FishWife October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 (edited) I decided to start a tank thread that I'll update as things progress. Hopefully, it will help others to learn as we have. We bought our 80g bow and stand with a PC light used (with a trickle filter and bio balls!), thinking that things would be just like they were five years ago, when we left the hobby. We figured it would be up in a month; it was basically "ready to go. That was August 1. By October 15, we had researched, thought, schemed, and realized that we were serious about corals and wanted a two-tank system. We are blessed with an ideal situation: a den backed to a mudroom backed to a kitchen desk area that I've always hated 'cause it's a junk area. SO, we decided on a two-tank system with a central sump. We took our old 75g undrilled tank and made it our sump. We ended up buying one of Dan's skimmers (a Standard 8) since we'll eventually have at least 240 and maybe 350 gallons (if we eventually upgrace the bow, for which we do have wall space in the den). Here are our mid-October set up pics: Our new tank, set up in the den. (I got brave and painted this small room black, and put our TV in there. Now the family lives in this room!) Scott assembles our bottom manifold, fed by a mag 24 from our mudroom through the wall. This is the main way we put water into the tank. It's controlled by a ball valve, so we easily control flow into the tank. The two drains in the overflow box return water to the tank. Ready for water testing. Meanwhile, we assembled our sump in the mudroom behind that black wall:installed the mag (T'd for the future kitchen tank which will go on the other side of the wall to the right) Putting in live sand Testing the skimmer on that really ripe live sand: Skimmer wins! Scott installs a shelf for the skimmer and other future equipment: Mudroom (we call it the engine room) is neat and complete: UV sterilizer in place, sump chugging, and all systems "go." Meanwhile, back at the tank, we put in new sand: After it cleared, we did aquascaping with live rocks bought off the WAMAS site. Here is our setup under our PC lights. and added Gracie, our clownfish, from our QT tank. We added snails and peppermint shrimps, too, 'cause our live rock sprounted aiptasia. SO FAR THEY HAVE NOT TOUCHED IT. :( A week later, we installed Jason's new lights above the tank (he had made a nice wooden housing for the six T-5 bulbs which I stained a dark mahogany). The picture below shows his lights over our tank. They made a huge difference! A week after that, we put in the "upper manifold" and our "super sucker" (a siphon to the left of the overflow box because our outflow thru the drains wasn't enough volume). You can barely see it () behind the rocks on the left. To the left of that (and the far right) are our black-painted upper mainfold inflows sticking down into the tank. On the right, you'll notice our bubbletip anemone. She came the day we also decided to do open pipe surgery and switch out our mag (too loud and too hot) for a Sequence Dart (we love it, but the process took 8 hours and DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA! The new upper manifold (two jets each in the two back corners) were connected to the Sequence Dart pump. They are on a ball valve, so between the two manifolds, we are REALLY happy with the flow, and our control thereof. The anemone moved a couple of times, once per night, to the back of the tank. We decided it was too hard to feed it back there, so we moved rocks. Finally, I got the bright idea of making a cave above and to her right. Sure enough, she went right in. The "cave" has a "back door," where there's more flow from the new upper manifolds. She likes to protrude from both sides, which is fine with me. Here's shot of her back doorstep, where turbo snails like to park, so she tends to hang out more on the front side. That brings us up to today. We are hoping to get a few inexpensive frags at the fall WAMAS meeting. Everyone has been so great with advice and encouragement. We are grateful and excited about watching this tank come to life. Edited October 29, 2007 by FishWife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 Wow the stain job came out really nice!! You're tank looks great, the RBTA is cool! Congrats keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connor October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 wow your tank looks great. Your pushing me towards setting up a bigger tank. That is if i can convinve my parents to let me. Connor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 29, 2007 Author Share October 29, 2007 (edited) So, our next question is, "Where's a good place to put some pulsing Xenia?" Edited October 29, 2007 by FishWife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zotzer October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 Looking phenomenal...great job! Tracy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 nice, nice, nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 So, is the Sequence Dart (3600gph) going to the 8 outlets positioned at the bottom of the tank? So, round numbers, you're looking at 30x -40x of water turnover inside your main tank. Or, do you have the Sequence dialed down? Do you run your equipment off of this same pump? skimmer? UV? Reason I"m asking, is that I'm trying to determine what pump(s) I need for my 75 gallon, with a 45 sump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitro Junkie October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 you may want to put your xenia on a rock by itself in the sand bed to keep it from spreading like crazy , as it will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest NSC October 29, 2007 Share October 29, 2007 (edited) If you need some xenia I'll give you a bunch FREE!!! just pm me when you want it. BTW Tank, fish room, 'scaping all look great!!! Kudos Edited October 29, 2007 by NSC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 29, 2007 Author Share October 29, 2007 (edited) So, is the Sequence Dart (3600gph) going to the 8 outlets positioned at the bottom of the tank? So, round numbers, you're looking at 30x -40x of water turnover inside your main tank. Or, do you have the Sequence dialed down? Do you run your equipment off of this same pump? skimmer? UV? Reason I"m asking, is that I'm trying to determine what pump(s) I need for my 75 gallon, with a 45 sump. Up late watching the Red Sox triumph! So, in order to answer your questions, I went to look at our engine room, and there were enough changes from our open pump surgery to post pics. Here we go: The Dart (on the other side of that plywood on the right) has the same mission as the mag 24 used to: to power our 80g manifolds (lower and upper) and to someday power our FOWLR kitchen tank. Here's the engine room as it is tonight: And here's a closeup of the Dart and its intake and outflow (note the true union: very key!): As you can see, maybe , we mounted the dart above the third compartment of our sump. BTW, it's not self-priming, so you need a check valve below the water line if you mount it like we did (that's the black part). Part of our DRAMA was that the silly thing didn't *pump* after all the effort of getting the piping redone. We found that great three-way 2" fitting and put PVC grates in there so we have plenty of flow coming into the pump and not a lot of maintenance with sponges, etc. Up top again, from the Dart, there's a 1.5" outflow pipe that we T'd up to a 1.5" ball valve (as we had the mag 24), to provide for a later split to the kitchen tank. Then, we split the line going to the bow 80 behind the wall to serve the lower and upper manifolds. You can see that the ball valves give us total control over flow into the tank. The one closer to the dart (lower and harder to see: red handle) controls the eight holes on the bottom. The valve a little closer to the wall and on top is to the upper manifold. There are no valves on our two drains from the pre-drilled holes in the overflow box (1" duflo and 3/4"), but on what we call our "super sucker" siphon that takes water from our tank and back to our sump, we have a ball valve (the one closest to the opening in the wall). This enables us to allow for as much flow as we want to for tank turnover. So, yes, it's dialed down; probably about 40% but, as we say, we have plans for the other power with another tank. And, we're still playing with levels. Obviously, we'll change things as we get animals that need specific conditions. And, no, we don't power our UV or skimmer off this because they are fed by raw tank water, not water that cleaned and fed from the sump and ready to return to the tank. HTH! Edited October 29, 2007 by FishWife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 HOORAY! Tracy! My clownfish went into my anemone tonight! I am so thrilled! She couldn't be happier. We had wanted a week for Rosie (the Rose BTA) to find her happy spot before Gracie (clownfish) found her. It was 6 days! THIS was my WHOLE REASON for starting this tank. I am SO THRILLED!!!! (just thought I'd share! calming down now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connor October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 congradulations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zotzer October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 (edited) HOORAY! Tracy! My clownfish went into my anemone tonight! Weeee hoooooo!!! I guess we won't be hearing from you for a while now, as it will be hard to take your eyes off of them. It's such a hoot to watch! Yippee!! Tracy Edited October 30, 2007 by zotzer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 congrats, aren't you worried about rusting out on the dart and on the shelf brackets holding the skimmer, congrats on the hosting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 congrats, aren't you worried about rusting out on the dart and on the shelf brackets holding the skimmer, congrats on the hosting Not really. The shelf brackets are galvanized, and if they do rust, they're easy to replace/paint. But it's a good thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadgets October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 Nice setup! You might to redue your skimmer return. Having it submerged produes alot of back pressure nad reduces performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 (edited) Nice setup! You might to redue your skimmer return. Having it submerged produes alot of back pressure nad reduces performance. We have it that way because when we had it returned to the 'fuge we were struggling against microbubbles because the flow was too fast through our bubble trap. But, are you simply saying that it should dump in ABOVE the water's surface? In that case, the location is fine, just chop off the pipe? Edited October 30, 2007 by FishWife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonkadawg October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 I love build threads like this! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 (edited) We have it that way because when we had it returned to the 'fuge we were struggling against microbubbles because the flow was too fast through our bubble trap. But, are you simply saying that it should dump in ABOVE the water's surface? In that case, the location is fine, just chop off the pipe? Look up skimmer gate valve mod - very common thing people do to reduce micro bubbles coming from a skimmer. Should give you a few ideas. You probably want to add a couple 90s to your skimmer return so you can return above the sump waterline, and through a slightly inclined pipe rather than dropping straight into the sump. Edited October 30, 2007 by Brian Ward Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 what about doing something like this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 Jason... that's a GREAT diagram... but I can't read the letters near the valve... does it say just to leave it open? I searched for gate valve mods, but found them for G2's and ASMs only... Is Dan reading this? Wonder if he could help... hint! Hint! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 Jason... that's a GREAT diagram... but I can't read the letters near the valve... does it say just to leave it open? I searched for gate valve mods, but found them for G2's and ASMs only... Is Dan reading this? Wonder if he could help... hint! Hint! Try maximizing the window, or maybe I have a bigger display, most of the lables are just saying 90 degree elbow, the one at the top is not a gate valve but a pvc T I imagine this would work almost identical to a bubble trap in a sump with you just use the digram shown with an open pvc t to let air escape also if you put more than on T in series it would increase the time that allows air (bubbles to escape) lastly make the enitre contraption as close to the water as possible so there is no long drop for water to splash down into your sump creating bubbles, I call it the Pabst simmer bubble trap Is Dan reading this? Wonder if he could help... hint! Hint! Also I believe dan is having some family troubles and will be away from the boards for a while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 Sorry to hear about Dan's troubles... we'll be praying for him. I enlarged the diagram, and I think the diagram says "PVC T with the top of the T open" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishWife October 30, 2007 Author Share October 30, 2007 (edited) For those reading this thread, Dan (the man; Skimmer builder of the Standard 8) said we only need to shorten our return to near the surface of the water to try to avoid bubbles, and to not worry about doing a valve mod. Thanks for everyone who tried to help out, tho! His comments are on page 8. http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...4974&st=175 Edited October 30, 2007 by FishWife Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl October 30, 2007 Share October 30, 2007 Question about your UV... approx how many gallons are running through your UV? And do you have it plumbed so the water enters the UV at the bottom, and exists out the top, or vice versa? -Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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