more in the 240gal sum. That's alot of frags.

But I guest as long as you have a light source you can keep frags anywhere in the 2 tanks.

 

[braid11]

Thanks for the input. I'm not concerned about flow in the display. I want to be sure I get it right through the basement tanks. Especially the water flowing to the RDSB/Crytpic fuge. In my design the water flowing through it does not get skimmed before returning to the display.

I think the RDSB/fuge could be fed water only two ways. The T off the drain, or a T off the return.

The T off the drain means it gets unskimmed water. I could skimm the water drained from the RSDB/Criptic fuge, but then I'm concerned about skimming pods etc grown in the fuge.

If I feed it off a T off from the return, it gets skimmed water. But that means more flow must be generated from the return pump. The return pump must already push 14 ft vertical, plus the plumbing.

Regarding frags in the sump, I 'm just thinking it might be better to use the QT tank for QT only, no frags. If I can put frags somewhere else, then I can keep the QT tank as just a QT. I guess I can

Tom

 

[FishTruck]

I think you could put frags in your last sump compartment. Assuming you have room for your bubble trap etc... assuming the water level will stay constant there.

Which brings me to the next question.

What is your water change plan?

R

 

[braid11]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11120177#post11120177 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FishTruck
I think you could put frags in your last sump compartment. Assuming you have room for your bubble trap etc... assuming the water level will stay constant there.

Which brings me to the next question.

What is your water change plan?

R

Thanks for the advice.

I should have a pretty stable water level, I'll use a Tunze Osmolator, described below. So that should be OK. If not, I guess I could put frags in the fuge area.

Re Water changes.

I have two large rubbermade containers: one for FW and one for SW. A 100GPH RODI water maker fills the FW container. I pump the FW to the other and mix SW, where it will stay to age with an airpump and air stone.

I then plan to use Anthony Calfo's solution. Lets see if I recall this correctly. I would have a pump on a timer from the SW container. The new water will be about 1-2 degrees cooler than the system water. It will pump up to the display, and should sink to the bottom, displacing warmer display water to the sump. The sump will have an over flow bulkhead just above the normal high water line, plumbed to a drain in the floor, near the sump.

I also have a Tunze Osmolater with calcium dispenser that I will plumb to the FW reservoir for toppoff.

I have some this plumbed now. I originally had the 240 for a display, 110 for sump. But I decided the 240 is too beat up for my display. So it goes to the basement. I want to finalize the design and get the basement fishroom tanks all running. Once that is all good, I'll add a new display tank. I have a bunch of liverock I'm slowly adding to. I'll keep that in the basement tanks until its all finalized, plumbed, and running.

I've borrowed all these ideas and system design from all the great big tank build threads, and A. Calfo's books.

Tom