Outlining Setup Help

[LxOxSxI]

I'll consider that.

Yesterday I got some very nice finished wood to skirt my stand with from my work (they tore down a huge wood fixture and let me take it with the help of a friends dually) and today I got 8x 8' 2x4's... haven't made any progress other than that really since I'm mentally hung up on plumbing. It's difficult to design a stand without a goal in my mind for the plumbing. I guess I need to research closed/open loops more, and find detailed pics of them somewhere.

I also bought this today.

http/www.richontools.com/catalog/i144.html

Anyone have any advice on digi cam's for doing this journey. What megapixel/optical zoom etc do I REALLY need if i'm not planning on printing anything really. 1024x768 is as big as I think I'd ever want... any thoughts? Almost bought one at Best Buy today but they were out, and then next in line was around 300, no thanks.

Did my taxes too

 

[SkiFletch]

Taxes allready? Nice, my employer is a slow SOB, dont have my W-2s yet .

Anyway, you bought metric hole saws in the US? Interesting method I prolly woulda bought a standard measure set . Anyway we can work with those. Lets start with a sump tank itself and find one of those. I'd look for an All Glass 50g 36x18x18". That'll give you room to get the sump underneath the 4' length of the 120g with some room for supports and room to the side in case you want to run any external hardware like a decent return pump or any reactors. Then, start looking for bulkhead fittings that will work with the hole sizes you have available. Might be difficult to find metric ones in the states...

 

[LxOxSxI]

Anyway, you bought metric hole saws in the US? Interesting method

LxOxSxI
:stupid:


Great start. I didn't think that one through very well. 32mm is 1.259 inches, maybe we can work with that?

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok but lets work with 50mm = 1.96" instead cause nobody makes bulkheads with 1.25 inch holes required .

You could probably get unthreaded PVC bulkheads that are only 1.875 which would work at least for the drains. We wont be holding back much water pressure at all with the drain fittings, so even a slightly sloppy fit should do. You'll probably need to buy a proper hole saw if you want to do a closed loop for flowrate though. You could in theory find a metric bulkhead but no aquarium manufacturer seems to sell metric inlet strainers for it. I'm tryin to look up the part I have in mind, may have to call in a friend on this one .

 

[LxOxSxI]

Bah... I can just write this mistake off and try to find a standard bit. That place claims the mm=certain standard fittings but if you google the conversion they're rounding it off... so myself and richon are to blame. for instance:

50mm bit is 2 inches apparently yet not really, like you said 1.96". I'll look for actual standard bits when I get home tonight and see if i can find a cheap one to supplement us. Are we thinking 2 inch?


edit:
Also, since I can't buy everything in one spree, this is what I was thinknig of, quickly, for order of the fairly larger peices:

Tank
Sump/Refuge/Plumbing
RO/DI
Pump/PH's
Lighting
Skimmer
Rock/Sand

thoughts?

 

[LxOxSxI]

How do these differ... the T*T/S*T/etc?


Savko

 

[SkiFletch]

Tank
Sump/Refuge/Plumbing
RO/DI
Pump/PH's
Lighting
Skimmer
Rock/Sand

Thats a fantastic order of events . I'd buy a 2 3/8" hole saw since most of the 1.5" bulkheads use that hole saw size. From that site you linked to, you'd want probably two of part #8837930334, one for the drain and one for the closed loop. Make sure you dont overlook ebay. There are a lot of great suppliers out of hong-kong for cheap glass holesaws. Sure they may only cut 20 holes, but for like $10 or $15 shipped who cares? .

For a closed loop, I'd get an inlet strainer Like this. Most everybody running a CL on a 120g in my local club uses this thing for their inlet strainer, seems to work wonders.

Btw, on that site, "T" stands for Threaded and "S" stands for Slip

 

[LxOxSxI]

threaded and slip.. you're a genious!

so a sump loop would be referred to as open loop and and closed loop is just display -> outlet -> pump -> inlet? I suspect for just supplemental turnover?

we may need to go PM/IM with this for a bit, or i'm thinking this will get to 928734924 pages long before I can even move past pluming, lol. I'll post pertinent stuff in thead for anyone taggin along.

 

[SkiFletch]

ugh, nevermind, ygpm...

*grumble* hates messenger services *grumble*

 

[LxOxSxI]

ugh, nevermind, ygpm...

*grumble* hates messenger services *grumble*

Then let's skip it. I was just trying to save on FF's resources was all.

As I was sayin, so a sump loop would be referred to as open loop and and closed loop is just display -> outlet -> pump -> inlet? I suspect for just supplemental turnover?

 

[SkiFletch]

Correct, a closed loop is used for efficiently providing flowrate for an aquarium, typically a large one. a 120g tank requires 2400gph of turnover minimum. Achieving that flowrate can be done with big powerheads, or with a closed loop. Powerheads have a drawback of limiting your livestock choice (no soft mobile inverts without inlet foam), they clutter the aquarium, and providing random flowrate via either a wavebox or wave control timer is costly and longterm damaging to most pumps (pretty much except Tunze). With a closed loop, you've just got one larger centrifugal pump and you can use whats known as an "ocean motions" valve which basically alternates flow between different outlets. This gives a random chaotic sway to the tank common in actual reef environments that corals and fish are much more accustomed to. Also a closed loop allows you to hide the main inlet and all the outlets near the surface, thus having a "cleaner" look.

A sump is really used for filtration purposes. Flow through a sump can typically be about 5 times turnover per hour (600gph for you) for adequate filtration of the tank. Going significantly higher than that significantly increases your energy costs as pushing water up is harder than re-circulating water. Remember, it takes much more engergy to lug a bucket of water up the stairs than it does to spin that same bucket around inside your bathtub once (hope that makes sense as a way to understand the concept). While some people buy BIG return pumps and just have 20 times turnover through the sump itself, thus only needing one pump, its nowhere near as energy efficient, and if one pump fails, you can't limp along on the other until a replacement...

Edit: And just for clarification, I was just lashing out at the messenger service itself, not you . Forgot the password both to my msn account and the gmail address used to register it. Lotsa good that did me

 

[LxOxSxI]

Whew! Think we're makin progress here . I can conceptualize a closed/open loop now, and also understand the merits of your 4-way suggestion way back. At the moment, I'm thinking some sort of hybrid loop between:

This and robbhp's new tank/design here

At least it feels like a step forward

I'm also thinking a dart for the closed loop.

 

[SkiFletch]

The dart is a FANTASTIC pump for a closed loop, great choice . You've definitely made a big step forward. I like that setup used by thewuf there. Great hiding of the inlets via LR, nice trick . I might go with a hybrid sort of thing. Two outlets drilled through the tank coming through the rocks to stir the bottom and two inside the hood to stir the surface. You could cycle them any number of ways with the Ocean Motions, but I'd probably do a top/bottom cycle. Would give you some nice surge for the corals and fish

 

[andywg]

Correct, a closed loop is used for efficiently providing flowrate for an aquarium, typically a large one. a 120g tank requires 2400gph of turnover minimum. Achieving that flowrate can be done with big powerheads, or with a closed loop. Powerheads have a drawback of limiting your livestock choice (no soft mobile inverts without inlet foam), they clutter the aquarium, and providing random flowrate via either a wavebox or wave control timer is costly and longterm damaging to most pumps (pretty much except Tunze). With a closed loop, you've just got one larger centrifugal pump and you can use whats known as an "ocean motions" valve which basically alternates flow between different outlets. This gives a random chaotic sway to the tank common in actual reef environments that corals and fish are much more accustomed to. Also a closed loop allows you to hide the main inlet and all the outlets near the surface, thus having a "cleaner" look.

Though with the newer Tunze Nanostreams you can get that turnover from 2 powerheads (a Tunze Nano Stream 5500 gives 5,500 LPH or 1,453 US GPH for only 18W of power), each only 2.7" spheres and placed through magnets (and as such can be hidden behind rockwork).

Also, the nanostreams will give a far better flow of water that is spread over a wider area rather than the needle like movement of trasitional powerheads which is bad for corals. These pumps can be run on a Tunze multicontroller which alternates the flow to simulate a reef and while quieten down the flow for night time. The Tunze have as good an inlet protection as pretty much any inlet manifold for a closed loop as well.

There is also a way to avoid counting GPH when doing tank movements, and that is with a wavebox. This forces all the water in teh tank to one side, and then allows it to flow back to the other, thus simulating the movement of waves by pushing the polyps one way, and then the next. A wavebox is the best you can get for natural movement.

However, using Tunze comes at a price: the price! Tunze are fairly costly in Europe, and I understand even more so in the US, not to mention restricted availability. However, you do save a lot of money in the cost of running as they are very low power. Changing out the dart for, say, 3 Tunze Nano Streams would give you a total of 54W with 4,359GPH. More flow, for less electric, and that is without going in to how the Tunze seem to keep going forever.

 

[LxOxSxI]

1 step forward, 2 steps back

I do appreciate the alternate perspective to be honest. I'll be interested in hearing others' thoughts.

EDIT:

You musta meant the Tunze 6055 for that flowrate. $200 bones each... that stings a lil. I don't think they come with the magnets either, another $10.