Pictures of the Des Moines Tank Tour Pt. III

[tibbs2]

Marcus aka Mwood's house

Full table tank. A unique tank in that you can get great views of the coral from above. He also has a homemade surge device.

He had the inventor of Luminarc custom make these reflectors to hold two bulbs.

Easy as Pie DIY skimmer. Can you believe he uses his mouth to start the siphon to empty the skimmer cup into the bucket?

A side shot

SPS

A yellow squamosa

His other two clams minus the gigas

Monti with blue polyps

Clown HQ

Marcus's nano tank.

Onto the final part....

 

[Covey]

What is the set up on the homemade surge device?

 

[mwood]

Classic carlson surge device. A 29 gallon drilled for a 1.5" bulkhead. An upside down U tube in the 29 to create and break the siphon. From the sump to the tank. Filled with a rio 3100 and fires every 2 or 3 minutes.

 

[Covey]

How quick does the 29Gs empty?

 

[mwood]

About 30 seconds. I used to have it all timed out and estimated the surge at 1100 gph. Not as strong as I'd like, but it works.

 

[FlyGTI]

Is that about the same way that the one at Iowa Pet works?

 

[xroads]

To me it looks like it empties into your sump, how does this surge the tank?

Excellent looking set up by the way.

 

[mwood]

FLYGTI, yes the IA Pet surge is a CSD. I haven't seen it up in a long time though.

xroads, it pumps from the sump via the small pvc line in the pic and surges the tank via the 1.5" line that comes out of the side of the 29, drops to the floor and over the top of the tank. You can see it in the pic.

 

[Atticus]

Aren't you losing a ton of gph by dropping to the floor and coming back up the height of the tank? Every surge would use energy to push the standing water through the tube, not to mention the gravity factor. Keeping the surge tube above the water surface would decrease the fall a bit, but I would think the speed it picks up by not running against gravity and standing water would still allow for a stronger surge. Maybe I misunderstood the design.

 

[mwood]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7260103#post7260103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Atticus
Aren't you losing a ton of gph by dropping to the floor and coming back up the height of the tank? Every surge would use energy to push the standing water through the tube, not to mention the gravity factor. Keeping the surge tube above the water surface would decrease the fall a bit, but I would think the speed it picks up by not running against gravity and standing water would still allow for a stronger surge. Maybe I misunderstood the design.

I may be loosing surge, but I dropped to the floor to get the pvc over to the tank. The surge is over the sump and I didn't want to have a pvc line coming out of the closet to the tank when I get the room done. If I run the pvc in the ceiling, I'd overflow the 29. Most surges are on tanks where the pvc can be hidden, mines not.