Clay&Cheys 130g peninsula... "Quintessence"

[Clay&Chey]

So got the stand done and the tank and stand are moved into the house



How the overflow is done with the emergency drain drilled out the back.



Kevin at Red Coral had us a custom 3 chamber sump built at 48"x14"x16" and heres the dry fit with equipment in the sump



Quiet one 6000 and Hydor preformer 600



The Drain and emergency drain going down to the sump



Tank end shot... Next tank will be same length and height but 36" wide



Reactor and the plumbing prior to the change. Now hardlined in with 2 45's no 90's



Our fearless guard



Dogs eye view



My first shot at wiring this bad boy up. Not bad I must say.



Sand is now in.. we went with fine sand, 1\2 live rest is regular good ol sand



Ready for water. See how our return breaks into 2



This is where the magic is mixed



Ready to fill her up



Waters in but its a little cloudy

[Dez]

Looking good so far. One quick question. What happens when the power goes out? With your return plumbing running mid and low in the tank, won't all that water siphon out when the power goes out and drain half your tank?

I would run the line from your return pump near the water surface. Even with a check valve, the check valve could fail with anything getting caught in there.

Des

[i have crabs]

Originally Posted by Dez

Looking good so far. One quick question. What happens when the power goes out? With your return plumbing running mid and low in the tank, won't all that water siphon out when the power goes out and drain half your tank?

I would run the line from your return pump near the water surface. Even with a check valve, the check valve could fail with anything getting caught in there.

Des

thats what i thought when i seen your return line, makes me a bit scared for you,
other than that tank looks great

[Clay&Chey]

Unfortunately the tank was drilled with the hole in bottom for the return when we got it. Is there anything else a guy can do other than a check valve? Also a quick question about return pumps.... our quietone 6000 constantly hums pretty loudly. Its more like a resonant frequency hum but after a while it really grates on your nerves. Is this normal? Can this be avoided with say an external type pump... ie reeflo snapper gold or one similar?

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Clay&Chey

Unfortunately the tank was drilled with the hole in bottom for the return when we got it. Is there anything else a guy can do other than a check valve? Also a quick question about return pumps.... our quietone 6000 constantly hums pretty loudly. Its more like a resonant frequency hum but after a while it really grates on your nerves. Is this normal? Can this be avoided with say an external type pump... ie reeflo snapper gold or one similar?

Hi Clay,

I can see a few simple solutions. One thing you can do is replumb your return line. Valve off that hole in the bottom. Plumb your return line to the wall, up beside your emergency drain and back into the tank near the water surface, if you really wanted to go back into your tank in the opposite side of the overflow, then run the pipe beside your light (still hidden in your canopy and back into the tank. You will have more head loss this way.

Another solution is to run your pvc pipe from the bottom of the tank to the water surface - down side is esthetics. You'll have to do rock magic to cover the pipe. Or you can make an aragocrete pipe/rock to hide it all. This is kind of a lot of work, but worth it. I made a fake rock intake for my closed loop and am so glad I did.

The other option is to rely on a check valve (I wouldn't personally) If your power goes out and the check valve fails - hopefully it won't fail fully open, if it leaks it will hopefully be small. This option is scary in my opinion.

Another option is to make the tank 2 side viewable and have your return pipe running up the end viewing panel and then cover it up with cabinetry/canopy. This too is a lot of work and you have one less viewing panel. This is what I ended up doing with my tank and I struggled with it for a long time because I wanted 3 sides viewable but I didn't want piping above my tank and I didn't want to rely on a check valve.

I personally like the external pumps. If you are redoing plumbing now is the time to change out your pump. I hear the Dart golds are awesome. I run a regular old Dart and am happy with it. It's the second loudest part of my system (my wavebox is the loudest), but I don't even have my cabinetry on yet. If you can bear with the noise of the wavebox, then a Dart Gold should do you well - the only thing is like this whole hobby is - it's pricey. One thing your can try is lining the inside of your cabinetry with foam to dampen the noise. Also put a chunk of rubber under the pump, that might help.

I hope that this helps. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Des

[fishytime]

One thing you could do is buy another check valve and swap them out every six months or so to give the original a good soak in vinegar. The biggest cause of leaks is due to a build up of crud on the seal.

[Clay&Chey]

We gotta design ourselves a 1 way nozzle for the ends of my 2 return. something with overlaping flaps on the inside that are pushed open by the water flow. i like your swapping check valve idea but a quick question how do remove the checkvalve? my ball valve cut off is after the check valve. i could go check valve, check valve and the second check valve could be the one i swap out.... and if the permanent one gets loaded with crud so be it check valve 2 the rotational clean one will be up to the task.... i hope

[Clay&Chey]

Real cloudy



I'm sure somethings swimming in there



View from the bedroom



Again we are lucky enough to deal with a great LFS. Red Coral. Kevin opened the store up early for us so we could pick and choose through all his live rock till we came up with an over all shape and plan for our live rock set up. We probably went through 600-700 lbs to find the 130lbs that was right for us. We totally messed the floor of the store up building our desired shape, saved our new hardwood floors for sure. Again thank you very much Kevin Cheyanne and myself greatly appreciate that.
So 130 live rock at home built and photographed ready to go in... but no its not that easy to recreate what you've built once inside the tank.



Even with pictures...



its way harder in the tank. By the way Kevin thanks for the beautiful live rock



Rock and water all in, the divider is up. The lighting we went with is a tek light 48" fixture with 8 bulbs. Looking from the kitchen towards the livingroom.



When the stand and hood are completed there will be a ledge all the way around the top edge of the stand to rest a drink on or whatever your fancy. The hood will be enclosed and the back against the wall will be enclosed.
Here is the view looking from livingroom back towards kitchen



Our origional aquascape and the vortech and wavebox



Overflow a working



Sitting pretty. So the tank has been running since mid april



Tunze nano wavebox and vortech-mp20



Return lines going down either side of rock work



The flow splits



One of our caves

[Jason McK]

Looks Freak'n GREAT! What's the plan for Live Stock?

J

[lastlight]

Awwwww yeah! Love me a FAST build. Thanks for the instant gratification and good luck. It's looking really nice.