My 90g build - please comment

[vyerous]

Ok I've got some more questions.

First off is union placement and how many.

On my drain where should I put the union and how many? I know what a union does, how exactly it works I'm not sure, it looks like in some people's setups they wouldn't work because one end of the pipe is glued and the other end of the pipe is glued with a union in the middle... how could that work?

If you could please show me some pictures of your union placement I would appreciate it.

Also where should I put the gate/ball valve on the drain line. Does it matter where (on the vertical portion or the horizontal portion?)

Is it worth putting a gate/ball valve on the return line?

When I install the pump on the return line, do I want the pump resting on the glass or should I have it raised off of the glass?

How big should I make the return and drain zones? I want my fuge do be the largest size, I just don't want to make them too small.

Any flaws with this design? (also where should the stuff I asked go?)

I know I know, don't use a check valve but I got talked into it. I'm thinking of putting a union above and below so I can clean it once a month, give it a good soak in the vinegar and have my return off for like an hour.

Please any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[vyerous]

up, still looking for help

 

[Rjukan]

Hey, I have a few ideas.

I dont really know what you mean by union but Im thinking you mean the screw fitting so you can disconnect something from the system. If so I would only have one on my pump so it can be removed for cleaning. Or I would use something like that if I had my pipes going through walls or through a stand so they can be removed later on.

If your doing an ATO its not as big a deal, but if your not then you might want to consider making the return pump area a little bigger. Otherwise you will be manually refilling the sump pretty often.

^ Here is my suggestion. At the top of the return line at the water surface, if the elbow is inside the tank you can just drill a small hole on the top to break the siphon right away.

^ I use a hose and clamp for my union between the pump and the PVC, underwater the pump has a piece of PVC on its outlet. The hose is tight enough that I dont need a clamp down there.

 

[vyerous]

Thanks for your reply. It helps with some of my questions.

I have been debating whether or not I should put another line off of the return line with a valve to help regulate flow in the tank. However with the head pressure and what not I think I'm only going to get 450 gph from the Mag 7 and since I have a 1" drain line with a maximum of 600 gph, I don't know that I would need the extra drain lain. However, I may plumb it to the fuge to help with flow issues in there if needed.

The nice thing about the mag 7 is the connection is threaded onto the pump itself. That's why I plan on keeping the pump about an inch or two off the sump floor, my dilemma is whether or not the vibrations will be loud from the return line vibrating or if I should dampen the sound by placing the pump on a sponge or something. What foam block did you use?

I definitely plan on using an ATO. I didn't think the return area should be too big since it won't be starving for water unless the (rare) drain line gets clogged. Does it matter where you place the ATO drain or just anywhere in the sump?

Still looking for answers on the unions.

 

[vyerous]

Also can anyone recommend the best way to cut lexan? I don't have a table saw so whats the next best thing? Is scoring it and breaking it really that hard?

 

[vyerous]

Oh and can anyone recommend an ATO. I know Melev has a DIY ATO but I want to hear if anyone has had any problems with it. It almost seems too good to be true.

Pics this weekend. Got the mag 7, some more PVC and fittings, gluing baffles, ordering the sand this week.

Does anyone think its worth using the extra silicone and going over the seams in the DT?

Thanks!

 

[toddc76]

nice job and keep up the good work.. slow and steady...

I would be careful with that Check valve, they tend to not be very reliable. I know I had problems with mine and when I started mentioning it to others they all agreed.

Just a little pointer from a fellow new guy.

 

[vyerous]

I have heard they tend not to be so reliable but what problems did you run into? I'm not relying on it to keep water out of my tank but rather a luxury item to keep a little less at times when the pump is off.

Thanks!

 

[nikon187]

fresh silicone doesn't stick well to cured silicone. The seals will be fine unless there are air bubbles or rips in it

 

[vyerous]

Ok good to know. Can you shed any light on the questions from page one at all? Still trying to figure out the plumbing portion, nothing got worked on this past weekend unfortunately due to last minute changes in scheduling. =/

 

[vyerous]

up, still looking for answers.

 

[vyerous]

Anyone?

 

[vyerous]

Well for anyone following along I've got a few updates, no pics though, I need to get them off of a memory card from my old phone.

Big updates are as follows:
-Stand finally where I want it
-Electrical issue figured out (just going to run a cable to the adjacent wall and use a floor cover thingamabob to keep anyone from tripping on it)
-Skimmer working great
-Obtained some free water from Lanman's amazing reef
-Cut and glued baffles... then reglued.... finally got the leaks to stop
-Sump completed and placed
-Received my Mag 7 for return, some reef chili (figured I'd try it once the reef was setup), ATO unit, water pump for ATO, RO/DI unit, TDS meter, and some other goodies for the RO/DI unit
-Cut and plumbed all my PVC using 2 unions and 1 check valve in the mix
-Cut the power to my return pump and everything worked out, with the check valve I still have maybe 7 or 8 gallons left to go in the sump just in case it fails and my ATO happens to stick open
-Got the durso to work but not 100% happy with it
-Tank soaked for 48 hours with vinegar mixture, tank is spotless =D
-Both bulkheads are leaking and is currently driving me crazy

As it stands the tank is nearing completion, however the bulkheads are holding me back. I am going to work on the bulkhead tonight, removing the putty I used to help control the leak for the soaking purpose. Going to assess the situation and see if the bulkhead is salvageable, if not... off to BRK this weekend. My basement is littered with miscellaneous tools, parts, boxes, so on and so forth. My storage room has 2 brute cans full of water, I already had one tiny flood with my skimmate milk jug reservoir, no biggie, just smelly.

I'm thinking I'll hold on to my 55g for a few weeks to QT a tang, after that its history. The reason being is my current hospital/QT tank is only a 30g, and I know there are stores that hold tangs in these size tanks for a while, I just would feel terrible stressing it out that much. Not to mention I'm not brave enough to just drop a fish in my DT and hope for the best, no way.

As it stands, hopefully this week I will get the bulkhead straightened out, re plumb one section of my return (the pump is resting against the glass and it amplifies the sound x10), get the ATO setup, get my RO/DI unit rolling, and hopefully start filling the tank with water this weekend along with putting some liverock and sand in there. I don't plan on moving the fish just yet because my furniture move is being postponed yet again.

Hopefully I will have the video and pictures up by this weekend.

As always any comments or suggestions are welcome.

 

[Rjukan]

Hey man, sounds like you really got a lot done, good job. You decided to stick with the check valve eh? Im curious to hear your experience with it after a few months to a year, it seems like a nice safeguard and hopefully it works out well for you.

As far as that bulkhead, I would just replace it now. Unless of course you fix the leak and are 100% sure its a permanent fix. I wouldnt want to think about it once the tank is running with live stock in it.

Lol, yeah noise control is tons of fun. I dont envy those of you with stands, since I went in-wall I cant go back.

Will be nice to see those pics, an update just isnt an update w/o them lol

Oh and 1 more thing, dont expect many to respond and you will be better off. This way if people are into the thread then its great, but if not you wont be disappointed. Reef discussion is full of insane builds, they bogart all of the posters lol

 

[vyerous]

Thanks, its been hectic trying to coordinate the build, move, finding of a new job, and juggling life somewhere in there.

The check valve worked but I have been skeptical, the design is simple but seems like there is room for error. That is why I made sure I had the ability to support the volume of water in the even the check valve failed, like I said I'm not relying on it its just kind of one of those oh well why not deals.

I probably am going to replace it, my problem is my LFS that sells them closes when I get off work =/ I don't want to dish out 15 bucks to ship 2 bulkheads but we will see I guess. If I get desperate I can always just silicone around the bottom of the tank, the next time I need to break it down, a dremel will remove the silicone no problem, hell even a carpenters knife will do that trick.

Yea I was pretty irritated with the noise. I'm glad I didn't have the slurping sound, its just I had to modify my overflow to make the return line fit and I think in doing so I messed up the flow coming in which also happens to get sprayed by the siphon break on the return line 90* elbow. Not a huge deal when the canopy is on, none the less irritating. On top of that I didn't account for the width of the pump when plumbing the return line. Thus is just barely fit, but resting against the glass, amplifying the noise. I plan on throwing in another union, 2 more 90s to center the pump, and even putting foam around the pipe since the pump will be suspended off of the glass. Other then that, so far the tank is relatively quiet, I'm going to have to jerry rig something so the output on my skimmer is gently guided into the sump, rather than pouring into it like its setup now.

Yea I'm pretty ****ed I didn't take more pictures but I have quiet a few, the video shows my frustration the most. And I agree, no one likes to read what is going on when you could see them =D

And thanks Rjukan for the words of advice. I'm doing this more for myself now, I figure this isn't anything extravagant about this build so I don't expect the world =D

 

[vyerous]

OK, finally I am updating this with pictures and a video. I held off because I was trying to recover pictures from my old phone, but unfortunately I can't get them, so this will have to do. Sorry about the crappy pictures, again camera phone.

First this is the video I took the weekend I had the tank filled and running for the first time. The setup in the video is different from what the finished plumbing is now. You can also see the embarrassing attempt to stop a leak around the bulkhead. The durso drain is 1 1/4" thick but the actual bulkhead and drain line is 1". One thing that kind of irritates me is that the drain is pumping out a ton of bubbles, I don't know if this is because the durso isn't fine-tuned or if its because bubbles are being created in the overflow and its being sucked by the durso. Like I said I changed my setup a bit so hopefully it will eliminate it. Another thing that irritates me is on the second part of the drain line (second part from the union), I glued the wrong end to the half of the durso, so the setup is actually backwards. I had it all laid out perfectly, it was going to fit in the sump perfectly and it was going to look great... well I screwed up. Eventually I'll re-glue some pieces and remake the last part of the drain line the way I intended. Also the return line was modified because I didn't account for the return pump size, its actually resting against the wall of the sump, thus it is really loud. I also changed my return line in the overflow to eliminate the waterfall noise, hopefully this all works =D



The following pictures show some goodies I ordered and the changes I've made. It also shows the silicone job I went and re-glued, I wanted to make sure there were 0 leaks.

The part that I screwed up.

My makeshift brackets to support the drain line.

My new return line setup, the part that is on the left with the union (connects to the pump) is shorter so the pump is actually suspended in the water column.

 

[vyerous]

My new return line coming out of the overflow.

My silicone job =D

The removal of the leaky bulkhead I decided to putty.

I actually ended up ruining my new 1" bulkhead again, I was moving the tank and I think I caught the pipe on something and it popped the bulkhead and I think stripped the thread or just dislodged the gasket, either way I don't mind throwing 7 bucks to a new one again, I can live with no leaks and a few extra dollars.

I should be moving in on Friday of this week and moving the tank Saturday.

Thanks for looking.