70 gal tank setup

[Richard_Dicosimo]

I have done alot of work on a tank for a friend so i thought i would post up the progress on here and see what you guys think of it.

70 Gal tank purchased through golds with built in herbie style over flow. return has its own hole in the overflow for return to the tank. in sump model euro reef skimmer r100 model i belive.

home made plywood stand outa scraps laying around the garage.

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ok so i have attempted to post these pictures from face book so im not sure how this will work.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

please give me any comments on the stand now that its on the tank posative or negative, im interested. honestly im not a fan of the stand it seemed nice when i was building it but now that its on the tank im not happy it looks to big i think and a bit bulky.

Richard

[Delphinus]

It looks great. Although, I agree, the canopy in particular seems .. large. Not overwhelmingly so, though. It's not inappropriate for a reef tank, lots of room for whatever lighting anyone could ever want.

Question, where did you get the true-union valve?

[Richard_Dicosimo]

all the plumbing that you can see in the tank was bought from Albert out of his trunk lol... he has a ton of stuff im sure if you asked him he would let you know where he got it, or sell you some. I think he said something about ordering it online from the states.

Richard

[Brighteyes_13]

the stand looks beautiful. i agree though about the canopy looking too large/bulky. one of the things that i noticed in particular is the mouldings along the top of the canopy.its the only are on the setup like that and tends to make it look very top heavy. possibly mirroring it on the bottom would give more of a column look to the setup.

[kwirky]

all the plumbing that you can see in the tank was bought from Albert out of his trunk lol... he has a ton of stuff im sure if you asked him he would let you know where he got it, or sell you some. I think he said something about ordering it online from the states.

Richard

He gets lots of it from the wholesaler my mom works at. They don't sell to the public. Contractors and businesses only. It's funny how he's selling it outa his trunk though. I bought spaflex that way :D

[Richard_Dicosimo]

yea gotta love Albert he's bad ***. woulda been funny had the cops pulled up right as we are doing it might have gotten some funny looks in forest lawn lol.

all the wood used on the stand i had laying around the garage and the top moulding is this beautiful blood wood that i couldnt resist using but in hind site it does kinda make that tank look funny. I was thinking maybe if i added some accents to the tank in blood wood it might make it mesh more but i dont know if i should completely scrap the canopy or not its just so huge....

Richard

[Brighteyes_13]

oh please dont scrap the canopy! its gorgeous!, it just needs some balance.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

any suggestions on how to balance the canopy?

[Richard_Dicosimo]

some updated pics.

got the lights in the canopy and the tank fully plumbed.

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The return from the sump

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Return and Herbie style overflow

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other half of the above picture

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sump fully plumbed

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doors on soon and then the tank is ready to be moved to my buddies house and filled with water salt rocks and all the other fun stuff!!


Richard

[Delphinus]

Looks great. I was just about to ask why the pretzel for the returns instead of a plain T but then it occured to me you must have a siphon break up there.

Anyhow, cool looking setup so far. :)

[jasond]

Looks good! Let me know how you manage with the herbie overflow. Albert set me up with the same design, but was a bit of a pain with the ball valve (hint hint albert)...seems to be fine now though, just took some tinkering :biggrin:

Otherwise I am very happy with it. Silent & no bubbles/spraying from the sump, works great.

Goodluck!

[Richard_Dicosimo]

well i had drilled the pretzeled return for a non siphon effect but then i put the educators on there and i had to get rid of the holes so i changed positions of the 90's so the holes where blocked. i will test the tank to make sure there isnt to much being siphoned on power outages, but with the educator's you have to have equal pressure from the outlets or they wont work so im guessing that i cant have an anti siphon break????

anyone know??

Richard

[Richard_Dicosimo]

well i know the ball valves can be a bit tricky to dial in because they kinda stick in places but with a bit of fiddling once they are set that should be it. Did you see the ball valve in the sump? Albert tells me it should allow me to control height in one side of the sump for the skimmer :D should be fun to try

i cant wait to build my next tank, i have had so much fun building this one. now if only my friend Matt who this tank is for would get an account on canreef.....


Richard

[mark]

All those bends must be creating a lot of loss for your return.

Also wondering with the primary drain so low, do you tune it so the level is high in the OF tower to prevent the water fall effect?

[Richard_Dicosimo]

yes thats the exact idea with the overflow. by having the main overflow hole dialed back so that it keeps the overflow box full of water it prevents air entering the tube and eliminates all sound. and even though the drain is semi closed there is a certain amount of back pressure on the drain forcing the water down it so once you get it tuned to where you want it it will maintain that water level even if there is a power outage and your pump restarts on its own it will automatically return to that level. and if that bottom drain gets clogged the opuer stand pipe can accomadate the entire amount of the overflow untill a correction can be made. and i was also thinking about the head loss due to those return lines being pretzeled like that but i havent glued any of it and was thinking i would wait untill the tank was full of water to decide if i was going to make any changes there. im not even sure if the educators are going to stay. although the decision is ultimately not mine just greatly affected by me.....

Richard

[Richard_Dicosimo]

i finally got my act together and put the doors on the stand, now its just a matter of transporting the whole setup to my buddies house and setting it up i already have 20 lb of live rock cured at my house in my sump ready to go.

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Richard

[banditpowdercoat]

Dang, you got one lucky Friend :D

[Murminator]

Dang, you got one lucky Friend :D


Are you the same guy selling the rear skid on dootalk?

[banditpowdercoat]

Are you the same guy selling the rear skid on dootalk?

Yup, The one and Same :D

[Salty Rocks]

wow nice tank, could have done a better job on the finish though!!!! hahaha:razz:

[Richard_Dicosimo]

well i suppose if you dont like the setup i could just take it back :P im sure i could find some room :mrgreen:

Richard

[Richard_Dicosimo]

oh and welcome to the board Matt

Richard

[digital-audiophile]

Sweet! Albert showed my your thread on the weekend and I went with the same setup (although 90G) after looking at your picks on the dual return out the sides of the ovwerflow. The only thing I did different was had black plastic put surrounding the overflow so it hides the plumbing.

Albert has the anti siphon on some of the tanks on the back and they seem to work great, you are considering not using that design though?

On my current 90 I have my return pump throttled back to maybe 1/4 so with this design even if it creates some headloss for me I still have lots of pump power left.


I look forward to seeing this tank up and running with livestock :)

[digital-audiophile]

I do have one question on the sump, and maybe Albert can answer, but he showed me the same design with the baffle/bulkhead/ball valve, I see the value in doing this to dial in the correct water height for the skimmer... but would the evap come from the skimmer chamber is the overflow is draining into the other chamber?

[Richard_Dicosimo]

actually it makes perfect sense after Albert explained that im an idiot and had the sump set up wrong origionally. the evap will come from the return pump side because the ball valve has essentially created a reservoir type situation where the water is controlled on the one side, and the opposite side will fluctuate the evap difference. as long as the ball valve is dialed in the water hight on the one side will remain constant with the exception of a power outage, and after power retuns it will go back to the pre set level.

the tank if full of water as of tonight and the salt is in.... a bit to much salt... oops....

i removed the pretzeled return because there was such a lack of water flow from the return pump (ocean runner 2500) WAY TO SMALL A PUMP i think...
but now the sump fills to within an inch of the sumps height... so needless to say the pretzel will go back in and with the anti siphon holes in place will have no chance of overflowing the sump....


anyone got any recomendations on a quite submersible return pump, prefferably with decent head pressure?? im thinking in the 1500 gal/hr and under range min 1000gal/hr...

any recomendations?

Richard

[prosnow]

i think its going to be a nice set up.....u've got to happy matt. nice work rich.

[digital-audiophile]

Any updates. Is she running?

I have to try to plumb the new tank Albert built for me the same way so it would be nice to see it running. I'm still trying to getmy head around how the heck I get all the prezel pieces to fit in the bloody overflow.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

tank is up and running no rock yet. probably going to do some more work on it tonight and get the rock in there. if matt isnt to busy.

Richard

[digital-audiophile]

Question : How far below the teeth of the overflow did you bring the emergency drain to? After staring at your pictures for a good half hour I fianlly figured out how to make my pvc tee and 8 street elbows match your pretzel.. man that hurt my brain.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

because of where my return bulkheads are drilled and the positioning of the pipes the emergency drain is probably about 4" below the overflow grate.

got some rocks in the tank last night hopefully matt will post some pictures. going to get more rock and maybe a fish in the tank to help with the cycle.

Richard

[digital-audiophile]

Thank you :)

Pictures would be awesome!

Did you end up using the anti syphon loop on the tank, how is it working?

[Richard_Dicosimo]

We did use the loop in the end. the sump was way to full when power went out otherwise. it worked very well. im not 100% happy with the sump size there isnt a ton of room for evap probably only a gallon maybe more. hopefully wont be to bad with the t5's. im thinking we will have to install an auto top off for sure!!

Richard

Matt if your following this thread take some pics and post them up.

[KrazyKuch]

Why don't you guy's instead of using anti syphon breaks, just go out and buy a check valve one size larger then the pimp youi a running

[fkshiu]

Why don't you guy's instead of using anti syphon breaks, just go out and buy a check valve one size larger then the pimp youi a running

Because check valves can fail.

[KrazyKuch]

not if you maintain them like everything else....I have had syphon breaks fail before to

[Richard_Dicosimo]

i have also heard they can fail and i have heard they are noisy. i dont see how a siphon break can fail if it is installed properly and there are no leaks in the pipe joints?? can you elaborate?

Richard

[KrazyKuch]

If you don't keep them maintained and cleaned they can clog and stop working, or take to long to actually stop the syphoning of water I have a 2" check valve and the only time I hear it is when the pump stops and you can here it fall into place!

[Richard_Dicosimo]

Matt have you tested your water? what are your water parameters?