Roni's 270 gallon upgrade

[roni]

Why not go coast to coast, which would give you a flat background. Also, the plumbing would go straight down, and not require wall clearance issues? By coast to coast I mean from the bottom to the top all the way across the back maybe 5" off the "actual" back wall. You lose some tank space, but won't require any wall clearance. Your plumbing will not be able to be seen at all, which to me is a major benefit.

 

Just an idea.

 

Mike,

 

I live the idea but really don't want to give up that much space for the whole tank. I'd basically have a 72 x 30" footprint the whole way in that scenario. I wish external coast to coast would work but it's not meant to be.

[roni]

Finally found the flow calculator I was looking for to figure out pipe diameter. If anyone else needs it, it's here.

 

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/hydraulics-for-the-aquarist.aspx

[roni]

Okay, changed this up to a single overflow and going with the beananimal overflow. Going to set the weirs on the overflow for the water line to be ~3" below the top at the lowest (since there will often be a 1-2" wave). This overflow should handle everything, correct?

 

[Jon Lazar]

Going to set the weirs on the overflow for the water line to be ~3" below the top at the lowest (since there will often be a 1-2" wave).

 

If the overflow is acrylic, I would ask them to make the weir height adjustable. That way you can get the tank water level as high as safely possible once you see how tall the waves really are and how the ledge for the screen top might act as a eurobraced tank. With a 24" tall tank, you don't want to waste even an inch of height if you don't need to.

 

An adjustable weir is as simple as an acrylic rectangle inside the overflow box that blocks the bottom of the weir slots, held in place with a couple of plastic screws and nuts. You could DIY pretty easily, but I would ask the builder to do it.

 

Jon

[YBeNormal]

Good point Jon. I built an adjustable weir in when I had HOB overflows originally and fabricated an adjustable ring on the drains once I had drilled my tanks and it was well worth the initial extra effort.

[roni]

That's a great idea...I emailed Derek about adding that. what do you guys think about the ability of the overflow to handle the waves? Should I get another hole (which means increasing the overflow another 8" in length)?

[Chad]

I honestly think you are overthinking the wave effect on your center overflow. Assuming you have a single standing wave with the node in the center (like most wave setups I have seen do), when a wave is on the right, more water will go into the overflow box from the right and less from the left. When the wave is on the left, more water will go into the left and less from the right. I think the effect will negate itself and overflow level will be constant.

 

Even if it were not constant, a little oscillation shouldn't affect the siphon flow rate enough to worry about it. It is all about the average flow going through it.

[YBeNormal]

+1 what Chad said

[roni]

Sounds good. Tonight is the deadline to finalize the bottom holes since they are sending the glass off for tempering. Thanks for the feedback. It makes sense that the volume going into the overflow will generally be the same. I think my worry was since the wavebox would be oriented front to back and the vortech along the long axis of the tank, there could be a wierd situation where the wave of water would be too much for the overflow....but I guess that's what the 2nd standpipe should help with...

[Chad]

There will be affects between the two, but the steady state wave action will be unaffected by the powerhead flow. Once you get to steady state, power head flow (direction, velocity, etc.) doesn't really affect the wave action, which is more about bulk movement of the majority of the water...

[roni]

That's why it's so nice to have engineering minded people on here Thanks Chad

[roni]

Quick question...for my sump area, I'm actually tying together 2 different sumps to have enough compartments for an integrated fuge/skimmer compartment as well as enough reservoir volume. Since I'm using 1.5" pipe for the return and I'm utilizing 1 drain plus a little bit of a 2nd (per the BeanAnimal system), would I be able to get by using 1.5" bulkheads to tie the 2 tanks together? The price of 2" bulkheads jumps considerably. The options are 2 1.5" bulkheads (1 on each side) versus 4 1.5" bulkheads versus 2 2" bulkheads. Any suggestions?

[Chad]

What will the flow rate through your sump be?

[roni]

I assume flow rate through the sump will be similar to flow rate to the tank, which will be around 2000 gph

 

My plan (subject to change) is

 

compartment 1 - filter socks

compartment 2 - skimmer, outflow for nitrate pellets

compartment 3 - carbon

compartment 4 - fuge/live rock

compartment 5 - return

 

the bulkheads would be between compartment 2 and 3.

Edited September 16, 2011 by roni

[roni]

Some pics after a day of working on the fishroom. Thanks Kevin for the stands!

 

Frag Tank

 

2 Sumps

 

Water storage

 

Return Pump

 

Skimmer

 

 

RO/DI

 

Lights....This is heavy and bright!

Edited October 2, 2011 by roni

[Alieu07]

Can this skimmer handle this big boy?

[roni]

Can this skimmer handle this big boy?

 

I think so. The sump size makes the skimmer look small but it's a SRO XP5000. The thing is massive. I was originally going with the SRO 5000 regular but got a great deal on this so went with the cone.

[LanglandJoshua]

Now that looks like a fun system!

[YBeNormal]

Looks good Roni!

 

Personal preference maybe, but I would reorient the DI chamber and mount it vertically. My thoughts are that this minimizes chances of water being channelized through the resin. I noticed The Filter Guys also state, "For DI filtering we recommend full-size refillable vertical DI color changing resin cartridges and clear housings. Vertical housings offer superior performance with channeling being less of a problem."

[LanglandJoshua]

Looks good Roni!

 

Personal preference maybe, but I would reorient the DI chamber and mount it vertically. My thoughts are that this minimizes chances of water being channelized through the resin. I noticed The Filter Guys also state, "For DI filtering we recommend full-size refillable vertical DI color changing resin cartridges and clear housings. Vertical housings offer superior performance with channeling being less of a problem."

Another great place to check out is bulk reef supply. But the filter guys look like they may have some good stuff. I'm going to have to look into them! If your worried about water channeling, brs may have some similar models. I'm always big on looking several places before I buy something.

[YBeNormal]

TFG and AWI are both well established companies that specialize in water filtration products and they tend to give very good advice. BRS is also a good company with good prices, but it is basically a hobbyist reselling multiple products.

 

The DI chamber in the picture could easily be mounted in a vertical position, so there is no need to replace it.

[hypertech]

BRS may have started as a hobbyist reselling but they are much more than that now. I think they are up to something like 30 employees and their warehouse is very large.

 

With a tank this large I would get a dual DI so that you can fully exhaust the resin and get the most out of it before replacing.

Edited October 3, 2011 by hypertech

[roni]

Thanks guys...yeah, this is temporary. Picking up a 150 GPD with dual DI since I really don't want to wait as long for water. In terms of mounting vertically...do they sell brackets to mount that way? My current one just has the different parts bracketed together.

[YBeNormal]

The AWI Typhoon units, and many others I've seen, have a fourth canister mounted vertically just like the sediment filters. You can also purchase extra housing units and wall mounts to add additional sediment or DI chambers.

 

IRT having dual DI chambers to decrease time required to produce water, that won't really help since the output of the RO membrane is the limiting factor. The second DI chamber will only allow you to go twice as long before having to replace all of the DI resin. Since the first DI chamber should filter out all impurities until the resin is exhausted, the second chamber will also help guard against either the cation or anion resin in the first chamber becoming exhausted and allowing impurities to slip through. If you want to decrease the time it takes to produce RO/DI water, you will either need to go with a 100GPD membrane (being careful to match the flow restrictor and to get a high quality 100GPD membrane with a high reject rate), double up the RO membranes, or both. To be honest though, I would purchase a unit with a single, high quality 100GPD RO membrane and maybe add a second or dual DI chamber, then use one or two large Brute trash cans to store the purified water.

 

If you want high output and don't mind spending a little extra, TFG offers a 150GPD unit with two RO membrane. Yet another option for this or any other system would be to have one chamber for cation resin and another for anion resin. This would not increase output but would allow you to easily and cheaply recharge and reuse exhausted resins, saving money over the long term. Finally, you could get the best of all possibilities by using only sediment prefilters and large capacity chambers for anion and cation resins, eliminating the RO membranes entirely. This would give you high output and zero waste water, but with a large investment upfront for the large resin chambers and the resin itself. Anthony Calfo posted something recently about a company selling these large acrylic resin chambers in the states. I'm sure I could find a link or could get the information from Anthony if you are interested. You could DIY the large resin containers using PVC, but would not be able to see the resin color changing and would have to monitor the output closely to know when the resin is exhausted.

Edited October 3, 2011 by YBeNormal

[YBeNormal]

BRS may have started as a hobbyist reselling but they are much more than that now. I think they are up to something like 30 employees and their warehouse is very large.

 

With a tank this large I would get a dual DI so that you can fully exhaust the resin and get the most out of it before replacing.

 

I'm not knocking BRS, just stating that they are resellers of products, not experts in the field of any of the products they sell other than maybe the maxi-jet retro kits they sell, and even those are derivatives of the work of someone else that they then capitalized upon. I'd prefer to get my advice on filtration from AWI, TFG, Spectrapure and some of the other companies specializing in water filtration and/or to do lots of research myself (something I have done a lot of over the years).

 

Good idea about using two DI chambers, but you still have to be very careful trying to stretch the DI resin too long. True, the second chamber should pick up the load once the first chamber is exhausted. Unfortunately, the anion and cation resins in a mixed-resin system may not become exhausted at the same time. Also, the resins work by capturing charged particles and when they are at or near being exhausted, they will begin to release impurities with a lower charge in favor of other impurities with a stronger charge. Phosphates have a relatively low charge and are one of the first impurities to be released (or not filtered in the first place) in this process. You typically will not notice this until you end up with a major HA outbreak or something similar, and then it is too late. I learned to replace the resin before it was fully exhausted and saved myself lots of headaches by doing so. Resins aren't cheap, but they aren't too expensive when purchased in bulk.