Question of the week

[Briney Dave]

To you and you alone (don't think like anyone else) what constitutes reef keeping nirvana. If you have found it, what do you do tomorrow ha ha

Yes, I had tons of time to sit around yesterday, my two year old had ear tubes and the adenoids removed

your pal
Briney

[jenghes]

For me it is total obsession. If I am not working on the tank, I am here online reading about fish stuff. I'll probably be fired and divorced soon.

I am so sorry to hear that you are going through surgery with your little one. It is stressful. My daughter had surgery on her kidneys at age 5. Nerve wrecking!

[Briney Dave]

The surgery was a stress but went fine and was done sooner than promised. The wait afterword for her to drink and potty was the biggest pain. She wakes up about as smooth as her mom and was more than willing to spend the whole afternoon asleep. I had to take charge and take her for a walk around the ward to finally get her up and going.

I am going to hold my response for a day or so to get everyone else who wants room to share.

Briney

[NeuroLarry]

My son was 5 when he had his tonsils out. Woke up afterwards looked and my wife and I and said "who signed me up for THIS?"

Nirvana is the state in which everything is clicking, skimmer is working well parameters are spot on, everyone is eating, no aiptasia or algae issues. Like being in the zone...it happens but not often.

[jenghes]

Larry -

Being that you are a surgeon, you worried about tonsils? :D I guess that as parents, we all worry. Even though my daughter supposedly had the best pediatric urologist in the area, I could not help but worry.

[NeuroLarry]

When it's your kid you worry about everything, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

[jenghes]

Originally posted by NeuroLarry
a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Trust me, I know. There are VERY few cars on the road that I'll still buy. One by one they get nixed as I know what goes on with each vehicle.

[Briney Dave]

tank nirvana:

As much as I love my tank and the three and one half seconds that it has actually worked perfectly, I love the couple times I have helped someone else get started in the hobby with a decent amount of fore thought and planning (yes, very much unlike me and many of us)

There are two new people to the hobby who use tank raised fish and corals first, spent more on lighting and filtration than on the first pretty fish they saw, and think about compatablity when adding to the tank.

By the way, Olivia is doing fine, a little bit cranky but who can blame her.

Briney

[jenghes]

Speaking of working perfectly.... ugh. My pump started an annoying buzzing a few days ago. It is a 2 year old Rio 2500 and they have such a poor rep, that I thought I better get it out. I went to the LFS (not gonna mention which one) and got ripped on a new pump because I wanted it now. They had the Rio 2500's but I wanted to try something new. They also had the ViaAqua's. I thought that I'd try that one. Low and Behold, they are out of stock of the 2600's. I figured that a little more flow couldn't hurt so I upped it to the 3300. WELL, now I have my inlet to the sump gurgling. UGH! I have people coming over tonight. I just went to Lowes for PVC to re-plumb it tonight in attempt to get rid of the gurgle.

Yay for Olivia. Glad that she made it through!

[Aquatic Aquaman]

I have valves installed coming from my pump into my tank. If I feel my pump is to strong or I just want to play with the current I'll open the valve a little or close it depending on what I want to do. I also have a valve on my return to counter adjust the pump. It works out nice.

[Aquatic Aquaman]

As for Tank Nirvana, I was there for about a month solid and it was awesome. I'm trying to get back to that state but made many changes. Its quite the obsession.

[Briney Dave]

I used to run the valves over the pump trick but have since dumped it. One, some claim that it shortens the life of the pump, I am not sure I buy that fully, but second Depending on the set up, you should be able to start filling the sump until the inflow matched the pump's out put rate.

Worked for me at least. I just have two, two inch holes in my tank that water falls out of into my sump. By filling the sump as the pump drained, the water level was raised my tank beyond the drain ports, pressurizing the tank the output ports and speeding the water fall thus keeping up with the pump and no gur-gles.

not tank nirvana but mo' flow is mo' better

Briney

[Aquatic Aquaman]

Technically the valves can cause the pumps life to shorten since your putting more pressure back on the pump and causing it stress. I've been restricting it on and off now for about a year and it still seems good to me.

[Briney Dave]

I have read that same thing but never seemed to have a problem with my pump either. I just hate to slow the flow

[AnnArborBuck]

Back pressure will not shorten the life of the pump. Some pumps are better at keeping the pressure head up that is why you have to look at the pump curves to determine what pump (and impellor in some cases) to use for your desired flow rate and head pressure.

A valve on the exit of the pump is ok, I just wouldn't rely on a overflow valve. The reason for this if the overflow valve clogs then the pump can drain the sump and the tank may overflow. On Scott's system the overflow is plumbed to two sections of the sump, there is a valve to control the flow to the refuge, but the overflow is wide open as it should be.

[Aquatic Aquaman]

Should I post some pics of my awesome setup it always seems like everyone is always talking about it! ;)

[hllywd]

You know I had an interesting problem a couple times in the past month or so. I'm still using my old DLS Aquatics overflow, it has a 1" drain and if I remember correctly came with the plain white corrugated drian hose which I have replaced with a larger drain hose, it has always been a little noisy :mad: and from time to time is downright loud with it's incessant gurgling, it also had one 3/4" overflow U-tube. I say had because 1 day when Dwayne was over the tank level was high and we never did figure out the reason, it went down and was fine again until a few days ago and started the same thing again. The tank never overflowed but was close. Saturday I took the U-tube out and was cleaning it with the rigid brush I had handy which I proceded to shove through the plastic tube :mad:. Of course the only replacement PSP had was a 1" tube that looked too large and was $18 to boot. I went to Lowes and got some pvc elbows to make 2 custom 3/4" overflow tubes and low and behold with both of them running the drain is completely silent. :D
I think I fixed my problem by increasing the overflow rate to the drain, you might giveit a try...:cool:

[MACDad]

hllywd,

I built a "u tube" out of 1 1/4 PVC the same as you. It has always done well, but I ran into the same issue a month ago. It ended up having a build-up of air in the tube. I have a micro-bubble issue in my tank right now, so that may be the only reason. I do find it difficult to get all the air out when I have to restart the siphon. Maybe it is just too large diameter pipe, or maybe due to the fact that there are two 90 degree bends instead of one smooth bend.

Just thought I would warn you, you may have the same issue.

[hllywd]

One problem using pvc is that you can't see the bubbles building up. You already have the other problem that concerns me. My old 3/4" tube was small enough so the flow would effectively flush any bubbles through, due to it's flow velocity it never allowed air to build up. I am concerned, especially since I can't see inside, about air building up in my new tubes. I've been thinking about this today and the opaque tubes make me a little nervous so I intend to get a couple clear ones once I find them, they used to be common at LFSs but the only one PSP had came off another overflow and the price was kind of high. At least I figured out how to silence the thing!:D
It's funny 'cause I've had it for 12 or 15 years and never figured out why sometimes it was quiet and sometimes a PITA....:rolleyes:

[hllywd]

.... anyway as far as this thread is concerned:D .... to get back on the subject, that silence is a start.....:cool: now I need a fan that doesn't howl as much when it runs faster....:rolleyes:

[jenghes]

That is strange, my problem got much worse when I increased the flow. The gurgle happened more often. My inlet is silenced for now, I don't like the set up though, it was a temporary fix for my guests to be there. I zip tied some filter floss at the end of the inlet to muffle the sound. This set-up is OK for now but will be a PITA to clean all the time. In the other forums they say I need to increase my PVC diameter to slow the flow to reduce the noise. I may do it tomorrow if I can get to Lowe's today.

[hllywd]

I don't have room for a standpipe in the drain compartment of my overflow but I do have a piece of tubing inserted in the drain to help relieve the gurgling. I think that and the higher flow are the trick for mine. You could try that or maybe build a standpipe if you have the space available.
Tim

[hllywd]

FYI mine isn't completely silent there is still a gentle waterflow sound if you're listening for it but the gurgle and loud rush are gone. Now my Thermaltake variable speed fan is the main noise maker... Gotta fix that...:cool: