Our Progress To-Date on New 135RR (Image Intense) - Page 5

SoKaL ReeFiN · #**101** 12/10/2003, 07:33 PM

that is nice.

justgettinstarted · #**102** 12/10/2003, 07:34 PM

Blue throat trigger!!!! THEY ARE AWESOME... i love mine.. and has never nipped at a thing.. the powder blue does more nipping than the trigger

dmiannay · #**103** 12/13/2003, 11:42 AM

Progress has been slowed during the last month or so because Cathy and I are very involved in a major annual stage production at our church (she's a percussionist and I sing). There's been precious little time lately for anything except work, eat, perform and sleep

. We will finish up the last of 12 performances this weekend and then it'll be full speed ahead on the aquarium. Our determined goal is to have the tank up and cycling before the end of December. It's a good thing I have 17 days off over the holidays!

In spite of the difficult schedule over the past several weeks we did manage to paint the background on the tank and then do a trial setup of the entire assembly in the spot it will call home in our living room. The trial setup was intended to help us assess the overall size of the tank in that spot and better align the holes we need to drill down through the floor into the basement.

Here are a few pix of those steps...

One additional note regarding the Oceanic canopy. We ordered a custom size since we wanted to enclose our MH and VHO lighting. The custom canopy is 4.5 inches higher than the standard Oceanic offfering so the MH pendants will be approximately 8-9 inches above the surface of the water.

melev · #**104** 12/13/2003, 02:22 PM

Looks great Doug!

fldamsel · #**105** 12/13/2003, 08:18 PM

very nice, I love the electrical

REEFnR6 · #**106** 12/15/2003, 09:17 AM

What are you drilling the holes into the basement for? Refugium?

dmiannay · #**107** 12/15/2003, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by REEFnR6
What are you drilling the holes into the basement for? Refugium?

REEFnR6,

I designed the setup so that I could make all the RO/DI fresh and salt water in the basement directly beneath where the tank will be located. If you check my gallery you'll see a couple photos that show the RO/DI equipment in the basement. Using this setup, I can have ready-available fresh and salt water containers for daily top-off and weekly/semi-weekly water changes. Each water container will have a heater and powerhead to keep the water circulating and at the right temperature as well as Mag 9.5s for pumping the water up to the sump under the tank. When I need to do a top-off, I'll flip the fresh water Mag 9.5 on and water will be pumped up into the sump. For water changes I'll open a drain line ball valve under the tank that reroutes overflow drain water down to a deep sink in the basment. After sufficient volume for the change has been drained off, I'll flip the switch for the salt water Mag 9.5 and replenish the sump with clean salt water. The holes in the living room floor are for the PVC plumbing needed to accomplish all this as well as another hole for electrical conduit for the wiring that needs to be in the basement as well.

I understand there are many ways to do this type of thing, but this is the solution I came up with as a relative newbie. No doubt some will offer better suggestions... but at this stage we are committed to get the tank up and running without further delays for redesigning the system. Any improvements to this (and I certainly welcome all constructive comments!) can be implemented down the road.

Our refugium is the right-hand section of the 48 gal. acrylic sump in the stand. It is approximately 10.6 gallons. I'm certain that we'll implement another fuge solution at a later date, but this ought to get us going.

REEFnR6 · #**108** 12/15/2003, 01:52 PM

Awesome idea Doug! I havent seen anything like that. I thought you were going set up a rubbermaid fuge or something. Is the Mag 9.5 going to overcome all that head pressure? How many feet up are you looking at?

dmiannay · #**109** 12/15/2003, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by REEFnR6
Awesome idea Doug! I havent seen anything like that. I thought you were going set up a rubbermaid fuge or something. Is the Mag 9.5 going to overcome all that head pressure? How many feet up are you looking at?

The total head required for the 9.5s in my setup will be 11 feet (10 feet up with one 90 degree elbow). According to the specs for the pump, I'll have 300 GPH flow (5 GPM) which is adequate for my purposes (I hope

).

REEFnR6 · #**110** 12/15/2003, 05:43 PM

Is the plumbing going to be a straight shot? Any curves or valves might slow things down also. I would step up to the MAG 12 just in case. It's $30 more and it might come in handy down the road. In the words of Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor, "more power aargh, aargh, aargh."

dmiannay · #**111** 12/15/2003, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by REEFnR6
Is the plumbing going to be a straight shot? Any curves or valves might slow things down also. I would step up to the MAG 12 just in case. It's $30 more and it might come in handy down the road. In the words of Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor, "more power aargh, aargh, aargh."

OK, OK... you've had an influence on me

! It's better to be safe than sorry. Building in a bit of extra capacity is almost always the prudent decision... thanks for helping me along that path

!!!

Care to offer up the extra $60.00 for the two Mag 12s?

Just kidding... thanks again for helping me to look a little closer! The 12s go on order tonight.

melev · #**112** 12/15/2003, 11:31 PM

When the float switch clicks off your Mag 12, I bet 12' of water coming down will be rather exciting to observe.

Be sure that feed line is NOT submerged, or it will siphon your sump until the siphon is broken.

DocHoliday · #**113** 12/15/2003, 11:56 PM

just taggin' along. The electrical setup is most impressive!

melev · #**114** 12/16/2003, 06:18 AM

Doc, I love your avatar! Do you have more pictures or a site? PM me so we don't derail this thread.

dmiannay · #**115** 12/16/2003, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by melev
When the float switch clicks off your Mag 12, I bet 12' of water coming down will be rather exciting to observe.

Be sure that feed line is NOT submerged, or it will siphon your sump until the siphon is broken.

Thanks for the comments, Marc! I will have a one-way valve near the top of the supply line leading to the sump. That prevents both flow-back and siphon. Hopefully it'll do the trick. Nonetheless, the PVC will not be submerged in the sump.. rather they'll be like spigots. I do need to keep the flow into the sump low so that it doesn't cause too many bubbles. Actually, now that I think of it, I can just have the water enter the sump at the skimmer end so it'll have to go through the bubble trap before entering the return pump. I'll have to dwell on that a bit. Plumbing the tank/house will start this weekend, so I need to settle on the solution pretty quick

REEFnR6 · #**116** 12/16/2003, 10:36 AM

Quote:

[i]Care to offer up the extra $60.00 for the two Mag 12s?

[/B]

Check's in the mail.

Any progress pics?

JazzMan · #**117** 12/16/2003, 10:57 AM

Any updates?

keefsama2003 · #**118** 12/16/2003, 11:04 AM

i love the setup you have going and i am going to incorporate the setup into my own new setup once i start. im looking at something a tad bigger tho :-) either way would it be possible to get a copy of that itemized list for your electrical?

Yellotang · #**119** 12/16/2003, 11:37 AM

hope all your cords reach. I have been trying to figure out how to redo my electric stuff. I have to get it done before something bad happens. It's a mess. But the biggest problem I have is that with the depth of my tank, any powerheads in the tank, their cords are very short. I would almost have to mount the electric outlets on the tank itself.

ToUcHoFeLeGaNcE · #**120** 12/16/2003, 11:59 AM

alright not tring to be the party pooper here about the electrical but i cant help but to wonder what the salt creet with all that electric so close by. VERY NICE cant wait to see it up and running

dmiannay · #**121** 12/16/2003, 12:05 PM

REEFnR6 & JazzMan (Jim),

As I mentioned a few posts higher up in this thread, my wife and I have been busy with a sizable stage performance for the past 4 weeks or so and progress slowed quite a bit. Now that the perfomances are complete it's back full speed ahead with the aquarium starting this Friday. I'll certainly be posting more updates beginning this weekend. Thanks for asking

!

keefsama2003,

Please PM me with your email address and I'll send you an Excel spreadsheet when I get home tonight. I would love to see what you come up with when you finally design and build your new, BIGGER

setup!

Yellowtang,

This won't be a problem for my setup since all the PHs will be plugged into a WaveMaster Pro which I'll mount adjacent to the canopy (specific location not yet determined). However, there should be no problem at all splicing additional length into the PH chords as long as you do so near the plug end (section not submerged

)

dmiannay · #**122** 12/16/2003, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ToUcHoFeLeGaNcE
alright not tring to be the party pooper here about the electrical but i cant help but to wonder what the salt creet with all that electric so close by. VERY NICE cant wait to see it up and running

Yea, that could develop into a problem down the road, but that's something that everyone with electrical components in the stand (with a sump) has to be concerned with. I am hoping that the plexiglas barrier I installed between the sump and the electrical section will help to keep the creep down to a minimum.

However, periodic housecleaning will always be required.

Yellotang · #**123** 12/16/2003, 01:01 PM

adding a small fan underneth will also help keep the humidity level down under there. and that will be where most of your salt creep would come from.

wetone · #**124** 12/16/2003, 02:12 PM

Just wondering.....If you have the basement underneath the tank...why didn't you put sump, skimmer and ALL setup down there?? You could have had a sump made to any size and not worry about all the concerns mentioned during the thread...water near the electrical, support brace for the tank, trickling water noise, etc ......

dmiannay · #**125** 12/16/2003, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wetone
Just wondering.....If you have the basement underneath the tank...why didn't you put sump, skimmer and ALL setup down there?? You could have had a sump made to any size and not worry about all the concerns mentioned during the thread...water near the electrical, support brace for the tank, trickling water noise, etc ......

wetone,

What you suggest has been considered and will likely be implemented down the road. Too much has been invested in this current setup to change from the plan at this stage. We'll go ahead and proceed with the plan with the understanding that there are some better ideas/improvements to implement as we move along.

I couldn't agree more that having a huge sump/refugium with all the associated equipment tucked away in the basement is the way to go... but... baby steps