Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

The water in the return chamber should (hopefully) never fall below 7 inches. In order to be able to do the largest water changes possible, I had to increase the depth of the water in the sump to 17 inches. It will mean the skimmer needs to sit on about an 8 inch stand, but I have a custom height aquarium stand and the Deltec's are 23.62 inches tall (it's why I chose them), so I still have plenty of clearance between the bottom of the aquarium and the top of the skimmer. That will mean that the baffle between the fuge and the return channel will always be under about 10 inches of water. I only created that baffle so that water entering the fuge/return channel from the water change chamber wouldn't be blasting at it's highest velocity over sand & algae, and to hold the sand up from falling in to the return line. If that's the case, do I even need a bubble trap?

If I had no bubble trap, I have 2 options:

1.Put an 18.5 inch baffle right after the skimmer so that the water level in the skimmer/input chamber would be a constant 18.5 inches. I still have plenty of clearance between the top of the skimmer and the bottom of the tank if I make the stand the skimmer sits on 9.5 inches high. Then the water would pour into another chamber created by the space between the 18.5 inch baffle and the centre baffle. During normal operation, the water height in the rest of the sump would be 17 inches, but when I isolate the water change chamber to do a water would, the water in the chamber after the skimmer would rise until it poured in to the fuge. This design would have some water tumbling during normal operation, but it would be tumbling several feet (if the water path was a straight line) before the return pump.

2. Not have any height setting baffles at all. The water height in the entire skimmer would be 17 inches, and the entire sump level would fluctuate with evaporation. When I close the gate valve between the sump chamber and the water change chamber, the water will rise an inch to an inch and a half before it pours over in to the refugium chamber. There's going to be an auto-top off system, so this might be feasible.

Any thoughts?

Also, would making that channel from the water change chamber to the return pump 4 inches wide be enough for a 1 inch return line?, that would leave 1 inch on either side and a 2 inch hole.

[dave_C]

ok i did a crude markup of what i can tell is happen, but there are a few area i am not sure what you had in mind




if you can tell me if this is close to what you had in mind or if i am missing something in this.


ok here are the areas that are confusing me

1)where the bubble trap after the skimmer does not seem to go any where
2)the water change chambers, what are they there for and why two?
3)it sound like you want to put gates values under water, i am not sure but i bet that may not be the best option as there is metal screws on the one that i have seem
4)what are you putting in the refug? a drop of 18 inches to even 10 inches for the water is going to make a lot of bubbles, that very close to where you return is

[asylumdown]

Holy crap that's incredible.

The one thing that's missing from that render is the opening in the central baffle that cuts the water change chambers in two. I have no way of drawing in 3-D so I just marked it up in pen on my drawings.

Here's the theory:

When the sump is running, the two gate valves in to the water change chamber are open, so that water enters the sump in the skimmer chamber, goes past the bubble trap, through gate valve 1 in to the front section of the water change chamber, through the opening in the baffle that cuts the water change chamber in two, then through the back gate valve in to the channel in the refugium. Essentially, during normal operation, the full size of the sump (except for the 4 dosing containers) will have tank water flowing through it. The only time water will pour from the skimmer chamber in to the refugium is when I'm doing a water change.

Water changes will happen by first closing the gate valve between the skimmer chamber and the water change chamber. Water will then fill up the skimmer chamber and pour over in to the refugium. Once everything has levelled out again, I'll close the second gate valve between the return area and the water change chamber. This will totally isolate half of my sump and divert the water temporarily directly in to the refugium.

Now, I will have the auto-top off feed line and sensor inside the water change chamber. There will also be a pump with a line directly out to the sewer inside the water change chamber. Once the water change chamber (or two chambers I guess) are isolated, I will kill power to my auto-top off system and turn on the drain pump on that side of the sump. Once the water change chamber is drained, I'll turn power to the auto-top off system back on and let it fill the water change chamber up with fresh R/O water (the reservoir is in the basement beneath the tank). Then I add and mix salt, open the gate valves, and return the water change chamber to the circuit of the sump.

It forces the water to completely change direction in the sump. Originally I didn't have a central baffle that divided the water change chamber in two, but I wanted to forces it to flow through the whole sump and not end up with dead spots in the corners of the water change chamber. I *hope* that it's possible to make the opening between the two halves of the water change chamber be at the bottom of the sump, as opposed to a cut out at the top, as this will allow me to completely drain the WC chamber with just one pump.

The logic behind this design:

I have no fish room, the only remote equipment I can have is the R/O reservoir. Everything else needs to fit under the tank. It's getting built in to the house, so I wanted to be able to automate water changes as much as possible, but not sacrifice sump volume by taking up floor space with a separate water mixing container. I also need to be able to do a significant enough of a water change to make it worth the whole endeavour, hence the height of the sump, and the 17" water depth within the sump while it's running.

Is what I'm thinking about even possible?

[asylumdown]

looking at that in 3-D, it's making me re-consider whether or not the gate valves I have in mind are possible. I don't think that a 2 inch gate valve exists that has a handle 16 inches above the actual valve.

hmmmm.

[dave_C]

ok i think i know where you are going with this you want to be able to keep the tank running will doing a water change. the only thing is you are wasting so much space in the sump with this setup as there is nothing you can do with those two chambers. give me a couple of minutes and see if i can some up with something a little more functional for you

[asylumdown]

Oh man thanks, that's awesome. Yah, I basically didn't want to sacrifice any system volume or sump size to have a second salt water mixing container/storage under the cabinet. I figure if I can build it so that I don't need to hand siphon out water, and then hand ball in mixed salt water from a garbage can, that's optimal. Then if I can keep the volume I would otherwise use for the mixing and storing of water change water as part of my system, even better.

[dave_C]

ok see if this makes any sense to you


the return chamber is on the right, the middle is for whatever you want to put in ie carbon, reactors, heaters or such. the left is for ro water for auto top



the top left is your mixing tank, top middle is for the refug and the top right is for the skimmer. the holes in the brace is for the drains from the main tank.



the three little tanks with lid are for your three part dosing.

how it works is

1)one drain feeds the skimmer chamber which will keep a water height of 9 inches, than is over flows into a two inch tunnel that feed into the reactor chamber

2) the second drain with a ball value will feed into the mixing tank, with the ball value open it will force the water to overflow in to the refug chamber. than after the refug it overflows in to the same tunnel as the skimmer to end up at the reactor chamber. with the ball value turned off, the mixing tank will be isolated from the remaining parts of the sumps and you will be able to drain that chamber with a ball value installed on the side of the sump. than add water and salt, wait for it to mix and turn the ball value will bring the refug and mixing chamber back in line

here is a top view of how the skimmer and refug overflow into the tunnel



hope that makes sense lol

[lastlight]

Dave's a sketchup ninja. Never know when he'll attack lol...

[dave_C]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Dave's a sketchup ninja. Never know when he'll attack lol...

lol i use to hate it but now i can get thing like this done in under 10 min. you should see the one i muck up of my basement and fish room, that was a 3 day head scratcher for me

[asylumdown]

Holy crap! Thank you so much.!

So where would the auto-top off sensor need to be in this design? Would it need to go in the return chamber?

The only changes that I would need to make would be to the R/O top off container, do you think I could eliminate that chamber altogether by using my reservoir in the basement (about 50 gallons) as the source of my top off water? The house is being wired so that I will be able to hook a pump in the basement reservoir to the top off sensor. I also don't really have a way to get R/O water upstairs by any other means unless I hand ball it up in buckets (not optimal), so I'm trying to think how I could modify this design to automatically fill the water change chamber via a pump in the basement. In the first design I had used the auto-top off system to do it, but maybe I could just have a second pump in the R/O reservoir that I control manually?

Also, any chance you feel like building a sweet a** sump?