Project 58!! (Image intense)

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Here is the mostly finished lightbox sitting on top of the tank in my basement. It will NOT be sitting on top of tank when the tank is set up. It will be suspended. I just needed a place to put the lightbox to keep it off the floor, and the tank was just asking for it....
One thing I noticed, in building this lightbox large enough to allow me to be very flexible in lighting arrangements is that it overhangs the tank by about an inch on all sides. That was by design, but I think it looks a lil funny.
Also, The over flow box in the tank for this shot is not the one I wound up using. That is a 6x7x20 inch overflow box made by Innovative Aquarium Products , (IAP), the same guys that built Mike's, (Mojoreef here) 650 gallon L shaped tank. They also made my sump and skimmer.

you can clearly see the over hang here.

Nick

 

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The tank was moved into the garage for plumbing and wet testing of the plumbing. I have never done anything w/ plumbing before, and expect to have a leak or two. I would rather have a leak in my garage where all it does is wet my motorcycle tires as opposed to flooding my house.
Playing with the plumbing has been an experiance. I've decided that when I upgrade I will just set up the next tank in aisle 6 (plumbing) of the nearest Lowes. I figure paying rent there will be cheaper than countless trips back and forth in my fuel swilling truck. I feel like I live there lately.
Whats funny is that I'm learning all sorts of things during this project. I've figured out 60 different things I will do differently on the next stand/canopy that I build. I'd never stained or sealed wood before, now its nothing I'm afraid of doing if I wind up finding a nice piece of unstained/unfinished furniture. I've never done plumbing before, so this is new. I'm definately learning to be patient, which has long been a challenge for me. And I'm learning to be philisophical about the set backs I've had making this.
Overall its a been a great experiance

 

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Now this philisophical part sounds kinda new age hokie.......but I was pretty frustrated a week ago. Iwas feeling pretty annoyed because things werent working out quite right, I was on night shift, and wasnt able to go to the store for necessary parts....etc. Just an unhappy camper for awhile.
The closed loop will be creating randomized flow via an Oceans Motions Heavy Duty 4 way wavewmaker. GolfNut here, is the manufacturer, and I honestly cant say enough good things about the guy. Customer service is top notch, the product is incredibly well built, he's very happy to talk to the customer personally and explain what his product does, and how it does it. Paul is just a smart, neat guy.
Anyway, back to the story.....
I had originally plumbed the OM unit w/ Spa flex all the way around, in order to cut down on 90 degree angles. Good concept, bad execution.

This is a diagram of the flow pattern for this tank. MojoReef helped immensely with this design. I owe him a huge thank you.......Thanks Mike, really.

The blue lines in the overhead view indicate flow patterns for the upper portion of the closed loop returns. The red lines indicate flow patterns for the lower portions of the closed loop return which is fitted inside the overflow box. I really dislike having a bunch of crap squirreled away in the tank for flow. So much that I had a 10 inch wide overflow made in order to house the plumbing that would otherwise have gone inside the tank, and been visible.

SO there I was w/ all this spa flex sticking out allover the place and it was too long. This kept things from fitting properly and caused me quite a bit of frustration.

 

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Got alot accomplished on the tank yesterday which is good. I was really getting unhappy and discouraged about the plumbing like I said. Things just werent quite right, and every time I adjusted something to compensate, it threw something else outta whack. Felt like I couldnt win for losing, and after coming all this way on playing with this stuff, I was really feeling annoyed. So I took some time off from it, and came back at it with a different perspective.........
I'm a former United States Infantry Marine, and I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY AN INANIMATE OBJECT!!!!!
So I won......
Moral of the story for those who might follow along......don't quit when your frustrated. Take a break, relax (something this hobby is sposed to be good for......riiiiight....), and try a different approach.

The source of all this frustration was Spa-Flex. Curt had come over to help me out and we had managed to stuff pieces, (??? What the heck is the plural of spa-flex???) into the new 10 inch overflow that IAP made for me.

 

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However things have changed slightly from the initial plan. Because Spa-flex is more flexible than PVC, it is also called...uh...flexible PVC....
However its really not that wildly flexible so it was fun trying to get that to work the way I wanted to.
Fortunately, CurtSwearing was able to help out and get me pointed in the right direction. Man, It seems like that guy is always saving somebody!!!
Who says superhero's don't exist?
Anyway.....
Curt and I managed to stuff the spa flex into my new 10 inch wide overflow. It required alot effort, alot of thought, some foul language, and boiling water. The boiling water was to heat up and soften the Spa flex so it would more easily accept the threaded barbs which are connected to the OM HD 4way wavemaker.

Worked like a charm.

Whats interesting is that the spa flex didnt allow for much room for the standpipe. Since the tank had been drilled more or less centered along the back wall....I was now having issues getting my oveflow centered like I had originally planned. Curt being the wild and crazy guy that he is suggested that I just adapt and move the overflow more to right of the aquarium. This placed it offset more to the right, and it looked kinda funky I thought, and I said so. Curt being the super genius that he is, pointed out that I didnt have much choice, unless I felt like redoing everything.....
Suddenly, I found myself enjoying the non traditional offset overflow box.

 

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The problem with the plumbing was that the Spa flex was too long. This pushed the OM unit out from the tank too far. I have built all of this with the idea of the stand being flush up against the wall of the house to keep the dogs out. But the Spa-flex pushed the OM unit out past the back of the stand by several inches.
Being a former Marine, I attempted to force it. This resulted in ALOT of stress down the closed loop rigid PVC plumbiing that connects the pump with the OM unit. It also put alot of stress against the overflow. Eventually it would have either popped the overflow free of the silicone bindings, (Bad), or would have cracked the closed loop plumbing, (VERY Bad).
I really didnt want to have to cut this stuff, cause it would have meant more boiling water at the very least, and there was the potential to cut it too short necessitating redoing all of that crap again. I didn't want to cut it because I didnt think I would be able to lure Curt back over hear again.
He's getting suspicious since every time he comes over he winds up working on my tank. I may have to bribe himn with some of Rocio's world fameous Chocolate Chip Cookies.....Whaddya say Curt?????
Anyway,
I tried Plan C which involved forcing the Spa flex to submit to my will and loop it up and then down to the OM unit. The problem with this was that would have interferred with the canopy.....Grrrr....

 

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So I broke down and cut it shorter.
I measured it 6 bajillion times and decided that it needed to lose approximately 7 inches from the ends. So I cut it shorter, and brought the tank inside for the boiling water ritual.
Rocio wasnt really thrilled about being pressed into tank moving service, (Cookies Curt!! Rich Chocolaty, Gooey Cookies!!! Cant ya just taste em Curt????), but was a good sport about it. She was also a good sport about helping with the boiling water.
Since the offending Spa-flex was connected to the tank overflow, (which was connected to the tank...), I had to bring the boiling water to the Spa-flex. Naturally this is a two person type job. (Helloooooooo Curt! Anyone seen Curt?)
Rocio held the Pot 'o Boiling Water, and I stuffed the ends of the Spa-flex into the water and tried not to get burned......much.
Once the Spa-flex was warm and pliable, I just stuffed the Threaded/Barbed adapters in. That easy. The threaded part of the adapters was screwed into the OM unit, and teflon taped to get a good seal. The barbed part of the adapters went into the Spa-flex.

Here is a pic of the tank sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for the water to boil.........

Close up.......

Nick

 

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Here it is after the hot water treatment. Special thanks to my fiance for helping out in so many ways.....she also works well as a hand model.

These pics kinda give you a sense of how large the OM unit is. I dont think its too big at all, but its definately built industrial grade strong. I'm impressed with it and I havent even been able to plug it in yet!

And another closeup.....

Nick

 

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I've decided to go with the rigid PVC for the rear ports on the OM unit. Just works out easier for me. I was relly humming along with the plumbing too......until I ran out of parts. I need to go back to Lowes...again. I'm hoping I can do that either tomorrow of Monday, cause when I finally get everything, it'll be time to start gluing the plumbing up.
Nick

 

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The plumbing is reduced to 3/4 of an inch at the tank. I did order the OM unit with a 3/4 inch outlets from Paul originally and intentionally.....I'm glad he sent it the way he did though.
The OM unit had threaded ports that were 1 inch and he inserted (and included), 3/4 inch adapters that were both Male Pipe thread and Female Pipe thread. I goofed and had my pump outlet sizes confused with the skimmer pump outlets....Like I said, I'm glad he sent it the way he did. The largest Loc-Line is only 3/4 of an inch.....so I had to reduce it down anyway....but by using Y's at the 3/4 inch ports, I feel I reduce some of the back pressure....

Paul can make just about anything in terms of outlet/inlet size. The bottom, (inlet) to the OM unit is 2 1/2 inches in diameter...I asked him for a reducer as well since I was having trouble finding one that size here in STL. I cant imagine why he couldnt get the outlets sized the same as well on the 4 way...
I do have this hooked up and fully plumbed. Its currently sitting in my garage doing the Wet-Test thing...(rather find leaks in the garage than inside my house)....the current generated by the OM unit hooked up to an Iwaki MD-55RLT is insane! By my unscientific calculations, I'm only turning over the tank's volume about 17 times an hour.....(this is geared for SPS primarily) and it looks like alot more than that to me....I have ablsolutely no hesitation reccomending this product to anyone else looking for a good wavemaker. The only potential downside is plumbing....and I was surprised at how easy that was.
Nick

 

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Okay....I had every thing plumbed up, and dry fitted. The I started gluing....I was really kinda nervous about messing with that since I had never done it before. It was a snap. Nothing to worry about at all.
Naturally the problems came into to play AFTER I had glued all the closed loop plumbing and the return plumbing.
I didnt like any of it. It made things 1000 times more complicated and was definately not user friendly, which was one of the original goals for this tank.
So......I scrapped it, and started over. Got it done in a couple of hours, made things much more user friendly, saved space and used less PVC in the process. I also made a big decision to bite the bullet, and order a new skimmer in place of the ETSS 600 clone I have. The ETSS is a great skimmer, just took up alot more space under my stand and behind my tank than made me happy. It was actually the source for all of the non user friendly plumbing in the first place, what with trying to work around that monster. So I ordered the biggest skimmer I could squeeze into my sump, a Euro-Reef CS6-2.

 

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When I started the wet-test I found three small leaks immediately, and that was it.
The first leak was from the 1 inch drain bulkhead to from the overflowto the sump. It was easily fixed by tightening the bulkhead a little more.
The next two were in the closed loop itself. The Oceans Motions HD 4 way unit has a 2 inch female pipe threaded opening to feed it. My Iwaki 55RLT has 1 inch ports, so I bought a 2 inch to 1 inch adapter to make the transition. Evidently I forgot to put teflon tape on the threads of the adapter and had a slow, seeping leak as water forced its way through the threads. I removed that piece and covered the threads with teflon tape. The final leak was a slow steady 2 drips a minute from one of the 45 degree elbows of a return arm from the OM unit. Rather than attempt to make something work, I just made another one from the numerous extra plumbing parts I had from Lowes. A quick word of advice:
ALWAYS BUY 4 MORE ELBOWS/ADAPTERS/COUPLINGS/T'S/ETC, WHEN MAKING PLUMBING PURCHASES!!! THIS WILL SAVE YOU FROM MAKING 10 BAZILLION TRIPS TO HOME DEPOT/ LOWES AND HAVING THE PLUMBING PEOPLE PUT A RESTRAINING ORDER ON YOU BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY ARE BEING STALKED!!
I glued the new arm in place and it was ready to go the next day.
I did have the Iwaki and the OM unit fired up for about 5 minutes while I did the quick check for leaks........it was AWESOME!!!! The flow generated by this combination in my 58 gallon tank was nothing short of amazing. I may have to adjust things abit by splitting my loc-line returns even more than they already are. Currently, each of the 4 returns from the closed loop go to a Loc-line Y which turns 4 outlets into 8. I may have to go to 16 outlets total. It doesnt looklike keeping SPS with this much random current will be a problem. I may be severely limited in my ability to keep clams though......
It will definately require some creative rock work design to "make" some low flow areas.
Nick

 

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When I got back from work the following day, I had to fire everything up just to see..... No Leaks!!!! Yay for my side!!!
I left it all running for three days just to be sure there were no more leaks. Just as I figured, there were none. I still had to stain and seal the lightbox support arms in order to move the whole set up in the house. My only concern at this point is electrical. This house is old and has a 100 amp box for our floor. I'm worried that the circuit breakers will trip if I run my lights, pumps, and central air simultaneously. Any ideas from you electrical gurus out there on how to check this out besides plugging everything in, turning it on, and seeing if my house explodes?
Nick

 

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This is a frontal shot of the closed loop system using the OceansMottions Heavy Duty 4 way unit. I'm loving this thing!! The Spa-Flex runs into the overflow to two ports coming out the sides of my overflow. This lets me hit the bottom of the tank with a random flow as well.

 

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Left side of OceansMotions closed loop showing plumbing. I built a small shelf behind the tank to support the Iwaki pump. You can also see the closed loop intake priming hook. The priming hook allows me to fill the pump with water for starting it.

Right side of the closed loop. This image also shows the PVC P trap I used for the sump return in order to eliminate 45 or 90 degree angles in the plumbing which would impede flow. The Rigid PVC arm really is slightly curved. I heated it up using boiling water and bent it in order to fit the outside of the tank better.

 

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This image shows my overflow drain. I have placed it beneath the surface of the water in order to reduce noise and splashing. It is not glued in place. I just moved it rearward to be visible for this photo. The two 90 degree elbows are for securing a filter sock to the drain to remove larger bits of debris that will be kicked up when I turkey baste the rocks. This where my Euro-Reef CS6-2 in sump skimmer will go. There is plenty of room to access it back here, and it wont get in the way of my plumbing.

 

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Its uh......a top down (sorta) shot of my closed loop and sump return. The top left OM return is transition to run while this photo was taken.

 

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Priming hook for closed loop intake. The threaded cap at the top unscrews and allows water to be poured into the pump to get it primed for starting. Also shows Loc-Line Y return.
This also shows how I colored the PVC inside the tank black. I saw a thread on RC where Randy Holmes Farley said a Black Sharpie magic marker would not harm a reef tank.....so rather than spend $40 something on a gallon of reef safe epoxy from Aquatic Ecosystems, I just uh...colored it in. If you look closely at it in person, you can see variations in the color, (darker and lighter etc) but when the back of the tank is painted it will be much less distracting than the white PVC would have been.

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this is the right side of the closed loop and tank. you can see the sump return in this photo also colored black by a Sharpie magic marker. The zip tie on the Spa-Flex keeps it from flopping out and putting more outward pressure on the overflow. Yes, I will trim off the excess before the tank is moved inside.For frame of reference the overflow is 10 inches wide from left to right.

Nick [/B]

 

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The support arms for the canopy are almost dry from the final coat of wood stain. I will do the first coat of poly-urethane tomorrow, have to work again tonight. After I get these sealed, the tank can be moved into the house and then I can begin mounting the lighting and plaing around with the aquascaping.
The protein skimmer is en route from Marine Depot and should arrive 11-15-04. Ive been on the phone and emailing Euro-Reef alot in the last couple of days. The skimmer is a Euro-Reef CS6-2 which is rated by the manufacturer up to a 110 gallon tank. It comes with a Sedra 3500 pump. According to Jeff at ER customer service, this runs the skimmer at about 250 GPH. Which puts my skimmer tank volume turnover at around 3 times an hour. Not bad, but I would prefer to get closer to 4 or more times an hour.
I cant remember if I've already posted this link up or not....Skimmer Math but this is a well written explanation of why you want a skimmer rated for your tank, and how to figure out the proper way to calculate your skimmers turnover rate.
Jeff, (at ER) said that I could have gone with a custom CS6-2+ which would have fit in my sump for only 10% more than standard price of the CS62+.......wish I'd known that prior to buying the CS6-2. But he did said I could replace the Sedra 3500 with a Sedra 5000 which would most likely fit just fine in my sump. The Sedra 5000 pumps about 350 gallons per hour when connected to the skimmer according to Jeff. This would put me at my desired goal of 4 times an hour. I plan on waiting until I can test the skimmer for a true rating before I go and buy another pump. If it does what I want to begin with, why spend the money?
Another thing I ordered was some Penn Plax B-11 Silent Air Pumps.
Curt told me about them awhile back. I found that site on the web and never thought about it again. What I didnt realize was that they werent in stock when I found them. I have heard many rumors, (all of which are un-verified ) that the manufacturer is discontinuing them. Looking around on the web to find any for sale was kinda tough....most of the places I found them for sale were out of stock. I finally found some in stock and for sale in Canada. They were more expensive, but better than going without IMO.
Richard Durso wrote a neat article on "Disaster Readiness" for the reef aquarium in a 2002 Advanced Aquarist Online Magazine. In that article he talks about these pumps. Me being Joe Paranoid, and having had several encounters with that Murphy guy, ($@^!&*%), I tend to plan for the worst...(Did you see my stand construction???) anyway...its a neat article.
Disaster Readiness