My 400G Through-wall "deceptively deep" tank

[Spaced Cowboy]

Looking awesome Simon! Good news on the arm! Question, how will you transfer water from your stand pipes to the tank? Are you plumbing directly to the sump or??? Love the build, and the detail going in to every part of it! I cannot wait to see how you set up the LED deep view screens and the look they provide. I've really enjoyed following along.

[emoji3]
Brett

I'm deliberating...

The original idea was to get a genesis renew. The problem with this approach is that it uses a water-pump to get the water into the 'inflow' reservoir, and there's a (small) time-limit for this to happen, about 90 secs or so I believe.

This restriction means I have to use a "normal" pump, not a peristaltic one, and that means I want either a self-priming pump, or I have to get the water from the stand-pipe into a pre-prepared ~2G reservoir and use a normal pump that would then be always submerged. There's not many low-flow, decent self-priming pumps that I'm aware of that can be operated from a piped supply, so I was leaning towards the latter option. It adds a bit more complexity in that I now have a chain looking like:

NSW-in-standpipe ---> liter-meter pump ----> 2G reservoir ---> pump ---> 'Renew'

... with the extra complexity comes an extra level of potential failure, and I'm not happy with that in my water-change solution. So, the alternative is to use a DOS from Neptune Systems. This is a peristaltic pump so there's no need to worry about self-priming, and it uses a stepper-motor not a servo-motor, so there's little need to worry about calibration drifting over time. Calibration drift was the issue I had with the liter-meter pumps, ending up with my salinity drifting over time as it removed less (or more) water than it added.

So, my current thinking is that I will get 2 DOS pumps (one for removing old saltwater, one for adding NSW), and use the (existing) liter-meter for top-off - I *do* like the pressure-sensor-driven Liter-meter pump for water level management. I can make sure (using the Apex) that the liter-meter doesn't try to top-off while the DOS is changing water, so that ought to prevent problems in that regard.

Open to ideas, though, if anyone sees flaws in the above, or has a better idea

Simon

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

Looks amazing. Can't wait to see the lcd back.
Glad to see you're improv nicely. PT sucks, hurts bad, but it's so important to push through and keep moving the elbow so Ca deposits don't form and muscles continue to elongate and not shorten and atrophy

Yeah, it's a pain alright. Literally

I'm just using the arm as normal now with a general low-level ache, and every now and then I get a "Oh, I oughtn't have done that. I *really* oughtn't have done that" moment.

Welcome to the thread I can't wait for the LCDs either, although since a lot of this is/was being funded by Apple stock sales, things might slow down a bit in the near future - have you seen the stock market these days It'll happen, it might just not happen as soon as I'd hoped

Simon.

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

Gotta ask... how did you get the bulkhead on? Given that it's not exactly arms length from the opening, is the opening large enough for someone to climb in? Or did they get clever with wire/string from the hole to the opening and then fished it through?

I actually did it myself - I bought a Pick-stik telescoping arm a while back since I have no front-of-tank access, and all I needed to do was drill the hole (which is only a few mm larger than the bulkhead) then using the telescoping arm at full extension I just held the interior of the bulkhead in the arm jaws and pushed it through the hole. It was actually a lot easier than I had expected.

Once it was through, it stayed put enough for me to let go of it with the arm's jaws and just screw on the exterior part of the bulkhead. As I said, I didn't have the strength to hold it still with one hand while screwing the retaining part on with the other to get a water-tight seal, but the plumber was great, and stepped in to help

Originally I was going to use a broom handle and let the bulkhead slide down over the handle to the drilled hole, then have my wife (or A.N.Other) pull it through the drilled hole, but when I went into the garage to get a broom-handle, I saw the Pick-stik and went with that instead

Cheers
Simon.

 

[Swope2bc]

Makes good sense, but far too complicated for me to recommend any alternatives.. I'm using cheaper less fail safe methods... Some day I may get the DOS pumps... Keep us posted ;-)

 

[Kaidman]

The DOS pumps have two heads, so I think you'd only need one for removal old water and addition of new water. At least that's how I planned to do mine.

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

The DOS pumps have two heads, so I think you'd only need one for removal old water and addition of new water. At least that's how I planned to do mine.

Yep, I knew that, but I phrased it badly - one unit, 2 pumps

Welcome to the thread

Simon.

 

[LuisPerez711]

If your looking into the DOS pumps then I would recommend you look into Stenner pumps or even Cole parmer pumps. They are a bit more pricey BUT I think well worth the extra cost. These are industrial and medical grade pumps that are meant for continuous operation with no calibration needed. If you go onto the Apex website, they recommend that you re-calibrate the DOS every 100 hours! The way I have my AWC setup that would mean that I would have to re-calibrate every 3 weeks and that just wasn't an option.

Im planning to use a Stenner Classic Fixed Rate Dual Head pump (p/n 100dmp3) with float switches and a salinity probe for redundancy. I will have it programmed to my apex to run a few hours a day, 5 days a week. The only draw back about these pumps is that they tend to be loud lol but since you have a separate fish room I dont see this being much of a problem. Just my 2 cents

 

[Swope2bc]

Hey a Simon, I don't know if you get the fliers but I know your looking into the DOS pumps and there is a sale. At aquacave

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hi Swope2bc, yep, I get the flyers, thanks

I think I've decided to go for the Genesis one though, since the DOS needs recalibration so frequently. I'm not sure why a *stepper* motor needs to be recalibrated, but if they say it does, it seems silly to ignore them. The Genesis system can't (as long as I keep a reservoir available for filling its bucket) need recalibration, and I guess I'll have to figure out a way to make sure that 1G reservoir is always available.

The tank is sort of on hold-ish for the time being while my arm recovers. I'm not really expecting to do anything significant until the beginning of October, when it'll be plumbed and filled with new salt water from the ocean.

This weekend, I'm going to start putting the rocks I have from the old tank into some salt-water in a bin and start cycling them. Mainly I just want to get any absorbed/deposited crap out of them before I put them in the large tank. I'm thinking 4 weeks ought to be enough for that.

One other thing I want to do is run-test the under-the-house plumbing, and make sure all the tanks are water-tight. I plan on doing that this weekend also

Cheers
Simon.

 

[Swope2bc]

Hi Swope2bc, yep, I get the flyers, thanks



I think I've decided to go for the Genesis one though, since the DOS needs recalibration so frequently. I'm not sure why a *stepper* motor needs to be recalibrated, but if they say it does, it seems silly to ignore them. The Genesis system can't (as long as I keep a reservoir available for filling its bucket) need recalibration, and I guess I'll have to figure out a way to make sure that 1G reservoir is always available.



The tank is sort of on hold-ish for the time being while my arm recovers. I'm not really expecting to do anything significant until the beginning of October, when it'll be plumbed and filled with new salt water from the ocean.



This weekend, I'm going to start putting the rocks I have from the old tank into some salt-water in a bin and start cycling them. Mainly I just want to get any absorbed/deposited crap out of them before I put them in the large tank. I'm thinking 4 weeks ought to be enough for that.



One other thing I want to do is run-test the under-the-house plumbing, and make sure all the tanks are water-tight. I plan on doing that this weekend also



Cheers

Simon.

Sweet! Well heal fast and don't push yourself. No matter how impatient those of us watching may be lol.

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

So that's that then. Just ordered the Genesis system, now that they're available again. In the long-run I think this will be the most reliable method, even if it takes a bit of tuning when I first install it.

Simon

 

[Aquatron]

You will be very happy once you get it dialed in to your system. Everything is looking great, glad your on the road to recovery FYI just because you were hit by a car that's no reason for blurry picture's...lol

 

[reeksreef]

Any updates?

 

[Swope2bc]

Any updates?

+1! How's the arm, any progress on the tank or all rehab?

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

The arm has been more troublesome than I'd hoped. I guess I'm not young any more [sigh].

Current schedule is for the water and plumbing to happen on Saturday 24th I'll have more photos etc. then

Simon

 

[Swope2bc]

The arm has been more troublesome than I'd hoped. I guess I'm not young any more [sigh].

Current schedule is for the water and plumbing to happen on Saturday 24th I'll have more photos etc. then

Simon

Excited about the water!!! Take your time healing though too!

 

[Spaced Cowboy]

I'm baaaaa-aaaaack

I'm baaaaa-aaaaack

So, after a long, and (literally) painful delay, we (and by 'we', I mean Greg and his mate) made some progress on the plumbing today. The overall concept was pretty similar, but we made it only go up one side of the tank to the top, to prevent any loop from forming - unlikely but possible in the old configuration. This also simplified things by removing the need for some ball-valves etc.

So, the bean-animal overflow is now (almost, I have to drill the end-cap and put the hose in on one of the standpipes) done, looking like:

Starting on the far side of the sump, the return pumps are plumbed in, I'll be running only one at once, but there's two there for maintenance reasons. Fixing an issue with the returns will no longer be a "this has to be fixed now!" thing, it's more a 'turn this valve, turn that valve, go make a cuppa, now start fixing things'. I think you'll agree, a lot more relaxed

The pumps feed into a manifold on the left...

... and the UV filter / return on the right. It is possible to make all the returned water flow through the UV filter (and dial back the flow) with judicious use of the ball valves, but in general it's there more for water-polishing than anything else, and will be on a 20% of flow (or so) duty. There's a flow-meter plumbed inline so I can see just how much flow is going through the filter at any time.

Finally the water is sent up over the tank, to the spraybar that lets me direct it via 6 loc-line hoses to wherever I want. All of the spraybar is out-of-sight behind the lip of the enclosing wall, and you can see the Maxpect Gyres in place there as well (also hidden) which are the main providers of flow in the aquarium - there's an XF150 at each end of the tank.

On Monday we get the water in - at least stage 1, about 750 gallons. That's enough to fill the tank and one of the outside storage tanks. There'll be another 650 gallons or so of outside storage also delivered later.

Then it's time to start working on the electrical layout and the water-change system. A lot of hard work today (shout out to Greg!), things are making progress again

Simon

 

[Swope2bc]

WOHOOO! Looking great Simon! I'll be lingering on every update!

 

[NaasReefer]

Looking great! Can't wait to see some water in this!!

 

[Ricardo18]

Really nice!