Hop's 800 gallon rebirth - Page 14

Hop · #**326** 04/10/2007, 11:43 AM

Well the aluminum had to look good for a day or so

I'm just looking forward to getting this stage of the build done. It's been fun, but I'm ready to move on to sumps, plumbing and electrical! I'm sick of straddling that stupid cord going to the light.

I've just been spending time out there lately imagining the plumbing in my head. The basics are easy, but trying to figure out all the little tweaks is the fun part.

jnarowe · #**327** 04/10/2007, 12:24 PM

On ething I am not entirely happy with in my tank room is ambient lighting. Particularly over the sink and garbage can, where I do my inspections. Make sure you don't make the same mistake!

Racenrich · #**328** 04/10/2007, 12:47 PM

Great thread...just spent 20min reading thru it.
Would you mind letting me know the crab that you have for these little snails you are refering too below.....Thanks much!

Onto the vermetid pic. you can see here that the tubes have been broken off and so far, I have yet to see anything pop out the end of any of the broken off tubes. So I can only assume that the crab eats the snail from the inside and moves onto the next one. Someone asked how I knew it was the hermit that was snacking on them and I can only say that I've seen him break one tube and then discard it. He then started snacking out of the hole. Hopefully I can catch him with a camera one of these days.

andyjd · #**329** 04/10/2007, 01:02 PM

HOP, check ya Pm's

Andy

Hop · #**330** 04/10/2007, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
On ething I am not entirely happy with in my tank room is ambient lighting. Particularly over the sink and garbage can, where I do my inspections. Make sure you don't make the same mistake!

Already thought about that. I was going to mount thee low volt under cabinet lights over the workspace and sink. I thought it would really help and I wouldn't have to have the big overhead light on all the time whn working in there

Quote:

Originally posted by Racenrich
Great thread...just spent 20min reading thru it.
Would you mind letting me know the crab that you have for these little snails you are refering too below.....Thanks much!

Onto the vermetid pic. you can see here that the tubes have been broken off and so far, I have yet to see anything pop out the end of any of the broken off tubes. So I can only assume that the crab eats the snail from the inside and moves onto the next one. Someone asked how I knew it was the hermit that was snacking on them and I can only say that I've seen him break one tube and then discard it. He then started snacking out of the hole. Hopefully I can catch him with a camera one of these days.

Thanks. He is a zebra legged hermit. He was initially banished to the sump as he decimated the snail population. But so far in the 125, he's found plenty to eat and has for the most part left the snails alone. His pic is a couple pages back somewhere.

maxxII · #**331** 04/10/2007, 01:42 PM

Hop,
So far things look great, very impressive.
I just finished up the plumbing on my 120 recently, and rectified a number of issues with my last/currently running system.

One piece of advice I have for anyone who is beginning to plumb is to go oversized on the unions and ballvalves. From my experiance, Unions, ballvalves, and gatevalves all are approx 1/4 inch smaller inside than they are advertised for...IE a 1 inch ballvalve/union/gate valve actually restricts down to 3/4 of an inch inside. What I did to minimize restrictions/head pressure in my plumbing was oversize my unions etc. So when I needed a union for a section of 1 inch plumbing, what I did was buy a 1 1/4 inch union, ( 1 inch internally) and two 1 1/4 to 1 inch adapters.

The other thing I would suggest is trying to make plumbing easy to get to and work on for any potential maintenance.

Nick

chris wright · #**332** 04/10/2007, 07:41 PM

Looking good Hop

maxxII thanks for the tip.

Hop · #**333** 04/11/2007, 12:23 AM

maxxII: thanks for the advice! So far everything is planned to be oversized. The only thing that will be normal sized is the loop that feeds the skimmer from the sump, which will have a couple inline filters as well as a UV. I think everything else is planned to be 1/2" bigger than standard... A lot of this is because I have so much 1.5" and 2" lying around and several 1.5" ball valves...

The maintenance on each pipe was thought out during the last build and I'm hoping that it goes smoothly this time.

So far the biggest headaches are figuring out how to plumb the RO/DI and FW storage. I want to be able to fill the tank as well as have a outlet to access for other things as well. Just trying to get the ball valves figured out so they are accessible, but hidden is being the challenge

chris wright: Thanks. Nice to see we have not put you to sleep yet!

chris wright · #**334** 04/11/2007, 12:56 AM

sleep? whats that?

Seriously though, Im loving this thread and the tips on the plumbing are something I hadnt read before. Yet another something you learn everyday moment.

Ive subscribed to the thread early on and im following with eagerness with what youre up to.

kwaters · #**335** 04/11/2007, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hop
And another thing I noticed is that while looking for parts for my tank in the used selling forums, no one ever has fifteen new 2" bulkheads for sale

Hey Hop,

Have you looked into other "pump" stores. When I set up my 700 gallon pond in the back I utilized Fisher's pump supply. The have an awesome aray of pumps and plumbing gallore. Perhaps something like that exists near you and could help save a little money plus have that many in stock!

Kris

kwaters · #**336** 04/11/2007, 02:18 AM

oh...just thought I'd add....I LOVE plumbing!

Hop · #**337** 04/11/2007, 11:59 PM

chris wright: Well we will see if I can progress anything this weekend to bore you into a slumber

kwaters: Yeah there is a plumbing supply place up the road and they have great prices on regular plumbing parts, but gate and ball valves are over priced, so I just order them from Savko. They also only have three piece bulkheads, so I don't use those. Thanks for the suggestion

I'm going to love plumbing as I'll be plumbing the electrical on this one too

All the exposed cords will be run through PVC to keep them neatly out of site. So I think with that idea, I just doubled my plumbing

chris wright · #**338** 04/12/2007, 12:46 AM

Youll have to talk about celebrates or similar to do that.

Just a quick question about the electrical, Do you mean the feeds to powerpoints and as such or the equipment. Need to be big plumbing to fit the plugs through.

. Or due you mean the electrical duct that fixes to the wall with a clip on cover?

Love the idea which ever way you go.

Hop · #**339** 04/12/2007, 11:28 AM

All the cords to everything will be ran through PVC. One thing that I noticed on a few systems is that they spent all this time and money making things look great, but then the cords look like a wild spider flick in the wetroom (myself included). So this time, very few cords will be visible. There really are only a few places where cords could be visible on my build, and the cords will be ran through 1.5 or 2" pipe to keep them hidden.

Toddrtrex · #**340** 04/12/2007, 11:30 AM

Wow, good job. It is amazing how "messy" cords can make things look. One of these days I am going to try to clean up the cords behind my home theater.

And for my new tank (ONLY 29g) I am going to have to hide the cords once the new controller comes. Hiding them makes it look finished.

Hop · #**341** 04/12/2007, 12:12 PM

Thanks!

Well I'm looking forward to getting through today. Then I'm off for a few weeks. I should have a couple days to work on the wetroom before I leave to move a family member. Maybe if the snow quits, I'll be able to get up to Lowes and get the few items I need to finish this phase of the wetroom

After that I'm going to get the two new circuits hooked up that are in the wetroom. Then a few odds and ends before I get the sumps built!

chris wright · #**342** 04/12/2007, 12:16 PM

Yet another simple idea, I never thought about the wiring being untidy.

See, your thread is too interesting to put people to sleep

Keep up the great work.

jnarowe · #**343** 04/12/2007, 01:41 PM

I don't like untidy wires either but I also liek to be able to get to them. I rigged up some keepers that have individual wire notches. It keeps them contained but very accessible. I have having to cut zip ties all the time.

gig · #**344** 04/12/2007, 02:45 PM

my wiring is in a tight space, couldn't do the PVC thing, but that's a good idea.

Hop · #**345** 04/12/2007, 03:03 PM

jnarowe: The cords still should be accessible. They will be rolled and bound in other areas, but ran through the PVC from point to point. Odds are that this process will start soon and will make sense as I go. The larger diameter pipe is so that even after 6 or 8 cords are through the pipe, there is still plenty of room for the plug to fit through the pipe... I hope

gig & chris wright: Thanks. Initially I planned on just running a channel for everything to be tucked into, but after I lot of thought I elected on this manner of concealment. So far the only downside is that a few of the items are going to have to have a longer cord installed in order to accommodate the longer run length when ran through the pipe.

jnarowe · #**346** 04/12/2007, 05:32 PM

Don't forget that there are safety standards regarding how much wire/amps you can pull through a particular size pipe. They create heat!

Hop · #**347** 04/13/2007, 11:00 PM

jnarowe: There are only going to be a few per pipe

In other news I Absolutely love computers!!!! Mine locked up today and wouldn't boot. Couldn't even get it to start in safe mode. I'm not a computer guru, but I can now tell you what size hammer it takes to get my computer started

Got to Lowes and picked up everything (I think) to get the wetroom finished. Plenty of adhesive, some more tile board, vent fans, lights etc... Hopefully I'll have time to actually work on it tomorrow rather than beat my computer into submission.

jnarowe · #**348** 04/13/2007, 11:50 PM

call tech support. I am sure they will figure it out..."Uh, sir, did you check the power cord?"..."OK, well we'll have to reformat your drive then."

Hop · #**349** 04/13/2007, 11:54 PM

No tech support on this one. I got sick of the main stream CPUs and had this one built a few years ago with what at the time was good parts

Now, it's a 199 special. I've been looking into a laptop to help run the Neptune anyway, move the tower out of the tank room and give it to the kids.

This room will literally be a couch, comfy chair and a coffee table with a laptop on it. Good reading light and a DLP widescreen

Hop · #**350** 04/13/2007, 11:55 PM

I almost forgot... And a really (hopefully) nice SPS tank to look at with fish and stuff