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  #26  
Old 12/17/2006, 02:54 PM
electric130 electric130 is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by crvz

the wording so you don't confuse it with acrylic?
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  #27  
Old 12/17/2006, 04:09 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I knew someone was going to point that out! I put a floating/tiled ceiling up in my garage, and instead of measuring 4 ft each time i need to put in a new piece of the frame, i just cut a 1x2" board 4 ft long. But i kept confusing it with other pieces of wood in the garage, and my sister was making fun of me, so she wrote the length on the board. Her sarcasm can be inferred.
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  #28  
Old 12/27/2006, 09:20 AM
crvz crvz is offline
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Well, I finished the sump. Here's how it turned out.

Putting the last baffle in place



Hole drilled before gluing the top in place



Routing the top. I felt pretty clever here, i used the wall as a fence and screwed a 1x2 to the wall to give me the right distance. Doing this gave me a 2" lip.

Setup


Half way done


Finished routing


After this I routed all the outside edges and then flame polished the sump. I used a Mac Tools butane soldering iron, which has a removable tip. It worked great. Here is the tool I used.



And here is the sump holding water. It's about 50 gallons when full, roughly 25 at a working level. My tap water is dingy, yikes!

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  #29  
Old 12/27/2006, 09:35 PM
Lunchbucket Lunchbucket is offline
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NICE!!! congrats. i just finished my DIY sump about 1 month ago. was easy to do and looks great for my 1st

what thickness you use?

i didn't do a top as i needed the room

Lunchbucket
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  #30  
Old 12/27/2006, 11:55 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I just used 1/4" acrylic. Nothing too fancy, but i felt the size warranted a top brace. I think i saw your build a while back, LB. You did a good job. This was my second, and it turned out marginally better than the first. It's water tight, and thats really all i required, but it may have a blemish or two! Next comes the tank, though i've no idea when...
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  #31  
Old 01/03/2007, 03:39 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I started to build some detail work for the sump. I really would like to organize all the hoses and power cords, so I started thinking through some of those specifics. I'm not going to install the hose mounts and valve mounts until I dry fit all the hardware, but they are just simple blocks with holes in them. Here are a few of the details i did complete.

First is a mount for the solenoids and a needle valve for the 1/4" line coming from the RO/DI. This will mount to the top lip of the left side with some nylon thumb screws. These all have J/G fittings.



Second are some J/G bulkheads for the effluent lines coming out of the kalkreactor and calcium reactor. These lines will run to the drip connectors in the return section.



Third are simple probe holders. These are mounted on the first baffle coming out of the skimmer section. They are kind of hard to see in this picture, but here it is anyways.



The last thing i finished is a box to hold float switches. It's a pretty simple box the hangs on the side of the baffles and rests in the return section. The box unscrews with nylon screws in order to service, clean, or replace the float switches. I'll likely post another picture once I get the holes drilled and the float switches installed.



Finally, here is another overall shot.

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  #32  
Old 01/03/2007, 03:53 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I also received a RBTA from a very generous buddy (say hello, Clint!). I'm in the hole about 20 frags now, but hopefully I'll be able to start paying him back in the near future. I want to host a mated pair of clowns in the new tank, and so I was hoping to get an anenome. I knew Clint had a few splits from his RBTA, and he called me to let me know one of them had climbed into the overflow and was readily accessible. So, I've got it in the tank protected in a piece of tupperware. Here are a few pictures. I'm afraid to take him out of the tupperware, as i have a lot of flow and no real room to put it anywhere right now. It's small, but so far it's doing quite well.

Front image


Top down


Full tank shot
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  #33  
Old 01/24/2007, 03:41 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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Well I know EVERYONE has been dying for an update (and by everyone, of course, I mean the 4 people that may stumble across this thread on accident), and so here it is!

First, my new RBTA is still acclimating nicely. I have a theory regarding my T5 lights. What I've experienced over the last year is that they seem much more "intense" than the MH that most of my friends and fellow reefers utilize. Now clearly, the peak PAR ratings of MH are greater than that of T5, but, the ability to "find shadows" in a MH system is much better. With 2 or 3 point sources of light, it's much easier to find spots with lower light levels (allowing various corals to grow towards, or away from, those areas as needed). But, with the T5, the relative same amount of light is coming from every angle. Hence, most of my soft corals seem to struggle since I switched to these lights (I have daisy polyps thriving under a dark rock, where those exposed are withering away), and most of my hard corals take a couple months to acclimate to a considerably different style of lighting (I get a lot of frags from friends). That is my definition of intensity in this case. But, as mentioned, my anemone appears fine, and this morning he moved himself across the tank to find a more agreeable location.

Also, I spoke to the goons at the LFS last week. I ordered a custom Oceanic tank on November 18th. They told me the delivery date would be February 19th. Their 4-6 weeks (original quote) turned into a solid 12-13 weeks. I don't know if it's the LFS fault (I assume they placed the order immediately after I paid a deposit), but what could I possibly do? I got a decent price, and I'm on a relative budget, so I'll just wait it out. Has anyone else experienced this with Oceanic lately?

But wait! I have even more words (for those that have gotten this far, I'm impressed! most of the time I just skip to the pictures!)! I tried a dry fit with the sump, and it was tighter than expected. I think my new plans include eliminating the chiller and putting the CR on the floor in the stand (instead of over the sump). I think I will be able to control the temp with fans, and the canopy will be open-top (I'll leave that to your imagination until I start the building process), so I should get good airflow.

I apologize for my overuse of the parenthetical statement. Back to work, everybody (after your responses, of course)!
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  #34  
Old 01/25/2007, 11:02 AM
thrlride thrlride is offline
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I would think you'd be fine running chiller-less especially with T5's. My halides don't change my water temp much at all on the 210.
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  #35  
Old 01/25/2007, 02:37 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I hope you're right. Otherwise, I'm moving. Oregon has always had appeal to me. No hurricanes, no tornados, minimal earthquakes, lack of heat. I've never been, but I'm sure it's perfect...
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  #36  
Old 01/25/2007, 11:14 PM
thrlride thrlride is offline
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I can't be sure as so many different things affect that...

ambient temp in the room
humidity
pumps on the tank
evaporative cooling to name a few

For me, I keep my downstairs at 75 in the summer and 70 in the winter and the tank never goes above 81.
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  #37  
Old 01/26/2007, 02:37 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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No doubt, too many parameters. I tried running equations based on extraploated data from my current tank and my planned equipment, but then remembered that I hated thermodynamics and that I had better ways of wasting my time. So, now, I'll just hope for the best (I do have pretty high confidence, however)!
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  #38  
Old 02/06/2007, 09:45 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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Good news! The tank is in Houston (2 weeks early). I should be able to pick it up on Saturday, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. I'll put up some pictures when I get it home.
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  #39  
Old 02/06/2007, 09:56 PM
rodd1rj rodd1rj is offline
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One thing you might want to do to save energy is put in a smaller return pump, (mag 5 or 7) and run you overflow right into your skimmer. It will save on both a smaller pump and the loss of a skimmer pump. You can throttle down the pump to match the spec's of the current skimmer pump.
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  #40  
Old 02/10/2007, 05:27 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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First, I thought I'd share that I moved all my rock into the sump, as it has more space and all the rock I had didnt fit in the 30 gallon. I think I have about 100-120 lbs of rock in this tank. It'll be more than enough.




And finally, it has arrived! I picked it up this morning, and was surprised that it did not have a euro-brace on it. I guess they screwed up the order and made it "brick" style. I've never heard this term, but the tank has 3/4" thick glass and no top brace. The store didnt charge me more for it, but they said they paid more than I did for the tank. Here are a couple of pictures!!








So is this structurally sound? I'd be surprised if Oceanic built something that isnt, but I was surprised that this size tank has no bracing.
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  #41  
Old 02/10/2007, 11:54 PM
CyclistMT CyclistMT is offline
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crvz, yes, your tank is sound. We used to build 240s (96"x24"x24") with 1/2" glass (with cross braces of course). Your tank being 3 feet less then that length with 3/4" glass will be plenty strong without cross or euro braces.

Don't sweat it man. Get some water in that sucker!
  #42  
Old 02/11/2007, 12:04 AM
crvz crvz is offline
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Your the boss, Cyclist! Water is in the tank!!



Unless you think my chincy temporary stand with casters will hold the ton of water and rocks, this is probably as good as it gets for the next few months. I've got to build the stand and hood, and order a few more parts (though not too much). And i did some math, if the density of the glass is around 2.6 grams/cm3, this stupid tank weighs 385 lbs. Cripes!!
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  #43  
Old 02/11/2007, 01:18 AM
CyclistMT CyclistMT is offline
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LMAO! That's classic and is probably the same thing I would have done.

Yes, just looking at the thickness of that glass makes my back hurt.

Well, you know I can sympathize with a lenghty wait before a tank gets set up. If if's any consolation, you'll probably have everything in your new tank before I have all my equipment bought.
  #44  
Old 02/15/2007, 06:15 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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2 thoughts, and then some pictures of some new frags I picked up this week.

First, 3/4" thick glass was unexpected, so I was worried that the magnet hold for my Tunze would be jeopardized. I tested it in the new tank, and it works well. The only thing is, on my 3/8" thick glass tank, it's almost impossible to move. On this tank, it's not as much trouble. I know better than to touch it, but whenever ANYONE is looking at the tank, their hands immediately go to the magnet mounts. What's that all about? I'm going to have to make a sign...



Second, I got a ton of accessories with the Oceanic tank included in the price, and I was pretty excited. A pair of Durso-style overflows, some dual outlet loc-line, a number of bulkheads. I had thought I was going to have to buy all this stuff separately.






And here are the 4 frags. They are all pretty small, but they were free. Enjoy!







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  #45  
Old 02/16/2007, 10:35 AM
electric130 electric130 is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by crvz
Second, I got a ton of accessories with the Oceanic tank included in the price, and I was pretty excited. A pair of Durso-style overflows, some dual outlet loc-line, a number of bulkheads. I had thought I was going to have to buy all this stuff separately.

if you got those for free, then great. personally, i'd sell them on ebay for at least $30 each and make your own durso and spraybar return for about $10. those locline's are bad for making super strong areas of water flow and weak/stagnant areas. i took mine off and made a spraybar that stretched the whole back of the tank. flow was awesome after that. the spraybar cost me like $3 to make. if you search the DIY forum for spraybar and my screen name, you'll find my thread with pics. just a suggestion.
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  #46  
Old 02/16/2007, 11:17 AM
crvz crvz is offline
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Good thoughts! I'm not sure I want to sell them as I need the bulkheads, and I like the adjustable standpipe (you can see one of them is extended, the other is not), but I may try to do a spray bar. I'm definitely concerned about stagnant flow, but I'm not sure how much gph I will really have out of the returns. With the mag 18, losing about 7-8 feet of head or so, it's probably only about 1000 gph total between both returns.

My original thought was to have the pair of returns point straight down the back wall of the tank. Water would be forced down and out to the front (there will be no sand). The pair of Tunze 6100s would be placed on each side towards the rear, about 1/2 way down the glass pointed up and to the front. My intent is to get any detritus that settles back into the water column and into the overflow. I'll definitely think of ways I could do that with a spray bar, but I'm concerned with the amount of head loss I would have with it. How do you think it would be impacted (in terms of head loss)?
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  #47  
Old 02/16/2007, 12:24 PM
electric130 electric130 is offline
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keep everything except the locline. sell that. there's always people looking for them. they like them because they're adjustable, but in reality, i think they're garbage after using them for awile. especially if your pumps are strong, they'll blow things over if you're not careful with placement.

with 2 properly built and aimed spraybars, i think you'll be surprized with the flow and may not need the tunze. in my 90, i was only running 1 spraybar with about 800gph and the flow was amazing. you may still want more, but i'd try the 2 spraybars first.
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  #48  
Old 02/17/2007, 12:14 PM
crvz crvz is offline
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I'll definitely think about it, but I already have one of the Tunze and I'm very impressed with it. I know they're spendy, but I really like the idea of controlling a pair of them to create a very dynamic flow pattern. Anyways, I've got to build a stand first! Hopefully I'll get my assistant (err, rather, father-in-law) over to confirm the design. He's quite the talanted wood-worker.
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  #49  
Old 02/24/2007, 11:20 AM
crvz crvz is offline
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So I got a few things coming for my skimmer. As mentioned, it's a EuroReef CS250, but I bought it a few months before they upgraded their impleller. So I called them and they are sending out the upgrade, which is great. The other piece I ordered was the gate valve mod from MarineDepot. Its kind of weird for me to buy something like that (as I don't mind putting it together myself), but I struggled to find the actual gate valve around here so I just went the easy route.

I'm a little concerned, though, as the sump will be in the hallways to the living room, and I'd like to keep things quite. I'll post pictures when things show up, but does anyone have good ideas to help the skimmer stay silent?
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  #50  
Old 02/24/2007, 09:45 PM
electric130 electric130 is offline
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www.savko.com for gate valves cheap.
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