Plumbing And Hardware Rebuild For Fw- Advice Sought

[RipSlider]

Hello folks.

Not posted on here for a while, but am just about to move house, and starting to plan for my tank being rebuilt, and I'm struggling to sort out the equipment list in my head.

Tank is about 1,100l.

Current kit:
4x t5 lights
1x Fluval FX5 for filtration
1x Vtech UV light

de-commissioned:
Ehiem fluid bed filter


When I first set the tank up, water was drawn out of the tank, into the filter ( at that time an Eheim Pro III ) and then was split, 1/2 to the FBF and 1/2 to the UV unit. total of two exits and two return points. ( filter supplied all the pressure )

Then my Pro III when pop ( actually went Bang, and water went everywhere, ( ask my wife what happens if you drop a 7lb lump hammer on top of a running filter... sigh )) so I had to plumb in the fluval ( only big filter in stock at LFS ) and drop the FBF as no longer had enough pressure to drive it.


So, I'm not overly happy with the way the tank is set up, and as I'm moving, and want the tank at the next house to be good enough for Discus, I want to bring it back to a good quality again. Water stats are fine, but previously the tank was amazingly stable. Now I'm water changing every week, unlike before when it was every 3-4 weeks.


Becuase I'm a contractor, I'm often called away from home, even away from the country, at very short notice, so I want to have the tank set up in such a way that if I have delicate fish, they can withstand a few days of not getting water changes ( wife will feed, but not mess about with wet water )



When I re-build the tank after the move, it is going to be a gravel and peat bottom, with lots of oak leaves and bogwood pieces and fragments. I'm aiming for tea coloured, rather than a true black water system.

The current planned equipment list is as follows:

Definates:

filter 1 - Ehiem Pro III
Filter II - Ehiem Pro III

Fluid Bed - not the ehiem (deltec do one with an anti-flush back system, which it turn out is REALLY useful )

Ozone system + skimmer/bubbler out of tank to clear down ozone
ORP monitor

Auto-top up system + auto draining system.

Still thinking about:
Pressuried CO2 system - While there will not be a light getting through the tea coloured water, co2 will ensure, if I can link the solinoids up to a pH meter, a constant acidity - this needs a lot more thinking about.


OK, you'll see I have two filters in the list. After the nightmare that came from trying to find a big filter at 3:30 on a sunday afternoon before bank holiday, I have it in mind to have 2x filters, each running at 2/3 pressure. There would be some cunning plumbing so that if one DOES fail ( and with peat and leaves in the water, there is a highly likelyhood of failure ) then I can isolate this one, and let the other run at full pelt until I've got a replacement.


Right now, my tank is against the living room wall with the garage behind it, so I keep all the fltration in the garage with a few holes in the wall for pipes in and out.


At the new house, I'm applying the "holes in the wall" plan again ( yep, the missus LOVES me... ) but this time into a spare room down stairs, so I need to keep everything compact and then build a big cupboard or something similar around it.


OK, that's the plan. But, I'm struggling to see how it fits together, and if it will work.

Therefore, bearing all the above in mind, can any kind soul help me answer these questions:

1) Can I use the pressure from the filters to power the system, or do you think I will need an additional pump? If so, any guesses on what capacity

2) Any thoughts on the sequence of devices the water should flow through? Single line, or multiple routes, as with my current system?

3) As I want to ensure that there is not a huge amount of ozone actually getting to the tank itself, I want to vent it. This is commonly done with a skimmer, but I'm wondering if there is a better way of mixing ozone with water and then venting it than with a skimmer. It's not like I'll get any skimate out of it - it's a fresh water system. Is there a cheaper solution?

4) Can I put the sensor for the ORP meter in the return flow to the tank, and so keep it in the filtration cupboard or does it need to be in the tank itself? Do I really need an ORP meter if I'm flushing as much o3 as possible anyway?

5) Top up and draining: Water changes in such a big tank, right now, are OK, I can just run a hosepipe with a sand siphon at the end into the drain. This is not really practical at the new location, so Ideally I would like to set up an automated top up, and auto mated drain.

a) concept 1 is that the drain allows a constant, low volume tricckle of tank water to be removed. An auto top-up system then adds a constant trickle of brand new water back into the tank.

B) concept 2 is that I have some sort of flush point in the filtration system where I can attach a hose and run the other end into the sink. I can then pump 20% of water out of the tank fairly easily. a resivior of ro + some de-clorinated tap water can then be used to pump clean water back into the tank.

i) Any thoughts on which is more practical
ii) any thoughts on which is more preferable ( in an ideal world )
iii) any thoughts on how to acheive either of these idea's?

6) Seeing as it looks like Aquatics Online will be getting a fairly sizable order anyway, is there anything useful that you think I've missed that I need to add in?. Remembering that the aim is to use technology to ensure that the tank is rock stable and suitable for discus?

7) How on earth am I going to plumb this altogether in a neat and compact manner? How do you go about planning something like this?

Many thanks for any inputs.

Steve

 

[andywg]

If you can set up a constant water change (say 20-100% per day) then you are guaranteed good water quality and pretty much all maintenance is taken care of already for you.

As for plumbing this sort of system, easiest way is to lose the Eheim filters, ditch any hope of massive amounts of plants, probably forget about CO2 and go for a sump bassed system. This way you just have one drain down to the sump which houses your filter media and then the pump pushes it back through the UV into the tank.

If you are draining downstairs and then back up most filter pumps aren't going to hack it, so you will want a decent pump. I would go with the skimmer as it always helps with good gas exchange. Rather than injecting CO2 to artificially keep the water soft and acidic, consider the use of RO to start with a blank slate for the water params.

The main choice for me would be the water system. You don't want to have a complicated system if you are going to be leaving it. If you have someone who could help then you have two solutions:

1) Set up with a constant RO drip into the main tank. Calculate the amount of water being turned over and how much RO-right (or similar product) needs to be added to prevent the water going too unstable and that way the only maintenance any oen would have to do is to once a week pour some chemicals into the tank (or sump) and if you run a wet dry sump, once a week you will have to rinse or replace the filter wool above the trickle tower. That would be it, the system will do the rest for you.

As the water drains into the tank it will fill up. By having a drain in the sump, once the system is at its optimum fill level then extra water added will cause the sump to start draining.

2) Rather than a constant drain, set up a large water container above the tank (loft?) that can store treated water. From this have a pipe which can run down and drain into the main display tank. Still have the drain for the maximum level in the sump and then opnce a week open the tap from the higher vat so water drains into the display tank and then the sump tank. The sump level will rise and overflow into the waste.


I myself am more of a fan of number 1. In theory, if you set the through flow level high enough (and you aren't on a water meter) then you could do away with filters. however, the cost of chemicals and heating of the water would probably make this prohibitive.

 

[RipSlider]

To be honest, I really want to stay away from a sump based system.

The reason is two-fold:
1) sumps are noisy beasts at the drainage weir, and the tank will be in the living room, so I want it to be silent.

2) If I have a system of discrete components, i use the eheim tap connectors to allow me to remove any single item in the system with no mess/water etc etc ( wife has chosen new carpets and I've been placed under strict instructions...)

I also want to keep the plants. The target for the tank is discus, and I can't stand discus being in bare tanks. The naurally live in roots and plants, and I want mine to mimic the biptope as much as possible.


For the water drain/auto top up, are there any articles that have been written about them, with pictures and diagrams. I know that the systems exist, but I haven't seen how they are laid out.

Many thanks indeed.

Steve