Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[tgunn]

Hmm - probably good advice on the sump return flow. I know that with the tarpon running and not much head pressure (maybe 6' to 8' total) the overflow does make a little waterfall noise, but very muted and actually I like a little waterfall noise. But I imagine if I doubled the flow it would get pretty intense with the water flowing into the overflow chamber, even if only an inch or so drop. Especially since my tank is open on top, no hood.

I think I got a quote a while back for on-site drilling that was approx. $120 or so. I also think they would need me to flip the tank upside-down I may call them again, but I'm inclined to do it myself. I'll just climb inside it and do it in there... I've read a bunch of success stories here on RC about people doing it, and I have yet to hear of anyone cracking their tank. But grinding my way through 1/2" or 5/8" glass for a 2.5" diameter hole sounds a little daunting...

I've got a large sump turnover because the dart alone plus plus slow sump turnover isn't quite in line with my flow goals. But as I said, if I could go with less turnover (ie if I had bought a diff pump) I definitely would have. I've also got a 6' sump too and find the flow too much. With an under tank setup like you've got I'd definitely try to minimize sump turnover.

Well, if you're comfortable grinding the hole yourself, might as well give it a try. From what I've read it's not that hard is just takes a long time and you have to keep the glass wet. I think it's just the idea you're grinding through something so expensive that gets daunting.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Well, I decided that it was just too much insanity to drill another hole and try to plumb that mess underneath my stand. I can't deal with it. I'm gonna have to live without it.

So I have to decide how to set the sump return plumbing up. The Tarpon pump has a 1.5" inlet and only 3/4" output. I'll probably go from 3/4" to 1.5" off the pump then somewhere near the bulkheads I'll need to split from 1.5" to two 1" lines that go through the bulkheads.

Then inside the tank I'll have two 1" return branches to deal with. I'll probably have two outlets for each branch and I think I'm going to use penductors on them since I already have them. I was planning to run only three penductors at a time with my "switching" setup but now I'll want to do four I think. One in each corner blowing lengthwise.

I'm pretty dissappointed that I can't do the motorized valve thing. I went to a lot of trouble to set it up But I can't deal with the noise of a fully open drain pipe - and I think that is the only way to handle such large variation of flow. A durso wouldn't work right either since the air intake has to be "tuned" for a given flow. As soon as the flow changes, your air setting is wrong.

It would be nice to find a really low loss splitter, I want to try not to use the standard tee to split my return lines. I was even thinking of making my own by cutting a couple of long sweep 45's and glueing them back together in a curved "Y" shape...

 

[tgunn]

Well, I decided that it was just too much insanity to drill another hole and try to plumb that mess underneath my stand. I can't deal with it. I'm gonna have to live without it.

So I have to decide how to set the sump return plumbing up. The Tarpon pump has a 1.5" inlet and only 3/4" output. I'll probably go from 3/4" to 1.5" off the pump then somewhere near the bulkheads I'll need to split from 1.5" to two 1" lines that go through the bulkheads.

Then inside the tank I'll have two 1" return branches to deal with. I'll probably have two outlets for each branch and I think I'm going to use penductors on them since I already have them. I was planning to run only three penductors at a time with my "switching" setup but now I'll want to do four I think. One in each corner blowing lengthwise.

I'm pretty dissappointed that I can't do the motorized valve thing. I went to a lot of trouble to set it up But I can't deal with the noise of a fully open drain pipe - and I think that is the only way to handle such large variation of flow. A durso wouldn't work right either since the air intake has to be "tuned" for a given flow. As soon as the flow changes, your air setting is wrong.

It would be nice to find a really low loss splitter, I want to try not to use the standard tee to split my return lines. I was even thinking of making my own by cutting a couple of long sweep 45's and glueing them back together in a curved "Y" shape...

Too bad; I think the actuated valves would've been pretty cool.

I think you'll be glad your overflow is dead-silent though. It makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable to watch and have in your living space.

In the end I'm sure everything will look awesome and work great even without the switching valves...

To make a low loss splitter, you could always get a double-wye and cap the middle:

That would work to provide a decent low loss splitter I think.

Be careful with a standard Wye though.

In my closed loop I tried having a 1 1/2" line split to two 1 1/2" outlets. All the flow just zoomed past the branch and came straight out the wye. I had to put a reducer to add some back pressure on the straight part to get the side part to work.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

C L O S E D __ L O O P __ P L U M B I N G ? ? ?

C L O S E D __ L O O P __ P L U M B I N G ? ? ?

I was initially going to do a closed loop manifold around the bottom perimeter of the tank with locline outlets coming off it up from under the sand. But now I'm having second thoughts about that because I don't really want all of those things sticking up out of my sand bed.

So the other alternative is to hide outlets in the rock structure.

I have a bunch of nice base rock that I got for free. So I was planning to start with that and add some liverock to seed it. I'd rather not go and spend many hundreds of dollars on live rock if I can use the dead rock and seed it.

I was planning on doing some sort of PVC tower that I would zip tie the rock to, in order to keep the structure more loose and open. So maybe I can encorporate the closed loop outlets into something that also will support the rock.

 

[tgunn]

Since you're running a dart for your closed loop I would try and keep the number of outlets down to a minimum. Perhaps 4 outlets total, 3 at tops.

My first attempt at a closed loop had three 1" outlets on each side of the tank in a manifold; I was going to run these outlets up and into the rockwork and have them hidden, poking out strategically:

The problems I found with this in real running mode was:
1) The end outlet got a lot more flow than the 2 upstream from it.
2) The amount of piping would have made it very difficult to place my rocks.
3) Overall I found that the 3 outlets on each side were not proving as strong of flow as I hoped.
4) Once filled I could tell by watching silt blow around that the flow didn't really keep all of the water in motion very well; just localized around each manifold.

That said my ending solution was this:

I found that since the dart is a flow pump that the less restrictive plumbing gave me much stronger circulation over all. These four outlets keep the whole tank well stirred up. The plumbing is much easier to hide and pile rocks on/around too. On the left side I actually have my base rock stacked on the closed loop plumbing; it creates a very nice cave on the left.
Note in my pic I had to put a 3/4" reducer on the straight through parts of the Wyes otherwise all the flow just went straight through.

I think in your tank you could probably do something similar; have a C/L outlet in each corner. The piping could easily be used as part of the support structure for the rocks...

In the end I ended up just stacking rocks; no adhesives, no zip ties and no pvc rack. It just fit together well and secure on it's own so I figured, "good enough".

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Good points Tyler. I think I'm going to have to dry fit a manifold and see how the flow is. I sure don't want to get it all set up and then find the flow isnt' good enough! I was thinking I'd have all of the outlets 3/4" locline so I could bend it around to point it where I wanted.

So in general do I want the flow going toward my rock/coral structures or not? With yours, it seems like the flow is generally moving away from them, so they are getting flow indirectly from the general water movement rather than being blown on directly.

So anyway, hopefully the Dart will be enough flow. Maybe I'll wish I had a hammerhead or something. But I am so concerned about noise under the stand that I was too scared to buy a hammerhead and find it too loud...

 

[tgunn]

Good points Tyler. I think I'm going to have to dry fit a manifold and see how the flow is. I sure don't want to get it all set up and then find the flow isnt' good enough! I was thinking I'd have all of the outlets 3/4" locline so I could bend it around to point it where I wanted.

So in general do I want the flow going toward my rock/coral structures or not? With yours, it seems like the flow is generally moving away from them, so they are getting flow indirectly from the general water movement rather than being blown on directly.

So anyway, hopefully the Dart will be enough flow. Maybe I'll wish I had a hammerhead or something. But I am so concerned about noise under the stand that I was too scared to buy a hammerhead and find it too loud...

Best to dry fit things and see how the flow works in reality. I glued most things together before I realized it wouldn't work...

Well, I went with indirect flow as I mentioned in my thread. I find that the way I've got it set up the whole tank is moving around quite vigorously so there is definitely plenty of circulation. From what I've read on here, lots of diffuse flow is better than sharp directed flow.

The Dart is a great pump. It's by far the most silent pump I have. My Sequence 1000 is closed to a hammerhead; I wouldn't want it upstairs. The Dart on the otherhand I wouldn't have a problem with...

Give it a try and see how it works. I'm thinking the Dart will do great for you in combination with your penductors on the return loop.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Here is a mini version of what I think I'm going to do.

The loop is 1.5" so should deliver even flow all around.
The tees off the main loop reduce to 1"
The "towers" are also 1".
The tees off the towers are 3/4" FPT so I can screw locline or whatever into them.

The towers will support my rockwork.

So that's the current plan... comments welcome of course!

The Mini Version:

 

[tgunn]

Here is a mini version of what I think I'm going to do.

The loop is 1.5" so should deliver even flow all around.
The tees off the main loop reduce to 1"
The "towers" are also 1".
The tees off the towers are 3/4" FPT so I can screw locline or whatever into them.

The towers will support my rockwork.

So that's the current plan... comments welcome of course!

The Mini Version:

Are you going to cap the top of the towers? It looks like you're going to. That'd be a good idea otherwise the flow would just shoot right out the top.

Are both of the inlets to the loop going to be run off a Wye that hooks up to the closed loop? Or will one side be capped?

Looks like it could work; you've set it up so that the structure will be under pressure, so you should get somewhat even flow out of the outlets..

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Hey Tyler, yep the towers will be capped and both branches will be run off a T at the bulkhead. I almost have the real thing done. I'm really happy about how it is coming out so far.

I want to be able to get as much flow out of it as possible, but I do want a slight bit of backpressure at the outlets so that the flow is fairly even out of all of the outlets. I'll end up with 6 3/4" outlets, so I think the flow will not be too high of velocity but hopefully will be decent water movement. I'm hoping about 400 to 500 GPH out of each outlet...

Also, I'm planning to leave several of the slip fittings either unglued or I may attach them with silicone. They are SO hard to get fully seated, that I'm sure the dart will not be able to push them apart.

I have to at least test it unglued incase it doesn't work right. Also - I'm going to be somewhat committed to putting my rock islands where the towers are. So I want to be able to move the towers if the aquascaping isn't working out later...

So anyway I'll finally have pictures of the first iteration of my buried manifold soon!:celeb1:

 

[rdmpe]

Here is my first try at the closed loop that will be
buried under the DSB... Hopefully I'll have time
to wet test it tomorrow.

First are pictures of the whole thing. You can see
the intake has the screen on it. The screen just
slides down over a short piece of black 2" pvc.
The main loop is 1.5", the "branches" and "towers"
are 1" and the outlet openings are 3/4" FPT.

 

[rdmpe]

It was tricky getting the pvc to go where I wanted
to go right where it comes up from the bottom. The
first Tee sticks up quite a bit. I cut the tee and the
male adaptor way down so that it was as short as
possible, then glued the %$!#@! out of it. Then I also
cut some 45's way down and glued them together to
get the pipe down against the bottom glass. The other
side of the tee has a 90 and a 45 that are slightly rotated
to get that side down to the glass.

I used some spaflex and set it up so that the whole
thing can be detached fairly easily. There are some
zip ties that keep things nice and snug unless I want
to take it apart. Here are some pictures of the area.

 

[rdmpe]

What isn't shown right now is the sump return plumbing. That will be a penductor in each corner facing it's couterpart at the opposite end. When I had them in for the previous wet test, they really created a lot of flow and churning of the surface water. Hopefully they'll work out well. I still have to replumb the sump return without the actuated valve and I have to feed the fuge from a tee off my return pump instead of off the skimmer output so I have a bunch of plumbing to re-do down there then I'll be able to wet test everything again including the new CL manifold.

 

[jay24k]

That idea seems like a neat one. The only downside is what happens if you ever had to do maitenance on it or something gets stuck in the pvc.

Other then that, looks good. Just realize(at least for me), my DSB causes sand particles to float around the tank, so I would angle the returns away from the sand.

 

[tgunn]

Hey Tyler, yep the towers will be capped and both branches will be run off a T at the bulkhead. I almost have the real thing done. I'm really happy about how it is coming out so far.

I want to be able to get as much flow out of it as possible, but I do want a slight bit of backpressure at the outlets so that the flow is fairly even out of all of the outlets. I'll end up with 6 3/4" outlets, so I think the flow will not be too high of velocity but hopefully will be decent water movement. I'm hoping about 400 to 500 GPH out of each outlet...

Also, I'm planning to leave several of the slip fittings either unglued or I may attach them with silicone. They are SO hard to get fully seated, that I'm sure the dart will not be able to push them apart.

I have to at least test it unglued incase it doesn't work right. Also - I'm going to be somewhat committed to putting my rock islands where the towers are. So I want to be able to move the towers if the aquascaping isn't working out later...

So anyway I'll finally have pictures of the first iteration of my buried manifold soon!:celeb1:

Sounds like a plan!

I left a good number of my closed loop pieces unglued entirely. I slip fit them nice and snug and the dart hasn't budged them so far. I don't think you'll have to worry about it. And since it's in tank a leak isn't a big deal.

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Looks good all set up! Can't wait to see how it performs in the wet test..

jay24k is right, make sure not to point the outlets too directly at the sand; I had to direct all my outlets up from the sand bed because they were causing some serious erosion. Things have settled down now though and it doesn't move around anywhere near as much.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

I think what I'll do is have the bottom outlet fairly low but with a 45 directing the flow slightly upwards. Another thing I like about upward flow is it may help keep the garbage suspended longer so that it gets filtered.

Also - all of the exposed PVC will eventually be painted black or dark purple maybe...

 

[tgunn]

I think what I'll do is have the bottom outlet fairly low but with a 45 directing the flow slightly upwards. Another thing I like about upward flow is it may help keep the garbage suspended longer so that it gets filtered.

Also - all of the exposed PVC will eventually be painted black or dark purple maybe...

I think that will work quite well for you. All of my outlets are very low but angled up from the bottom slightly. The result is that the water mixes the tank up quite well. I have watched tiny pieces of detritus get caught in one of the bottom closed loop flows and swirl up and around to the top of the tank and then over the overflow.

I still get some stuff settling out in dead spots on the sand bed though. I think I need to get some more active sand sifters to help keep that clean.

Tyler

 

[george1098]

i'm sorry, i'm being a little lazy and not reading as much as i should (just looking at the pictures, very nice and origional), but my question is about the holes you cut in the glass. how did you cut them? or did the tank arrive pre-cut.
thanks

 

[rdmpe]

Hi George,
The tank was drilled by the manufacturer (custom drilled - I sent him the hole locations, overflow chamber size, etc.)

~Randy