New 240 Gallon Barebottom Cube (Image Intense) - Page 4

beatty3987 · #76 10/25/2004, 11:17 PM

i have noticed that the hights of the sipons is different for each tanks whats up???????

spanker · #77 10/25/2004, 11:18 PM

Is there any reason you think they all have to be the same height? Honestly, we cut all of those lengths on a chop saw and just eyeballed them. There were no measurements made.

beatty3987 · #78 10/25/2004, 11:25 PM

o ok just wondering if there is a perticuler reason..

spanker · #79 10/25/2004, 11:49 PM

Nah, just too lazy to break out the measuring tape.

Actually, we were probably tired of looking for it. :P

beatty3987 · #80 10/25/2004, 11:53 PM

could you explane how you get the water out of the reef tank and into the surge tanks????

spanker · #81 10/25/2004, 11:59 PM

No secret there. There is just a pump that goes from the sump into each of the surge tanks. There is a pump for each of the surge tanks. Two of them are located in the sump, two of them are located in the tank itself. Water is pumped either from the sump or the tank depending on which surge it is.

beatty3987 · #82 10/26/2004, 12:02 AM

what size pumps do you use??? like GPH

spanker · #83 10/26/2004, 12:34 AM

Hrmm.. I'll have to look that up. The ones we used on this system are Eheim knock offs but they're pretty powerful. It usually takes around a minute to fill up each of the surge tanks on average. So I'd say we're pushing anywhere from 1000 to 1200 gallons per hour through each surge.

reefsrus · #84 10/29/2004, 10:08 PM

I just found this thread, and the tank is amazing.

I also planned to have surges on my tank which im upgrading to very soon, and i see you did this one with the u-tubes, instead of doing the surges "toliet style".

Did the guy ever have a problem with theses? Did they ever lose siphon or anything?

That way seems so much easier.

spanker · #85 10/30/2004, 02:13 AM

Nope. Once you tweak them, it's pretty hands off. It's rare that they don't break siphon, and they eventually do. So long as you drill the hole in that tube, just a little above where the end of that last 45 degree elbow is, it should break siphon every time. What can be a problem is very long runs. Backpressure can create a problem with the siphon starting. So, you end up shortening the tube #3 so that the siphon gets more pressure against it to start earlier. If the end that's in the tank is deep under water, this can create too much back pressure, and once again, you need to shorten tube #3 until you get a perfect start every time.

beatty3987 · #86 11/09/2004, 06:46 PM

what are the size of the pin holes

sde219 · #87 12/12/2004, 10:49 AM

I like this surge design - for a frag/growout tank those microbubbles aren't much of an issue. For a display in a home, I would think that one would want to minimize those - do you think that the pinhole in the elbow is part of the problem? Venturi effect perhaps?

Any thoughts on doing this in a smaller tank where removing that volume of water would substantially lower the water line in the tank? I'm trying to think of a way where the surge doesn't really lower the water level in tank too much. Of course I guess you need it to in order for the the tank to have room to for the surge flow?

What is the primary purpose of the surge? Faster flow than a pump? I'm trying to figure out the merits of that over other alternating flow arrangements.

Steve

gumbybc · #88 12/13/2004, 08:44 PM

I think if your overflows could handle the amount of flow, meaning you would have to keep the water level in them fairly low, then you would not have to have the water level in the tank go down. You could keep it up by pumping water from a sump.

A surge is another way of creatic random, chaotic, flow that more closely simulates wave action in the ocean. I think that is a good description.

scottbythesea · #89 12/14/2004, 12:17 AM

Just Plain Beautiful, Nice variety and Color.

dave2184 · #90 12/14/2004, 12:25 AM

Sweet! I was wondering were this thread was. It inspired me to start a 240 cube which I am currently building and gathering equipment for. I will go back and read through it when I get a chance, it's been awhile.

bigben · #91 12/20/2004, 12:53 PM

hey spanker,

Awesome job on everything!!! Gorgeous!

Ii tried sending you a PM and email, but no success, so here goes. Sorry for the hijack.. Where did you get the tank made at? I'm assuming it's acrylic?

Thanks!!!

bigben · #92 12/20/2004, 01:42 PM

I'm a moron! "...The tank and surge tanks were built by TruVu..."

fish @ chips 29 · #93 01/03/2005, 07:35 AM

Awsome!!!!!

spanker · #94 01/10/2005, 03:13 AM

Sorry for not replying in a while everyone. Work has kept me busy and I haven't been on RC in months. The tanks were indeed made by TruVu, but you must purchase TruVu tanks through a reseller as they do not deal with the public directly. Any fish store in the bay area (including TP) can get you a quote. Shipping would be the hard part. As we all know shipping is done on a scale of size and weight and tanks are usually both large and heavy.

I'll post more pics as soon as I am able. I was in the store for the first time in a month this past weekend and worked to help clean the shop up a little bit on my spare time. I'll see if I can make a more recreational trip this week to grab some updated photos.

As for the scale of this project, calculating the amount of water that your overflows can handle is a finite science. There are a couple of calculators and equations out there that can help you calculate this. I am sorry I don't have them available for you right now, but I know I've seen them. If you find that you are not able to surge all of your tanks at once, then you're going to end up with one of two issues. The tank water level started out low enough that you don't have to worry about it, or you break out the wet/dry vac and start cleaning up your newly found mess. Naturally the first is more preferable. So if you're looking to do a project like this where you have more than once surge dumping water into your tank at once, do your calculations very carefully. Those of us who worked on this project knew the overflows weren't going to handle 80 gallons dumping into this tank right when we saw the overflows. The solution was to feed two of the surge tanks with pumps that were located in the back of the display tank itself. Problem solved. 40 gallons comes from the tank, 40 from the sump. It can't possibly end up overflowing. It does come close, but not quite. We hand built the sump, and at something like 90 gallons, it didn't have the capacity to constantly surge 80 gallons either. Hope that helps.