Dougs Reef
 

So glad to be back posting again on a regular basis. Decided to upgrade my 20g sps reef. I purchased a Fluval 3ft..50g. Beautiful silver trim. Need to do some work to make overflows work but thats fine.

Nice stand but of course has center divider brace, which is fine as I have plans for it that way.

Talking with Jeff at Lifereef to design a sump to fit in the one side. Also a VS2 or if it fits a VS3 skimmer. Plus a couple of media cylinders, again if they fit. Also purchasing one of his extremely well built calcium reactors, that connects with the installed ports in the sump.

Nick at Reef Supply Canada will be supplying the lights, Evergrow IT 2080 led,s. I already run one of their smaller units on my 20g. Plus wave making equipment.

I currently run an older Reefkeeper 2 controller. I,m going to get a full Apex for this tank. Want to be able to connect with my Iphone and Ipad.

The reason for a custom sump is to keep the divider, both for support and to keep the other side separate, for my reactor, Apex and electronics.

Using only dry rock from Eli. None of my live rock will be going in. Going to be hard enough to separate the sps from their rocks as is. I have 50lbs of Fiji cycling. Also ordered 50lbs of Pukani and 20lbs mixed branching and shelf. Not sure of the construction but should be neat. :lol:
I,m one that likes a lot of rock for my fish and not into the sparse islandy thing. I plan on adding a Potters, so she needs good rock to roam, plus my pair of manderins, once established and of course my 13yr. old percs.

I am going with some sand this time as I would really like to add a leopard wrasse, unless it interfers with the mandarins.

Going to be a slow build and cycling process. My sump and skimmer wont be ready until sometime in Feb. as he,s that busy. Thats fine with my schedule however. No hurry.

And yes, pic will be coming......:D

Before kien takes it away...

:pop2:

Cool, sounds like it will be a neat setup!

:lol:

what, is that all you guys think of me?? As some sort of popcorn eating thread trollin-- nevermind. Carry on.

Also, where are the pics?

No. You have the nicest pond I have ever seen..:D. Tanks just sitting here nothing done yet. Pics sometime in the near future.:lol:

Bought the most important element today. A Lazyboy, rocker/recliner. Reg $1700 on sale for $899. Good enough for smack in front of the new tank. Now all I have to do is fight of the wiener dog for it. Apparently he thinks I bought it for him.

So I have changed my mind somewhat on the filtration. Instead of under the stand which I dont like for several reasons, Im going remote. It will be piped through the wall into the next room which is my current office/ fishroom. Much easier to work on and I can go larger plus I can run a refugium.

Going with a Lifereef skimmer for sure and discussing a larger sump/refugium with him. Plus one of his co2 reactors, if I dont go with the Proflix doser.

Tank sitting empty, only partially finished drains and no overflow divider
yet

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...psa4280112.jpg

Gawd. Crappy pics from my phone. Better get my camera back out. Here is my little fresh water tank.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...ps359ac791.jpg

they are growing like a weed those bamb boos Doug.

Yes they are Mike. I keep them as a reminder. How ya like my tank, except crappy pic. Guess have to be closer with the iphone.

looks great buds really like it mine is missing a very special thing thou.

my best reef buddy

:sad:

I really like the look of this tank with the silver trim, very modern looking.

Going with Herbie standpipes? What did you have in mind for wave making equipment?

I'll be following along with your progress

Yes, the look is what sold me on it and very well built. Of course it came with a whole pile of other Fluval stuff I have to sell but that fine.

Not sure about the drains yet. The bulkheads were already installed and have pretty neat inserts to go through them. Of course not specifically designed to handle what we do. So I so far added the 1in. slip fitting you see on top.

If I go herbie it will limit me to the single drain which is not much larger than 3/4in. If I could get around 300 to 350gph through it from the other room then that would work. Otherwise I was going with two Duraso,s. Thats would give me at least 1.5in capacity. Was reading Rich,s site though and not sure how to Duraso type stacks would work in the same overflow compartment.

Doug so glad to have you back in the reefing game and posting. Looking forward to seeing this develop and let me know if I can help at all.

Thanks Mark. I sure will.

Close up of my drain stacks as they sit now.


http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...ps7562591e.jpg

Hey are you going to put a strainer of some sort on your drains? If so where did you get them?

I,m not sure if I will. Never did on a Duraso before but if I do a bean style I will. Dont know where they sell them, perhaps MOPS. Also if you look on Rich,s site I posted on your thread, you will see the ones he sells but also very nice looking long strainers for them. I have made many but am going to order two from his site along with the strainers if thats the route I go.

The stacks pictured are only half way up

Bulk Reef Supply is where I got my strainers.

Bean would be nice if you're willing to drill the extra hole. I had read a lot on the Bean, and now that I've used it, I'll never go back to anything else. I ran Durso's on my last reef, but when a plug up occurred I woke up to a sopping wet floor. I like the idea of the emergency drain and back up plan, not to mention how quiet it runs without any salt creep.

Yes, I could drill another hole for sure. Left my drill kit somewhere in Brandon though so need a new one from Dan at MOPS, I guess.

I have to go read on them. If I made a 1.5. in drain pipe, which is around a 2.25in hole for bulkhead, would that be my main drain and the other two back up or why the three drains?

You plan on building an overflow box right?

Anyways if I was you I would, and just run both drains as drains and run a herbie system. I have no clue why people run bean animals I don't understand the concept over a herbie system. I have a durso right now and its a PITA.

I guess if you were to go with 3 holes in your overflow and drill another I would add the 3rd as a return. I would drill the 3rd hole to be bigger then the other 2 and use the bigger of the 3 as the emergency drain.

Yes Im building an overflow box. I already have 12mm glass cut for it. Forgot one thing on drilling. I believe its all tempered, so no go on 3rd hole me thinks.

So if going herbie, then my main drain would only be 3/4in. below the tank and to the sump. I suppose ok, if I dont push a lot of water.

What sort of problems are you having with your durso? I've been using them for 5 years on a few different tanks and have never experienced a single issue with them. Plumb it in, drill an air hole on top and you're done.

Thats what I thought. Never had a problem either and been using them since Rich first showed us on RC. I figure with two I wont have an issue with plugging up.

Of course if the flow exceeds one of the stacks and one plugs then still overflow right. Soooooooooo, if I have to keep flow at a capacity max of one duraso, then may as well do herbie........:lol:...Im going to pour a vodka

Because there isn't constant adjustments like with the herbie. If my intake strainer on my pump starts plugging up with bits of chaeto and detritus, and my pump starts moving a little bit less water, the Bean self corrects for the change in water. If one of the drains gets partially plugged with a snail, or dead fish, or sheet of Nori … or any other number of things that can potentially plug a standpipe, the bean auto adjusts and allows the second drain to become full siphon, plus there is still an emergency drain in the event that both manage to plug. Not to mention, in the event of a power outage, my system starts right back up with zero fiddling around or adjusting, and runs dead silent with no salt creep.

They need to be adjusted, salt creep can cover your air hole, they're noisy, air goes into your sump causing a ton of salt creep as the air dissipates, and there is no back up in case something plugs the drain.

Vodka solves all tank problems!

Not sure how I would ever adjust a durso, a piece of hose in the air hole prevents salt creep, never had a noise issue, my drain went into the sump water with a tee and a 90 above the water to exhaust the air so very little air went into the sump so no salt creep (probably also what made it so quiet), I still had an emergency drain for peace of mind on each system but never needed it.

The adjustment was meant for the Herbie, not the durso, my mistake. Thats a good idea for the Sump end of things, the salt creep was terrible when I ran my durso and the noise was unbearable. Good to see you put the emergency drain in. I was told I wouldn't need one when I first started in this hobby … boy were they wrong lol

The sump end of the pipe mod wasn't my idea but it does work. I have been lucky that the only things that went down my pipe were fish that were too small to plug anything up. I had a yellow watchman goby that was using the pipe as a water slide every day. I eventually just left him in the sump as that seemed to be his preference anyway. I know of others that have had problems with their durso's as well and with so many different configurations such as pipe size, return pumps, etc it's not going to always work for everyone.

:mrgreen: Yup.


and I,m still as confused as ever.:lol:

OK, I,m not drilling so its two stacks. Of course they can be whatever size, but my drains underneath are 3/4in. no matter what, although I will run 1.25in. drain pipes to the sump.

So its two Duraso or the one berbie. :lol:

Did I not make a good point before? If running both as Duraso, the return flow needs to be handled by one, right? If not and one plugs then we have problems. So thus, may as well run herbie? And limited the return to whatever a 3/4in drain can handle?

I will have a bazzillion gph in the tank from Vortechs so thats not a problem.

I just dislike the Durso having 2 tanks with a Herbie then me foolishly switching to a Durso I don't know why I ever changed.

In theory if you have a bigger emergency drain then your main drain you should never have a problem.. also if you leave it long enough that both clog from some magic reason then I suppose you just maintain everything a little better.

I see no potential problems from a herbie, but I see a lot and have read a lot from the Bean animal just my opinion.

As for why I don't like my durso there's a few reasons. No matter what I do via standpipe, hole drilled and overflow water box height I still can hear it.

This overflow is setup with one 1 durso standpipe which makes me weary (Like I said before I don't even want to know what's clogging a 1.5 diameter of pvc but I guess it happens)

I have seen large turbo snails clog up pipes before, a strainer would keep them out but then you would have to keep the strainer clear all the time.

Both are the same size. It its what comes out of the bulkhead no matter what size pipes I have above or below. I do like your suggestion, as long as I can get enough sump flow with a single 3/4 in. line

I could always hear mine a bit to but not bad

Mine was also a single 1.5. Never had a problem

In your situation the Herbie is probably the best bet. Because I think you're right, if you went with dual Durso's, you would need them small enough that each could handle all of the flow single handedly in case of a blockage on one of the standpipes.

I would say just definitely make sure you have strainers on both standpipes, and be diligent about keeping them clean lol

Yup darn noise durso!

When I ran my herbie I had a strainer on my main drain and had the other open. I the year I had the herbie I never had to clean the strainer once? I will add I never had a HA problem either. I diligently checked it on water change day but had no build up.


Good luck man, sorry for the Herbie/Durso war. :mrgreen:

Great input guys. Thanks so much. I think the herbie makes the most sense, because of what we discussed. Perhaps I will get a DC return pump and just run what I can get in the one line. But pretty sure I will go herbie now and yes I will get strainers.

Thanks again.