AlanM

Do it my way! hehe Here's a good primer on hydraulics and flow rates and stuff with a calculator for full siphon drains. The chart posted on the last page is for open air drains, I think. http://www.beananimal.com/articles/hydraulics-for-the-aquarist.aspx As you increase flow through a given pipe it goes from silent film flow to flushing sound slug flow (basically the films on the walls start to touch in the middle) to trickly/swishy bubbly flow (mostly water with some air bubbles coming from a durso vent, for instance), to silent full siphon. It's the air in the pipe that makes the noise, not the water, heh.

Seems like it will work. Herbie would just be taking the right side drain box and making one pipe go only 1/4 of the way up the internal box with an open top and the other pipe top go up above the teeth as a dry emergency, no elbows, Tee's or anything needed. Then you have the drain pipes going down to just barely below the water line (so air doesn't come back up them) and put a ball valve (or ideally a gate valve because it can be adjusted easier) under the tank in the stand on the "low" drain pipe, close it down, and fire up the return pump. The level will increase and start draining out the emergency and then you should start opening the valve on the "low" pipe. Eventually you will get to a level where it siphons out and is totally silent (because there's no air bubbles in the pipe) with the water level in the box kind of halfway between the top of that pipe and the top of the box. Over time you might need to open your gate valve if it gets clogged with doodoo, but you'll know because the water level in the box will move around a bit. If it ever clogs totally you'll hear it easily because the dry emergency will be way louder than the silent main drain. One thing about that left drain box. If you're really going to use it entirely as a return you should put an outlet inside the box to keep the water stirred up in there and coming out the overflow or something. Otherwise it's just a stagnant body of water in the tank that will get yucky after a while. Ooh, or seal it totally and put the dry side of an MP40 in it. 8)

I totally missed the little barnacles. That's really cool. Wonder if a coral croucher would fit in there. I'm thinking about if I can fit one into my 75g nemo tank. They're super cute, but apparently very shy.

Sorry tank is great and all, but I'm still more impressed by the lights. 8)

It's that easy after your 5th trip to Home Depot, heh. Once you get it all in one spot you should be able to assemble pretty fast. BTW, don't use a hacksaw to cut the PVC. Get one of those big ratcheting plastic pipe shears. They're like $10 at Lowes/HD and totally worth it. You can just shear right through both fittings and pipe without making a mess and get clean and straight edges.

Interesting. I'm glad you had a good experience with them. Sounds like in the past they were kind of pills to work with. I thought the frag plug holes were an interesting option, but it seems like all the "serious" reefers warn you that frag plugs are disease-ridden danger knobs that you're crazy if you put in your tank instead of snipping the corals off the plugs and cementing them right to the rock.

Edge 57 planted tank might be nice. 8)

nice! It seems to release acetic acid while curing, but the nice thing is that it cures faster when it's warmer and more humid, so water test away! (when it's cured enough to hang on to the tank.

Yep. You sure could do that. Seems like it would work fine.

Ok. I am getting more dimmer board from the latest groupbuy to reassemble mine, but I will figure out the connector and try to make up a bunch of jumper cables so one won't have to cut their wires to add 10v dimming.

It would seem to me that you'd want the drains to take a short path into your sump and make the returns longer if necessary. You can always up the size of your pump if you need more flow because of the friction in the returns, but you can't do much with gravity if the drains are slow. I guess you could up-size the pipe. Do all 4 holes durso drains and send the return in a big fat pipe up the center back and over with a sea swirl or something. Or just a locline Y and two flare nozzles pointing from the center to the two ends.

Yep. You going to do a couple Herbie drains in those overflow boxes and bring the returns over the top? (assuming each overflow box has 2 holes). Isn't one hole normally bigger than the other in those boxes? Like 1 bigger one for a drain and one smaller one for a return?

It's like a small version of those big cooling towers you see on top of buildings. Lots of surface area + fans = lots of evaporation and colder water.

Congrats! Looks really great there. Good luck filling it. Now you have three times as much reason to get your apex working. It is sprinkling in gaithersburg, so of course our power is out. It is good, though, because now I get to see how long the powerhead runs on battery and what happens when the power somes back on the apex. I already have an apparent bug in my apex code which kept the tunze powered, but not turning.

Ok. Just I dont think the tempered question was settled with the 55. Common wisdom is that they are all tempered. Be careful.

You are still thinking of drilling a 55? Why not a 40 breeder, which is a nice size and shape for a reef tank at 18 inches front to back. Also, the panels on an Aqueon 40B (the ones in the petco sale) are not tempered. http://www.aqueonproducts.com/assets/011/19107.pdf

Mine has only just gotten water, but since I've been building it for 6 months, I have a few things. I might have gotten a Reef Angel instead of an Apex. Also I might have not cared as much about the controller running the lights. I am probably going to switch to a Coralux Storm X and tear my light build apart about the time that I'm ready to put coral and fish in the tank. That might also be an Apex issue. I just find the Apex very kludgy to get to do what I want. Reef Angel is kind of a pill to program, apparently, but basically every feature is exposed and if you don't mind doing Arduino code you can do whatever you want with it.

Didn't Justin from Avast build a greenhouse and put big tubs in it to grow corals and nems at one point? Maybe Coral Hind could hire an Avast built greenhouse and put some big tubs in there for sharks and rays.

I am looking for a bubbling treasure chest and scuba diver.

Maybe he would like to watch this if you have Amazon Prime. It's free on Prime, and our planet is much better off for having had Mister Rogers in it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004C539I4

Right. Only reason I'm running it is to "break it in" to get the grease and release agents and whatnot that is apparently all over plastic. Not trying to remove goo, so it just drips back down if it overflows and goes in the cup. I guess I'm also running it so I have something to mess with while I'm watching my empty tank. 8)

I want to dump in bags of crud from Algagen over the next few months! Pods and phytoplankton and rotifers and macroalgae!

thanks. So closing it raises the level. Guess that makes sense.

I have a recirculating Avast CS1 sitting in the sump. If I want the bubbles to come up higher in the neck should I close the exit ball valve or open it? Righty-tighty or Lefty-loosy?

Three months of doing nothing will kill me!!! (It's already clearer now for some reason, /shrug Also the pH is going up. My guess is that the skimmer which drips back into the sump is driving out CO2).