Brian Ward January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 After getting out of the hobby for a while due to the birth of my son and moving houses, I'm jumping back in. We took my son to the National Aquarium in Baltimore and he loved it. So I'm setting my own back up - all for him of course! I picked up a tank from another member and build a 2x4 and 3/4" plywood stand for it. I still need to skin out the stand to make it look good in the house: Here it is once I got it in the house: I picked up an old sump tank and built the baffles for it (still 1 more to add for the bubble trap in this picture): I'm actually plumbing the sump into my basement. I'm using a Reeflo Marlin pump as the head pressure is somewhat significant: Here it is once the plumbing is complete (skimmer is in wrong section, I put it there just for testing): That's where I am right now. The water you see in the tank is all tap water. I put in tap to test everything out and ensure there were no leaks in my plumbing or other issues to address. I'll share more in the coming weeks once I've made a little more progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der ABT January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 very nice man...sump looks much better in use....congrats and welcome back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 4, 2015 Author Share January 4, 2015 I do have an issue with the noise in the overflow that came with this tank. I had durso's previously and don't quite recognize this setup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoelace January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 Great start. It looks like a stockman standpipe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 Yay! Glad to hear your setting up a new tank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenhornet January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 Brian, looks great! That's a Maggie muffler on top of the standpipe. You can adjust the length of the tube to control the noise. http://maggiemuffler.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 Cool. I was sorely tempted by this tank when it went up for sale, but the timing wasn't right for me. I'm looking forward to seeing it get set up again and happy to see another member of the basement-sump/two-floor-tank club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8 2 RISE January 4, 2015 Share January 4, 2015 Cool to see you back! Looking forward to see what you do with this. If you're thinking of changing the overflow style, can I suggest doing the siphon style? I decided to go with that on my 57 gallon and I LOVE it! WAY quieter than the Durso, and no microbubbles=no salt creep! You would have to use two of the pipes for overflow and only one for return, but it's well worth it (it looks like you have three holes in your overflow box- maybe I'm wrong). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 4, 2015 Author Share January 4, 2015 Thanks for the suggestions. I've played with the air tube on the Maggie's Muffler and while it is considerably quieter it's not quiet enough yet. I don't want to use 2 lines for return (not the least of whih is because everything is plumbed to the basement the other way) but I'll look into it if I can't get this quieter. Has anyone looked at the Hofer Gurgle Buster (http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/HGB_construction.html)? It's a variation on the Stockton. I'm thinking of trying to swap my standpipe for one of these and see if it's better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 5, 2015 Share January 5, 2015 I have a BeanAnimal siphon drain going into my basement. I don't know the layout of your drain pipe, but it would work awesome if the sump is basically directly under the display. If you have a horizontal run of pipe for the drain, it's problematic. The problem is that you need to have a lot of water velocity in the pipe to get all the air out of the horizontal run. You'd either do that by having a fairly narrow full siphon pipe, like 1" or even 3/4", with the valve at the bottom nearly wide open (the best idea, imo) or a pile of a ton of flow through the tank. I had already plumbed my 1.5" drains with a 12 foot nearly horizontal run in them and I ended up needing to run about 1400gph through my 75g display in order to get the siphon line to start reliably. And even at that I have the gate valve nearly completely closed. A 3/4" drain seems really small, but if it's running a siphon to the basement it will be more than enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k January 5, 2015 Share January 5, 2015 all you need is a vent on the horizontal runs that goes vertical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L8 2 RISE January 5, 2015 Share January 5, 2015 Thanks for the suggestions. I've played with the air tube on the Maggie's Muffler and while it is considerably quieter it's not quiet enough yet. I don't want to use 2 lines for return (not the least of whih is because everything is plumbed to the basement the other way) but I'll look into it if I can't get this quieter. Has anyone looked at the Hofer Gurgle Buster (http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/HGB_construction.html)? It's a variation on the Stockton. I'm thinking of trying to swap my standpipe for one of these and see if it's better. Not sure I understand why you don't want to use two lines for overflow? If you need more lines for return, you could run one over the back of the tank or drill a hole in the back at the top and run through there. The BeanAnimal Siphon Overflow really is awesome if you can go with that. Never tried the one in your link though. all you need is a vent on the horizontal runs that goes vertical. You'd need a ball valve on the vertical for the siphon to work, but this is a good idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 5, 2015 Author Share January 5, 2015 I have about a 15' horizontal run after the pipe drops through the floor. This is on an external wall and runs between the concrete wall and the 1st floor of the house. No space for a valve and this will one day be completely closed in anyway. I increase the size of the pipe from 1" to 1.5" once it goes through the floor. Let me look at the siphon some more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime January 6, 2015 Share January 6, 2015 Bean animal FTW. I can't hear anything on my tank water flow wise. My skimmer makes a racket, and on top of that I can hear my mp40s now, but the method is SILENT. FWIW, I run a gate valve at the end of a vertices drop, right above a 90 degree elbow, running about 3' horizontal, dropping into my sump after another 2 ninety degree elbows. It's dead silent. What dimensions are the tank, BTW? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 6, 2015 Author Share January 6, 2015 The tank is 30"x30" cube and 18" deep. It's acrylic (my first acrylic tank). So Bean Animal is obviously the favorite. I do understand from this write-up (http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx) why this will be silent and no other one will. So according to the site, you actually need 3 pipes to do this though the 3rd sounds like extra-super-emergency overflow and can be omitted? I still don't know if I can make this work with the plumbing I've already done. I only have 2 pipes that go through the floor and then immediately go into a 15-foot horizontal run. I up-sized the drain from 1" to 1.5" after it goes through floor. I'll probably try some of the stockman variations to see if any are acceptable before I have to spend another full weekend re-plumbing the whole system. I think I can see how I can make it work though I'll have to re-do most of what I spent my week off work doing. I do appreciate all the info though. Last time I set up it seemed that everyone used a Durso and that's what I had. I didn't really notice any issues but now that everything is in the basement any additional noise seems to be noticeable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami January 7, 2015 Share January 7, 2015 Welcome back, Brian! It's good to have you in NoVA now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 January 7, 2015 Share January 7, 2015 How much flow is going through the sump? Perhaps just dial down the return pump, and it will solve your problem. I've read 3-5x per hour through the sump is fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward January 29, 2015 Author Share January 29, 2015 So quick update here. I replumbed to do a version of the Bean Animal overflow configuration. Everything is much quieter. I now have a gentle noise of running water that results from the water running down the inside of the overflow. But the air sucking sound is gone. Hooray! New Overflow: So what i have is at the bottom is the return line which I split to connect to either side of the overflow. I then have a 1" line with a strainer on the top for the excess flow and underneath everything is the siphon run (approx 10" down in the box). I also completed framing up the hood to hold my light: I still have to figure out how I'm going to cover the stand and finish out the hood but I think I'm just going to paint what I have. I'll probably also add a little router detail around the bottom edge of the hood. So I'm done with the plumbing at this point and about ready to start making water! Going to need some sand and rock soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 29, 2015 Share January 29, 2015 Nice! Glad to see that cube back in action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime January 29, 2015 Share January 29, 2015 It's looking awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward February 3, 2015 Author Share February 3, 2015 Tap water is out. Saltwater is in! I've picked up some rock and just stacked it in the tank for now. I'll try to do some arrangement this weekend and hopefully put the sand in as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM February 3, 2015 Share February 3, 2015 staying bare bottom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind February 3, 2015 Share February 3, 2015 Looks good. What type of fish are you going to add? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward February 3, 2015 Author Share February 3, 2015 staying bare bottom? No. Planning for sand. With the tank being fairly small I can't have a lot of big free-swimming fish so I want to focus on smaller fish including sand-sifting gobies, jawfish, pistol shrimp, etc. So sandbed definitely needed Once I arrange the rock on the bottom of the tank, I'll fill in the sand around the rock that way anything digging in the tank can't knock over the rock and risk scratching the acrylic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward February 3, 2015 Author Share February 3, 2015 Looks good. What type of fish are you going to add? Looking at a smaller tang - yellow or purple, couple wrasses, pygmy angel or two, clownfish w/ RBTA, diamond goby, watchman goby, pistol shrimp, some sort of jawfish, probably a butterfly like a copperband. That's at least my initial list, need to do a little research and ensure I get things that all stay fairly small and also need to consider bioload for actual final stocklist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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