SC Aquariums Owners Thread

[soulpatch]

Question for all of you. I am about to set up an 80gal rimless...a d the above statement has me confused. Am i understanding correctly that the water level in the tank cant really be raised aboce the bottom of the overflow slots otherwise surface skimming will not occur. So is the level he is talking about the level in the overflow??

Strainer <> surface skimming.

Without the 45s your emergency is lower then the. Bottom of your teeth. It can still be silent as such but if you want to raise the water level in your tank abive the very bottom of the teeth you need to raise the emergency and to do so you can use 2 45 fittings to angle it behind the return. Doing so allows your water level in tank to be up to the top of the teeth like i have and still allow surface skimming. The hugher water line is more pleasing for me....

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[RogueGrown]

Will this higher water line also mean less water to the sump in the event of an outage by chance?

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[soulpatch]

Will this higher water line also mean less water to the sump in the event of an outage by chance?

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No higher water line typically means more as there is more water to drain...

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[RogueGrown]

No higher water line typically means more as there is more water to drain...

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What if the main drain was raised with the emergency, now it would just be a wash correct.


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[KJoFan]

Strainer <> surface skimming.

Without the 45s your emergency is lower then the. Bottom of your teeth. It can still be silent as such but if you want to raise the water level in your tank abive the very bottom of the teeth you need to raise the emergency and to do so you can use 2 45 fittings to angle it behind the return. Doing so allows your water level in tank to be up to the top of the teeth like i have and still allow surface skimming. The hugher water line is more pleasing for me....

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Do you find surface skimming to occur/be as effective with the water level essentially level from main tank to overflow? It seems, in my experience, having water level lower in the overflow than the main tank allows for better skimming, but maybe that's just an illusion.

Thoughts?

 

[soulpatch]

Do you find surface skimming to occur/be as effective with the water level essentially level from main tank to overflow? It seems, in my experience, having water level lower in the overflow than the main tank allows for better skimming, but maybe that's just an illusion.

Thoughts?

So long as your water level is not so high that your weir teeth are submerged you are fine. The higher up the weir teeth you go the less you will pull from the surface as you also pull in water up to 1/4 inch deep or so but you are still surface skimming. I feed oily foods and have never had an issue. Couple the fact that most are putting close to 5-10x an hour through their tank and you good. You should have some surface agitation as well from your returns or powerheads. Not enough persay to break the surface causing bubbles but enough to help keep things in the water column for easier removal.

What if the main drain was raised with the emergency, now it would just be a wash correct.


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No. Raising the water level in the tank results in it being higher on the teeth. Before raising the water level when you killed power you would drain your overflow box and a slight trickle from the tank. After raising the water level you do that still PLUS all the water you have added to raise the water level. Raising the main drain will negate a small portion of that but not enough to negate it completly. My system is able to handle a power loss AND pulling a pipe in the overflow so the entire overflow drains into the sump. You want the capacity for when you need to clean or fish something out of the overflow. If you are right on the cusp of sump overflow then you need to rejigger your setup or live with the lower water level.

 

[RogueGrown]

No. Raising the water level in the tank results in it being higher on the teeth. Before raising the water level when you killed power you would drain your overflow box and a slight trickle from the tank. After raising the water level you do that still PLUS all the water you have added to raise the water level. Raising the main drain will negate a small portion of that but not enough to negate it completly. My system is able to handle a power loss AND pulling a pipe in the overflow so the entire overflow drains into the sump. You want the capacity for when you need to clean or fish something out of the overflow. If you are right on the cusp of sump overflow then you need to rejigger your setup or live with the lower water level.

Thank you for the tips. When I get to the point where I can play with the plumbing I'll get it set up in the garage where I can test the various heights of water and situations that may occur. As always thanks for the help Soulpatch!!!

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[soulpatch]

Yeah just dial it in once filled so it runs silent and the water line is where you want it. Then kill the power to make sure you are good in the sump THEN pull a drain pipe to empty the overflow. You want to ensure you can handle it all. If so then you are good to go...

 

[d0ughb0y]

Yeah just dial it in once filled so it runs silent and the water line is where you want it. Then kill the power to make sure you are good in the sump THEN pull a drain pipe to empty the overflow. You want to ensure you can handle it all. If so then you are good to go...

you probably don't want to do that without calculating water volume first as there is risk of overflowing the sump while testing.

you can always calculate the volume of water in the overflow and in the DT.
for a 50 gal tank, it is approx 2.5 gal per inch of DT water. I forgot what the entire volume of overflow box, I think 2 gal or a little less IIRC.

I am going to modify my sump baffles to raise the skimmer water level, and add more capacity to the return pump section to handle all the water coming back down to the sump when return pump is off.

So I estimate DT water drops half inch, so thats 1.25 gallons, plus about .25 to .5 from the overflow, so 1.5-1.75 gallons.

If I raise my baffle to 8" and return water level is 3" when pump is running (yes there is a trick to run return pump with water below the pump inlet opening, I attach an elbow so it sucks water closer to bottom, as low as .75" of water and still no air bubbles in DT), then I have 5"x7"x16" capacity to take water from DT or approx 2.5 gallons.

This way, the skimmer does not need to be turned off when the return pump is off, as the skimmer section water level remains at 8" the entire time. This is how eshopps sumps are designed and been doing it this way for years (not turning off skimmer when turning off return).

The remaining capacity in the sump before overflow is another 4 gallons, so it can take the rest of overflow water plus an inch to 1.5" of DT water.

 

[crazycolt42]

Bean is a bit more stable and has an additional emergency so if you are ok with running return over back of tank then bean is way to go. I don't have any issues with my herbie and its silent but it does lack the additional emergency

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That's what I was thinking, but started to wonder if it was a good idea because had not heard of anyone else doing it with their SCA aquarium. Might just be because a lot of people don't want the return up the back. Mine is going to be angled in a corner, so no worries about the return being up the back.

 

[soulpatch]

plenty of people did it in the beginning of this thread when SC used to only do 2 holes so they could run herbie.

 

[androidx1]

Strainer <> surface skimming.

Without the 45s your emergency is lower then the. Bottom of your teeth. It can still be silent as such but if you want to raise the water level in your tank abive the very bottom of the teeth you need to raise the emergency and to do so you can use 2 45 fittings to angle it behind the return. Doing so allows your water level in tank to be up to the top of the teeth like i have and still allow surface skimming. The hugher water line is more pleasing for me....

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Thanks for your reply Soulpatch. I also like the idea of increase the water level in the main display a bit, but I still dont understand something.

If the emergency drain is raised above the bottom of the teeth, then the water levels in the overflow and main tank are equal so no surface skimming would occur (other than from the little that goes down the emergency drain itself)??

Maybe I still do not understand correctly how the overflow works.

 

[androidx1]

One more thing I have been thinking of.

My tank (80gal) has the three holes, and was also thinking about utilizing a Bean return with the overflow going up the back of the tank, but after thinking about it, i am not sure it is necessary.

My reasons are as follows. Let me know if I am off base here.

When using the standard siphon tube with 1 emergency. if both got plugged, no water would go to sump, and my return pump chamber in the sump would get pumped into the tank (The return pump chamber in the sump is 3.8 gallons). Then, as the water level dropped in my return pump chamber, my auto topoff would trigger. If my auto top off sump is 2 gallons, it would dump the 2 gallons into the system. This would mean my 80 gallon tank water level would need to be low enough to accept the 5.8 gallons of water. I calculate about 2" below the top of the tank (roughly). As long as this is the case, a third dry stand pipe for safety is kind of not necessary.

to reduce the 5.8 gallons total that would dump in the tank, I am thinking of reducing the size of the return pump chamber. This will allow me to raise the water level in the tank a little more without worry of a flood even if both drain pipes get plugged.......

Is my thinking correct??

Sorry for all these questions. I just want to make sure I'm not missing something

 

[LQT]

In the event where both of your drains clogged with the pump still running, the entire sump volume would be pumped into your tank, not just the return chamber and the 2 gallon ATO contents. To assume that only the return compartment will be pumped back is incorrect.

*Edit - Soulpatch below is correct. Only the return portion would be drained because of the baffle configuration, apparently I'm not thinking clearly today. My bad...

 

[soulpatch]

Thanks for your reply Soulpatch. I also like the idea of increase the water level in the main display a bit, but I still dont understand something.

If the emergency drain is raised above the bottom of the teeth, then the water levels in the overflow and main tank are equal so no surface skimming would occur (other than from the little that goes down the emergency drain itself)??

Maybe I still do not understand correctly how the overflow works.

Yes and No. The placement of your emergency does not dictate the water level of the tank. I have my emergency opening almost at the top of the weir teeth. It is perhaps 1/4" above my water line. You set the water line in your tank via gate valve on your return pump. My pump is oversized and as such I can turn up the flow to raise my water line or decrease it to lower the water line. A gravity fed drain line is capped at how much flow it can handle wide open so you play with the return pump to set your water height. Note in doing so you need to potentially add water to system or adjust sump baffles to maintain sump height for skimmer.

I will shoot some video this weekend and put some flake/pellet food in that floats so you can see I still have plenty of surface skimming going on as the top layer is sucked in. You have to remember that you are pulling 500-1500 GPH through a foot wide grate. Noo matter what you do you are going to also be pulling in surface water. The % of surface turnover might change as you increase your water line but you are still processing it.


As for the drains and bean. Bean is safer and less hassle to dial in. I would run it myself but I did not want to run the returns over the back. My next SC tank will be drilled for the synergy setup with the return holes cut on the ends. The chances however that both drains get clogged before you notice it is pretty nil but the bean gives you one more drain as added insurance.

As for the return and ATO pumping back into your tank this is still unlikely but a simple float switch would kill the return pump should your levels get too low. And I disagree with LQT. If I close my drains I only drain the return portion in my sump and a small bit of the rest of the sump as the water line drops to the baffle for the return portion. I have perhaps 5 gallons in that section that would hit my tank and another 8 from my ATO container if full. Those 13 gallons would not flood my tank...

This is why I strongly recommend people look into controllers or redundancy with their tanks. You can do it in a simple manner with float switches and controlled outlets or spnd the small bit of money (800 for apex compared to thousands we spend elsewhere is small or 240 for apex jr is a drop in the bucket) for a controller so you can really mitigate issues. My ATO if it runs for over 10 minutes is killed and I am notified via email. I still need to redo my floats as I took them out when I swapped sumps but when on they kill return pump when level gets too low as well as my AWC and skimmer. We spend thousands upon thousands on our livestock and should a disaster hit it would cost tens of thousands so spending a couple hundred bucks to mitigate that is worthwhile. And 2 more things people seem to overlook. Get a GFI outlet wired up. My whole tank runs off a GFI breaker so should I get a short soemwhere it will kill the power so I am not causing a fire. And second thing is power loss plans. I have a generator and am wired in the house to power up the house and tank but even things like battery powered air pumps and a 12v batter and inverter to power heaters and a pump help...

 

[d0ughb0y]

I thought you said you run the DT water level at half of the weir teeth. That should leave you at most an inch to the very top, most likely about 0.75".

for a 150 tank, its 6 gallons per inch of DT, so if all drains were clogged, you only have 6.25 gallons of buffer before it completely overflows. For 13 gallons, you need to run your DT water level slightly more than 2" from the very top in order not to overflow the DT. You can calculate the gallons per inch of DT by dividing the tank capacity by the height. So for 150, its 150/24 = 6.25. For 50, its 50/20= 2.5 gallons. The water near the top of DT does not have volume displacement from liverocks, so the number will be accurate to use.

The way I described my sump setup with return section running with only 2 maybe 3" of water, if both my drains are completely shut (which I agree with you the chance is unlikely), it will only add 1 gallon to DT, and since I am running a DC pump, it will shutdown when run dry. So even the ATO will not get the chance to completely empty out into the return.

if you configure the entire tank properly, there is absolutely no need for bean animal.

 

[soulpatch]

I thought you said you run the DT water level at half of the weir teeth. That should leave you at most an inch to the very top, most likely about 0.75".

for a 150 tank, its 6 gallons per inch of DT, so if all drains were clogged, you only have 6.25 gallons of buffer before it completely overflows. For 13 gallons, you need to run your DT water level slightly more than 2" from the very top in order not to overflow the DT. You can calculate the gallons per inch of DT by dividing the tank capacity by the height. So for 150, its 150/24 = 6.25. For 50, its 50/20= 2.5 gallons. The water near the top of DT does not have volume displacement from liverocks, so the number will be accurate to use.

The way I described my sump setup with return section running with only 2 maybe 3" of water, if both my drains are completely shut (which I agree with you the chance is unlikely), it will only add 1 gallon to DT, and since I am running a DC pump, it will shutdown when run dry. So even the ATO will not get the chance to completely empty out into the return.

if you configure the entire tank properly, there is absolutely no need for bean animal.

You do not take into account the additional space above the eurobrace The eurobrace itself is 1/2 glass and a minimum of another what 1" above that to the actual lip of the tank? I have pics somewhere on the eurobracing I would have to dig out but even with 3/4" to the bottom of the eorubrace, another 1/2" for the glass, and say another 1" to the lip of the tank it could hold 13 gallons without overflowing...

And the only value I know for sure is the 8 gallons max in my ato container. And lets be honest if the ATO is full it is because I just filled it and as such my tank would not be having an issue so it would never dump 8 gallons in even if I did not have the failsafes... I would need to measure the return chamber BUT that all said there is no way I would ever drain everything as I have other items to guard against it.


My return section only runs at the height of the SP6 as it has a downward elbow to suck from bottom of chamber resulting in lower water levels needed as well.

 

[d0ughb0y]

I did not realize the larger tanks are eurobraced. Similar sized ELOS tank is rimless.
we are talking about worst case scenario, so everything is hypothetical. and pointing out even herbie can survive worst case scenario on a well thought out system.

ok, I see in the last pic in your build thread what the tank eurobrace looks like, and the additional 1" space above the eurobrace.
now I see why the main picture in sca website shows tank with canopy.

 

[bereleah]

So I'm not sure what's going on with SCA aquariums I have heard such good things about them, however I just got my second tank after the first one being chipped I waited two weeks for my second tank to arrive and this is when I get take a look in the photos.

Would you set up I think like this???

 

[bereleah]

Some more pics.