As many of you are aware I have been unavailable for the past little bit to work on a little project here so I thought I would share some pics of the progress so far.
It all started with a discussion and a VERY rough sketch quite some time ago over coffee or redbull or in all probability, both :)
Here are the excellent drawings. Yes i know the writing looks like a 2 years old wrote it but that what happens when you try and write sideways (and I thought writing upside down was hard....). We didn't exactly stick to these plans but when there are other people helping you it certainly does help to get something down on paper to try and give them a glimps of the nice CAD drawing that you have in your head.
These are plans for a 4'x10'x1' bed and 2 36"x40"x12" beds plus one 8'x1'x1' sump and one 8'x18"x12" sump.
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Once we had and idea of where the tanks would be going the next step was to get a good racking system to hold them. In the past we have built our own stands but for this project we wanted to use something a little more secure so we opted for a metal racking system. As we were purchasing used racking, it wasn't exactly in the best condition when we got it so we sanded it all down, sprayed it with an excellent grey Dupont primer than sprayed with Tremclad.
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Here is a pic of part of the old system as we started to tear it down.
Note here that the black line into the right side of the tank is the return line from the display tank upstairs.
Once the system was removed we had to reroute the plumbing to the 8' system on the other side of the room. We removed the ventaltion system and Trina made me remove the powerwall of redbull :) We also of course repainted the entire place while the walls were free.
We then moved the racking system in and started putting the 36" x 40" x 12" tanks. Its always good to put your civil engineer to work cleaning tanks too ;)
He didnt do as good of a job though as Sylvain.
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Now for the 4'x10' tank we opted to paint the racking system black as opposed to white in order to be able to easily differentiate to people by saying "in the black system" or "in the white system". Getting this racking system in was fun. Originally the vertical beans were significantly taller than we required so we had to use a Stihl saw to cut them down to size. Then file the sharp egdes off, sand them and paint them. Once assembled we purchased 1" thick styrofoam to go under the bottom panes of glass for the middle rack, we used an ebony stain on the laminated 3/4" plywood for the bottom rack where the sumps will be going and the top rack is still currently empty.
As space was so limited with all of the construction going on, one of the 8' tanks had to be placed ontop of where the coral bed would go.
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As the bottom panes for glass were too large to be brought down in one piece, two pieces had to be used and joined in the center with another piece of 12" wide 12mm glass. Silicone was liberally applied and in the joing and all over the joining piece and we even stood on the panes of glass to try and apply more force.
In order to bring in the 120"x12" side panels of glass for the 300g the window needed to be removed and a frame was constructed to support the glass and make moving the heavy panel in much easier. Luckily the white system was there and it came in qute handy to rest the frame on once we got it inside.
We started constructing this aquarium by siliconing in one of the front panels then siliconing in the side panel. As you can see in the pic there are 4 2.5" holes drilled in each end of this tank. This is to acomodate 2 overflows and 2 closed loop feed lines to the closed loop which will be a Barracuda pushing 4500gph through three returns on the other side of the tank. As you can see in the picture we also opted for triangular bracing in the centrel of the 10" section as opposed to euro bracing due to the lighting that we are planning on running for the systen.
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A few hours later are almost all of the glass was in place. The only thing that is left now is to add one moe triangular brackets. In this pic all of the joints were being inspected to ensure that there were no air bubbles.
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Redbelly that is just sick! :D Awesome set-up amazing construction. You stood on that glass to help it adhere? You do not wiegh enough should have called a couple of us bigger members... LOL For a Timmies I'd have sat on it... LMAO Looking forward to more pics. One day like to see it up close & in person. Again great job!
LOL, Yeah I dont think I was contributing much in terms of weight for the panel. For weight overnight we filled a 55g aquarium on top of the seam as it was by far the heaviest item we could put on it overnight.
Here is a pic of Pat starting to drill one of many holes that he drilled for our new system.
For sumps we used 2 of my eight foot tanks. The water enters in the 8'x1'x1' tank which will be a giant fuge then exits through 2 1.5" holes where it flow back across a 8'x18"x12" tank. The second tank will be entirely for evaporation on the 4'x10' bed and both 3'x40" tanks.
In order to allow the water level to be able to drop as low as possible, Sniggir drilled 4 holes in the bottom the the second sump. 2 holes feed a Little Giant 3 that is the return pump for both of the 3'x40" tanks. The other 2 holes feed another Little Giant 3 that will be the return pump for the 4'x10' bed. We also possitioned the holes so that there is still a tubular steel beam running in between the holes across the bed to be sure they were properly supported.
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Here I am under the tanks tightening bulkheads and installing plumbing.
We used 1.5" bulkheads and 1.5" lines almost right upto the pump inorder to try and resistance for the pumps. We also installed a length of spa flex on the input and output side of the pumps in order to try and reduce the transmission of vibration. And of course we used unions and true union ball valves to make the removal of pumps for service a possible
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And here are the return and overflow lines for the 2 3'x40" tanks.
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Wooooohooooo!!!!
Looking goood... Way to go Redbelly :D
I like, I like :)
Would you mind telling me where you get the plumbing parts? Pipes, flexihose, valves, etc? I'm going to do the plumbing for my 225 gal system so I'd appreciate this info. Thanks.
Why thank you Barabe!
I supplied all of my plumbing actually :) Its all plumbing that I carry and sell:
http://reefcanada.com/shop/index.php?cPath=48&osCsid=f98685579b3e6a5068c7299896554bf1
And I usually have a lot more parts such as the true union ball valves and spa flex in stock although they are not listed on the site.
Looking good. Any more updates?
When are you guys planning on opening up again?
its just ok, nothing to spectacular people lol
i was talking to pat this evening and he was just filling up the coral bed with water checking for leaks...but the setup is gorgeous absolutely ridiculous actually. i'd like to see some more pics but i guess i will be seeing you tomorrow anyways...
Ok here are some updates. For the 4' x 10' coral bed, on the ends we had to be VERY careful with how long the bulkheads stuck out as we need them to be very short so the white bulkheads were the only option. First we had to use a dremel to remove all of the threads so that they would be a slip fit.
Here is also a pick from before and after.
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Now three of the bulkhead are used on the closed loop with a sequence Barracuda and 1 bulkhead is needed for the little giant return pump. All 4 need to be reduced to 1". To do this, a 1.5" to 1" sleeve is used but first it needed to be ground shorter for length constraints.
Here is a pic before, during grinding, an after comparison, the mess I made in grinding 1 sleeve, and the final product in comparison to the original bulkhead.
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Now it is time to plumb in the closed loop tubing. For the closed loop we used a Sequence Barracuda which is 4500gph of flow through three outputs each with their own true union ball valve to control the flow.
Here is a pic of the finish product of all the bulkheads. You can see here why the bulkheads need to be so short, otherise they would extend beyond the end of the stand.
And here I am installing the input for the Barracuda. We used some spa flex here to reduce the potential noice caused by vibration of such a large pump.
And here is a straight up pic of the finished product of both the overflows and the output from the closed loop. If you were on the floor looking straight up this is what it would look like.
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Now getting out from under there after plumbing yourself it isnt easy but getting out while your friend takes pic's instead of helping is even harder ;)
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With all of the plumbing done we started to add water. It took several days with the RO running 24/7 but the 4' x 10' bed was filled and we started to add salt... by the bucket full.
Also it took several days of adjusting the true union ball valves in order to optimize the flow within the tank. When we first turned on the Barracuda we had a whirlpool :)
Here is a pic of the flow now with only the Barracuda running. The return pump isnt even running yet nor are any of the Seio 2600's.
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:D it still makes me lol to see you get out of there, there no way that i would get out or even in there ;D this is what makes this hobby so much fun... fun times :D :D :D :D
WOW congrats Pat that is just sick! An amazing set-up... the flow looks like an ocean pool.
You were built for that plumbing job... hey what do expect from friends anyways... of course a good laugh at your expense is always a topper! LOL ;D
Well it is about time I updated this thread. The main tank is up and running and in perfect thread but as I just started the skimmer that I built yesterday I figured now would be a good time to post the pics to show how i built it :)
I started with a real POS skimmer that I picked up from a fellow reefer. Based on the water level that was drawn on the skimmer I dont think he ever really got it to work properly and one quick look at the design and its not hard to figure out why. The skimmer goes from 6" to 4" to 1.5" all with sharp 90 degree angels that just distroy bubble production. The beckett injector could also not be removed for cleaning and becketts should be removed and cleaned once a week to ensure proper operation. That being said it was a good deal for the skimmer and the tubes were well work it. So i did the only thing i could, got out the saw and hacked the skimmer into pieces!
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Now with the tubes cut it came time to start building the box for the new skimmer. For this skimmer we wanted to move away from a beckett injector skimmer due to the mainenance that they require and due to the fact that they require a very large power hungry pump to feed each injector used. So we decided to build a recirculation style skimmer that uses 2 Octopus 3000 pumps with venturi's feeding needle wheels. We also wanted the space that it could be expanded and add a second tower to the skimmer should the need ever arrise. Our plans for the second tower would be to run a single needle wheel pump but to run the modified laguna or red dragon pump used on the bubble king skimmers. Unfortunately we did not take a pic of the extra large box that before we started adding too it but you can see it in later pics.
After a great many hours designing, drawing, redrawing and drinking lots of coffee a design was finally settled upon. The pumps would be mounted on the side of the box and draw water from the bottom of the skimmer below a deviding plate. The water would then be injected with air and be pumped above the deviding plate and into a 6" tube ontop of which was a bubble difuser plate to reduce turbulance. As the water would be exiting the skimmer from below the devider plate ans as water was being taken from below the plate and injected above the plate some holes obviously had to be made in the plate.
The first step here was to build the devider plate. So the chop saw was used to cut all the acrylic down to size and the drill press came in very handy for drilling a series of large holes for the water to return from the top side of the plate to the lower side of the plate.
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Now it came time to design the output of the pumps into the bubble diffuser column. One train of thought was to just have the water enter going straight up but this might create a blast is current pointing directly at the bubble plate. The second school of thought was to have water enter the column in just a 90 degree elbow but a T was decided on as it would breakup the flow into 2 outputs aka more diffused flow. Plus we thought that the opposing flows would balance eachother out and reduce turbulence, which they did :)
Here is a pic of a single T that was modified slightly on the grinder. By making the output of the T on about a 45 degree angle it created agreater space between the T and the cylinder wall that it would soon be going in. Plus being at 45 degrees means a larger opening = more diffused output = reduced turbulence.
The next pix here shows the 2 T's that would soon be the outputs to the 2 octopus pumps in the diffuser column.
And the final pic shows a top view of the layout of the divider plate. You can see another hole marked in the top left of the plate which will be drilled for the output water of the skimmer. The output water of the skimmer is taken from the very bottom to decrease the number of micro bubble coming out of the skimmer.
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With the protective plastic removed from the devider plate, here is a pic of the output T's inside the diffuser column.
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Now came the fun part. The bubble diffuser plate for the top of the column. This piece took a fair amount of time to layout and a lot of drilling to get it just right. The plate was then attached to the tube and the excess material from the plate was removed with a router.
In the last pic here you can see a top view of the bubble diffuser plate and below you can see the modified output T's where the water will be injected into this column.
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