Our 375 Gallon project

Wow. Excellent and clean plumbing install. You will however get a moderate amount of saltwater dropping out of the pipe when you have to remove the pumps from the unions even with the valves closed because the valves are kinda far from the pump. You might be surprised how much water those large diameter PVC pipes are holding. :)
It does look good. Love those big pumps :D
 
OK I can't hold it back any longer. Scott should fess up. Behind every good man is a good woman, and Scott's is better than good. She had an unbelievable 240G SPS tank a couple years back before she broke it down. And on top of that she's totally cool as well.

Mine is better than good also, but she doesn't know PVC glue from Elmer's glue. :lol:
 
Fliger said:
OK I can't hold it back any longer. Scott should fess up. Behind every good man is a good woman, and Scott's is better than good. She had an unbelievable 240G SPS tank a couple years back before she broke it down. And on top of that she's totally cool as well.

Mine is better than good also, but she doesn't know PVC glue from Elmer's glue. :lol:
Click to expand...

Well David, guess you blew my cover, you are absolutely correct and if it weren't for her I wouldn't even be attempting this. I've had fresh and saltwater fish tanks before but never a reef tank and she is definately the brains of the operation. We definately bounce ideas back and forth but when it comes to knowing what's best I leave it up to her. I couldn't have, and wouldn't want, to do it without her- she's definately the best. Although I must say she does know PVC well but for some reason has been fairly reluctant to do any this go-round- I think that way if the plumbing has a leak she can point to me- but that's OK.

And I was able to scrounge up a picture of her old 240- Obviously one of her goals is to make this tank 100x's better than her old one and incorporate many of the things she wanted to do differently into this tank- a tough task for sure but I think we've got a good start so far.

erins240.jpg


And I'm sure your wife could tell the difference between Elmers and PVC glue- just tell her if she gets confused that the PVC glue doesn't taste good like the Elmers :D
 
Hey thanks Fliger! Very nice of you to say. But I will admit that other than being a sounding board for Scott to bounce ideas off of, I haven't done much on this project. This is definately Scott's baby and he has done an extrordinary job of planning it all out, I certainly wouldn't have had the patience he has had setting this thing up, I would have wanted it set up and running months ago!
 
I will admit that other than being a sounding board for Scott to bounce ideas off of, I haven't done much on this project. .... I certainly wouldn't have had the patience he has had setting this thing up, I would have wanted it set up and running months ago!

Don't let her fool ya- she's done a lot more on this project than she's admitting to and a lot of the good ideas are hers. And as far as the patience- well I'm not very patient and it's killing me that this has taken this long- there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day and when there is it's to darn hot!!!!

Looks like a sub, lol! You seem to know what you are doing :D

Looks more like a chemical refinery to me, Scott. Crude oil goes in at one end and gasoline comes out at the other end . . .

Scott, that plumbing job is very well done. I'm really impressed, even though I'm sure any visiting guests would just shake their head in awe and confusion.

It's actually funny what some people think it looks like. Personally, with all the flow and jets in the tank, I think it would make a great jacuzzi- just kind of a pain to get into. I've had a few people comment on the "industrial look" and think it's pretty cool. I hate to burst there bubble but it will have doors and canopy on it in the near future.


RonSF- I am familiar with the issues and even called sequence about it. They have sent me a spare volulte just in case but from what the guy was telling me they only seem to be failing on the assembly line after inspection or because a customer over-tightens it. I asked him the same question and he said if it's hooked up and running there is very little chance of it failing down the road. He said if it's installed and running you should have no problems with it and you would notice the first time you turned it on.

JustOneMoreTank- I have thought of that and I originally wanted to put a valve close to the pump. My plan (one of the 1000 things on my list) is to hook up a drain line using the drain port of the pump- it's nice they have the drain port but for the purpose of draining water from it while it's in place it's fairly useless as it's so low. Has anyone hooked up a drain line to one before? I've not experimented with the threads yet to see what size they are but I would think they would be some type of a standard thread. I was going to thread a fitting into this port with a short piece of tubing to a valve and then use a quick disconnect fitting with a longer piece of tubing to drain the pump. anyway- that's the plan- we'll see if I get to it someday.

littlesilvermax- Where did you pick up the black rubber hose going between the pump and your plumbing? It's a good idea for vibration dampening as well as to not put much stress on the fittings themselves. I used flex PVC for the same reason.
 
Sidewinder and Fishmaiden,
Nice project, its apparant that you've put a lot of work into it.
One suggestion,
If you're concerned about the pump leaking, buy a water alarm from Lowes or HD. It'll be in the plumbing aisle by the sump pumps. Watchdog water alarms have 120 dcbl audible alarms that go off when water completes the circuit by connecting two contact points. Runs on a 9 volt battery and cost $10.00.

Nick
 
maxxII- definately a great idea for $10. Think I'll have to get one of those for the stand as well as the wet room. Thanks for the tip.
 
sidewinder770 said:
littlesilvermax- Where did you pick up the black rubber hose going between the pump and your plumbing? It's a good idea for vibration dampening as well as to not put much stress on the fittings themselves. I used flex PVC for the same reason.
Click to expand...


I got it from a hardware store, it is used to couple drain pipes together. It worked very well fro about 8 months then some guy on my thread was convinced that it would blow in time! I ended up replumbing things to eliminate the rubber. My pump is louder now and in retrospect I would not have changed my set-up. After looking at the rubber bushings I say that they were 1/4 thick and extremely tough. In a low pressure situation (essentially anything tank related) under 10 psi I think they would last for years.
 
Hey LittleMax(Ben)...
I have a Black Rubber piece of tube as well. I had to use it when I modded my ASM G4 skimmer to be a Recirc style. It connects the intake from the skimmers body into the Sedra needlewheel pump. This will all be in the sump so I am not worried about the connection at all. I would question its watertightness if it was in an external situation.
SkimMods013.jpg

SkimMods017.jpg
 
JustOneMoreTank said:
Hey LittleMax(Ben)...
I have a Black Rubber piece of tube as well. I had to use it when I modded my ASM G4 skimmer to be a Recirc style. It connects the intake from the skimmers body into the Sedra needlewheel pump. This will all be in the sump so I am not worried about the connection at all. I would question its watertightness if it was in an external situation.
Click to expand...

How thick is the rubber? Mine was 1/4 thick, and it came with two heavy duty clamps.
 
I have a question regarding your foam background. I tried doing a foam background on a 72g bow-front. The foam was so bouyant that once I added water it pulled itself away fromn the back wall within a few days. How are you combating this problem?

Great tank. I'm planning to get a 300g from Miracle in Glass in the next year.
 
LittleMax... I just measured it. Was difficult to tell for sure but it seems much thinner than 1/4". I think that it is only 1/8" thick. Mine also did come with two heavy duty stainless steel clamps as well (which are not being used as this will be submerged). The diameter (as you can see in the picture) is just perfect to be stretched very very tightly over the outside of the standard 1" PVC elbow. The fit over the outside of the stock ASM Venturi pipe was not as perfect. It was not as tight. That is why I have the two Electrical ties (also know as Zip or Plastic ties).
I am not sure if the connection would be trusted 100% in an external configuration to be drip-free but mine will be located insump.
The rubber is very soft and pliable.
Hope this info helps you and anyone else. :)
 
Sorry for the lack of replies. we've actually been hard at work on the tank this weekend and have gotten a lot accomplished. We got all the tanks finished for the sump cabinet, got almost all of the plumbing done in the sump cabinet and were able to wet test everything last night. Still have more to do but this was a big jump forward and it's looking more and more complete everyday. I'll try and take some more pics of it tonight.

Ken Sellick- My electrical is the next job to finish. I've run a seperate 60A dedicated circuit to a panel mounted on the end of the sump cabinet. Inside I have 4 15A breakers and 2 20A breakers. The 20A's are for the chiller tube and the A/C unit. The 15A are for everything else with a circuit going to the tank for lighting, and 3 circuits in the sump cabinet. I'll try to post some pics of that if you like.

Hockeyben51- Fish? Is that what this is for? I've been working on the setup for so long I almost forget about what's going in it. I don't have a speciic list of what going in it or anything but there will be a lot of SPS, some LPS and definately quite a few fish- just not sure what yet.

Marc Daniels- That's strange- what kind of foam were you using? We used the black 'handi-foam' for ponds and have not had any problem with it coming off. We've only used this on acyrlic tanks- is your glass? If it is I'm not going to be of much help as I've never tried but I would think it would hold just fine on glass.
 
Scott-

Yes, the bowfront was glass. I was using the Great Stuff foam. Great Stuff is made for insulating, and it may be a different consistency than what you're using.

Marc
 
Marc Daniels- I've never tried the great stuff so I wouldn't be of much help there. I've heard of other people using it and I don't remember them having a problem with it but I'm not sure.

Well, last night was pretty exciting- we got the DIY/homemade/pieced together/not sure if it would even work chiller tube running. We still have to have the HVAC guy out to double check my temps and pressure and still need to adjust the flow correctly for superheat but so far it looks like it works like a champ and only draws about 5-6amps while it's running. Here are the test results which we hope will get better once it is really dialed in but we're pretty happy already-

Aproximate water volume in sump room tanks at time of test- 180 gallons

Ambient garage air temp at start of test- 100
Ambient garage air temp at end of test- 93

Water temp at beginning of test- 91.1
1/2 hour temp.....86.0
1 hour temp....... .82.6
1.5 hour temp......80.1
2 hour temp.........77.2
2.5 hour temp......74.6
3 hour temp.........72.3
3.5 hour temp......70.1
4 hour temp.........68.1
I turned the chiller off at 4 hours and 10 minutes at which time the water temp was 67.6.

We're pretty happy with that and hopefully it will get better once it is dialed in correctly.

Anyway- still have lots of work to do in the sump cabinet but here's a few updated pics while I was testing the chiller last night-

sumpcabinet4.jpg

sumpcabinet5.jpg
 
Last edited:
Now that IS one hell of a setup man....bravo:bounce1:

All you people with equipment rooms really make me sick :lol: I have to stuff my stand....
 
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