Squire's 80 Gallon Rebuild ** UPDATED new pics**

[ensquire]

I have been poking around here for about 4 months now after having to take over someones neglected tank.
Started a few threads here and there on various topics , but maybe it is best that I just start a journal thread and consolidate everything in one thread. This way I can solicit all the great free advise available on this site.
So thanks in advance and lets get started.

This is the original post with details on what I acquired:

Originally Posted by ensquire

Warning! Long winded newbie post!!

Originally Posted by ensquire

Just over a year of Saltwater experience. First time posting here.

I acquired an 80 gallon Bow front tank. The owner had hired a local guy to maintain it and had done so for a while but then just stopped showing up.
Buddy asked me to have a look at it and it was in rough shape. Tank had 7 fish, no sand, 50 - 60 lbs mostly dead rock, algae running wild, and 2 to 3 inches of fish sludge on the bottom. Sump skimmer was running wide open spraying water through the lid , so worst salt creep ever. Really bad shape, but such a nice tank.
Original intent was to break it down, clean everything and set it back up in my office, so I saved a lot of the water, stored rock in buckets with water and moved fish to home tank. Had to take tank to the car wash to clean it.Of course, during the move, we snapped off one of the plumbing fixture elbows. Upon inspection I realized that the plumbing was totally inadequate and needed to be replaced. Now I live in Yellowknife, NT so this is not a matter of going to the LFS and picking up parts, NO. Hello J&L, week to get bulkheads. No problem, give me time to get other fittings etc. NOPE, needed new fittings to make up rest of plumbing runs. Also had to build new stand because salt creep had destroyed particle board stand. (Why do manufactures use this ???) Cleaned up all equipment, ordered new bulbs for fixtures etc.
Bulkheads arrive, multiple trips to every building supply and plumbing shop, plumbing is finished. Fill up box that plumbing lines run through to check for leaks, checked out, so started to fill tank with stored original water, topped off with new water approx 50/50 old/new saltwater. Turned on system to circulate and heat water. Added 80lbs Live sand and let it settle for a day or 2. Tank is starting to look good but find that Coralife Super Skimmer is missing its O-ring and, just by chance, the Coralife at home has snapped off at the drain hole. Guess what. can't order replacement at any of my normal suppliers. More on this later. Anyway, I find one that is close and does the job for now.
Add Live (dead) rock to tank and sump and I like the look of the tank even more. The tank now consists of:

80 gallon Bow Front tank
30 gallon sump 3 chamber
single drain and return plumbed through corner box ( Danger here I Think)
Coralife 125 Super Skimmer
Return pump (looking for advise on needed flow rate, best quietest, etc.)
2 Hydor Koralia 600 GPH power heads
2 heaters (1 in tank, 1 in Sump)
2 Coralife 130w PC fixture with 2 50/50 bulbs per
80 lbs live sand
60 lbs rock, mostly dead and will be used as base.

Tank has been running now for 3 weeks and is crystal clear,
need to do a bit of finish work on base but is functional as is.

Here are the questions.

1) Would it be possible to drain 80 gallon, save water, move home, transfer water, rock and fish from home tank and not have to let it cycle?
2) What would be ideal media for second chamber in Sump? I have skimmer in first, rock in second and pump/heater in third, but the rock is dead as far as I can tell and I need to replace it.

If you have made it this far, Thanks for your patience.
All advise welcome and appreciatted
Any obvious holes in system should be pointed out.
Pictures to follow.


Thanks

Mike

Some great advise follow of course and if anyone else is interested here is rest of that thread..
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=71319

[ensquire]

At this point I decided to try the first simplest option of replumbing system as it was with updated pipes. Which lead to this post....

Originally Posted by ensquire

Thanks and now the next series of questions. LOL
Drain is a 1" bulkhead with a 3/4" straight pipe and the drain has 3/4" pipe with 2 elbows draining into sump. Return is a 320 GPH pump hooked to a short piece of hose into a 1/2" run about 3' long with 2 elbows attached to a 1/2" bulkhead with a 1/2" pipe into a Locline nozzle. I don't like the open drain, and have experimented with several types of drains, but whenever I change from the straight open end I have to throttle back my pump. I would like and need more than 320 GPH flow, which brings me to
My questions about my options.
Is there any effect on the drainage if I make the pipes bigger before and after the bulkhead? It is still a 1" opening.
I see several options but would like to get some opinions and feedback on them.
My first thought was to order some glass bits and bore out the openings inside the overflow box but my concerns are about how close the boles will be and the space underneath would be tight but might be an option.
Option 2) Use both lines in overflow box az drains (Herbie, or other).Increase pipe to 1 1 1/2 before bulkhead and 1" after. Run an exterior line up the back thAt would tee off into 2 returns drilled thru back of the tank and use nozzles to have some flow behind the reef. in the tank. If this is best option, should the return be a single line or double and should it be 1/2, 3/4, or 1" based on the size of the drain?
Option 2) use 1' bulkhead in overflow box as 1' return line and use second pipe as emergency overflow. Then build either an interior or an exterior overflow box on the back of the tank?

I would like to increase my pump to a Quiet One pushing 800 GPH if I can work out this plumbing problem, and I am really stuck here. My tank has been running for a month now with only the liverock in it and I am dying to start stocking it, but I feel that this will be a mistake until I address this plumbing/flow situation.

Thanks.

Mike


Or option 3) I am overreacting and I should be happy with present situation?

Here are a couple pics of tank at that point, Taken with Iphone so not the best pics:

[ensquire]

Thought about just going with it as it was, but luckily this happened:





Here is the rest of that thread....
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72026

Lucky only because at this point I was ready to finish it up and start stocking it.

Some pics of the second attempt to make the overflow work to my satisfaction:
New Pump





Original plumbing




Rocks stored with heater and Koralia 4 , plus a carbon filter and frequent water changes to combat the Cyano

[ensquire]

Took a month to get all the fittings together if you can believe that

Quiet One 4000






TOOL TIME WOO HOO





New Diamond hole bits


Newly redesigned overflow box





Over the top return pipe





all assembled and ready to fill

[ensquire]

New Drains



Hmm need to put Xmas decorations away









Filling it up....

Running



Was very happy with the flow at this point. Only one minor flaw . Use ball valve on drain line and wasn't as easy to dial in flow to maintain water height in overflow but easily changed. So I am quite happy at this point.
Now it was time to test emergency line, so I blocked the main drain and watched as the tank very slowly began to fill. PROBLEM .
which takes me to this thread:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=73494

[ensquire]

water was a little higher in sump than normal and Yellowknife has a semi monthly subscription to power outages, so I thought it might be a good idea to test and see if sump could handle a power outage . Turned off pump and watched as the sump very very quickly began to overflow.
DOOOOOOOOOOO
turned pump back on with no immediate effect , closed drain line and slowly began to slow the flood. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Grab shop vac and try and figure this one out..

Then I remember the thread about back siphoning return lines.
Another one of those AHHH HAAA moments that take place in this hobby for me.Lucky for me it was fresh water and on lino,

So for now we are ordering up a few new fittings, a gate valve, painting and sealing the stand. Drilling a hole in the back for my return line because I don't like the overtop at all.

For now the only question I have for everyone is about check valves.
As I said earlier, we get a lot of power outages, and as I haven't finalized my return. I was going to plumb in a backflow behind the bulkhead.
Is this effective or is the small hole drilled in the line just below the water level a good enough solution to the back siphon problem??

Thanks for reading

[outacontrol]

So the drain pipe is larger than the emergency drain?
Why not raise the drain pipe up closer to the height of the overflow, should be quieter and maybe even drain less water into sump on a powerfailure.
The back siphon on the return is an easy fix just drill and 1/8" hole in the return line just below the tank water level. The hole will allow air into the return line and break the siphon.

[ensquire]

Yes the drain is bigger
As soon as my parts arrive I'm going to drill my return thru the back, going to add a 3/4" above and below the 1/2" emergency bulkhead and give it a test.

[ensquire]

Time for an update, been busy lately and haven't had much time to post up some pics.

Cleaning gunk off the back of tank from the old background glue.
Going through back office looking for something to use and guess what worked best. Yup Overproof Rum took care of the glue in short order.




Masked it off and used Acrylic spray paint, may need another coat but we shall see when setup.



Touch up the stand with some filler



Drill a few holes to run cords out to Powerbar.

[ensquire]

Princess Auto order arrived and I was able to get my overflow tuned up.
There was a lot of good advise on how to accomplish this because of the previous owners setup , but I came up with the following plan and have great confidence that it will work perfectly when up and running. ( I hope)
Since I have a 1" Drain bulkhead , I will adapt that to a 1 1/2 Drain Pipe inside the overflow box extending up to about 3/4 of the height of the box. With the second hole sized for a 1/2" bulkead, and not really being sufficient for an emergency drain. I decided to break open the new drill bits and bore out the hole to fit a 3/4" bulkhead. Found some adapters locally and second hole will have 1" pipe before and after bulkhead.



And for safety sake, a second 1/2" emergency drain line cut into the back of the overflow, because it was getting pretty tight in there. Thanks to a few of the members for there input on this one.








New bits mean fast drill time, minor chipping and the only real problem I found was that I didn't want to put a lot of pressure on the drill and let it do the work. What I found was that in doing this, the bit tended to sit and bore the hole out rather than drilling a nice straight hole. Nothing serious at all and I am sure after a few more tanks I will get this to work better.