Tank Overhaul Time

[pmb_67]

Hi all,

Back here after a bit of an absence... tough to find time when everything fishy's going well to wander around the forums, especially with a 2-year old saying "Daddy, play" all the time...

Anyway, have finally got fed up with my tank's overflow (Rena Aqualife with a Tunze 1074) constantly losing siphon in one of the tubes (bought a second long ago) of late. (As an aside - any idea why an overflow that flowed consistently with 2 tubes would stop? My guess is lower flow back from the return pump to the tank but not sure why that would be). Am also fed up fiddling around in a 38cm x 38cm footprint sump, i.e. the biggest thing you can get in a Rena cabinet (that comes with the 150cm tank). So, my proposed solution is - get a new cabinet/stand with more sump space, drill the tank wall and fit a suitable "overflow" without siphon, and both problems solved. Of course, I wouldn't be posting just to blather away if I didn't have a few questions...

(1) Cabinet - thinking of making my own as it's soooo pricey getting one made. I'm looking at 25mm marine plywood - could us 18mm as most cabinets are made from but am prepared to sacrifice 7mm a few times to get almost 40% more strength (or thickness, at least). Gonna yacht varnish it daily from Christmas to Easter (well, not quite, but a lot) and then wondered about putting a bead of aquarium sealant along all the joins (wet side, at least). As for design, am looking at a basic box design, with 2 internal walls for additional support, still leaving a roughly 3-foot section in the middle for the sump - the roughly 1 foot wide side sections will contain the water top-up jerry can on one side, and dosing box & pump along with nets, glass scraper, tongs, food, other gubbins in the other side. Holes in rear wall of cabinet for cables and piping to be fitted with desk cable tidies (sealant-ed in place) to protect cut surfaces. All that sound ok?

(2) Sump - need to spend a little more time on design research, but will contain heaters, skimmer plus reactors for NP pellets and Rowaphos. Would also like some sort of live rock and/or mud and/or sand chamber, v difficult to choose though. One big question - as I have a space that is around twice as long as it is wide (90 x 45cm, bit less if I leave some wiggle room) I'm wondering about an alternate design to "water in one end, out the other" - specifically, putting a wall up 3/4s of the middle of the sump and having water in one corner, along the back, round the end and back to the corner nearest the first one - so in effect a 180x22.5 cm sump rather than 90x45. Would resulting flow through the sump be too fast (same volume through half the width)?

(3) Overflow - initial thoughts were stay Tunze and switch to the 1075 box which gets plumbed through the tank wall, but one of the guys from Cov Aquatics at the fish show in London a few weeks back suggested the Xaqua INOUT Wavemaker Overflow - anyone had any experience with that? It looks a lot more discreet than the big Tunze box, but I'm concerned about the "Wavemaker" bit as that seems to imply the water flow will pulse in and out rather than just, well, flow.

Right, that's about all for now. Will try to add images when I can, but struggling to find the right button - my pics aren't online anywhere so can't use the URL thingmy.

All comments welcome!

Thanks,

Paul

 

[lljdma06]

Hi all,

Back here after a bit of an absence... tough to find time when everything fishy's going well to wander around the forums, especially with a 2-year old saying "Daddy, play" all the time...

Good to have you back and that's too cute! I like 2-year olds.

Anyway, have finally got fed up with my tank's overflow (Rena Aqualife with a Tunze 1074) constantly losing siphon in one of the tubes (bought a second long ago) of late. (As an aside - any idea why an overflow that flowed consistently with 2 tubes would stop? My guess is lower flow back from the return pump to the tank but not sure why that would be). Am also fed up fiddling around in a 38cm x 38cm footprint sump, i.e. the biggest thing you can get in a Rena cabinet (that comes with the 150cm tank). So, my proposed solution is - get a new cabinet/stand with more sump space, drill the tank wall and fit a suitable "overflow" without siphon, and both problems solved. Of course, I wouldn't be posting just to blather away if I didn't have a few questions...

Unfortunately your questions are right in the weakest areas of the hobby for me, but I'll do my best and I may ask a few people for help.

(1) Cabinet - thinking of making my own as it's soooo pricey getting one made. I'm looking at 25mm marine plywood - could us 18mm as most cabinets are made from but am prepared to sacrifice 7mm a few times to get almost 40% more strength (or thickness, at least). Gonna yacht varnish it daily from Christmas to Easter (well, not quite, but a lot) and then wondered about putting a bead of aquarium sealant along all the joins (wet side, at least). As for design, am looking at a basic box design, with 2 internal walls for additional support, still leaving a roughly 3-foot section in the middle for the sump - the roughly 1 foot wide side sections will contain the water top-up jerry can on one side, and dosing box & pump along with nets, glass scraper, tongs, food, other gubbins in the other side. Holes in rear wall of cabinet for cables and piping to be fitted with desk cable tidies (sealant-ed in place) to protect cut surfaces. All that sound ok?

It sounds ok to me, just be sure that the shelving has the strength to sustain the items (jerry can, sump) when they are filled with water. Also make sure you have room in the back when calculating your dimensions. If you use the sealant, you can't access the joint anymore, that may be cause for concern to me. I'm sorry, I'm just shooting ideas out there. I know nothing about cabinetry, but I know a thing or two about stuff going wrong. It sounds like an excellent plan. I'd actually post the cabinet specs in the general hardware section.

(2) Sump - need to spend a little more time on design research, but will contain heaters, skimmer plus reactors for NP pellets and Rowaphos. Would also like some sort of live rock and/or mud and/or sand chamber, v difficult to choose though. One big question - as I have a space that is around twice as long as it is wide (90 x 45cm, bit less if I leave some wiggle room) I'm wondering about an alternate design to "water in one end, out the other" - specifically, putting a wall up 3/4s of the middle of the sump and having water in one corner, along the back, round the end and back to the corner nearest the first one - so in effect a 180x22.5 cm sump rather than 90x45. Would resulting flow through the sump be too fast (same volume through half the width)?

This is a big sump, ever thought about making it a display/refugium sump? That might be an interesting idea and you'd get some great nutrient export out of the macro algae that you put in there. As for the hardware aspect, I can't really comment. I wish I knew more on sumps.

(3) Overflow - initial thoughts were stay Tunze and switch to the 1075 box which gets plumbed through the tank wall, but one of the guys from Cov Aquatics at the fish show in London a few weeks back suggested the Xaqua INOUT Wavemaker Overflow - anyone had any experience with that? It looks a lot more discreet than the big Tunze box, but I'm concerned about the "Wavemaker" bit as that seems to imply the water flow will pulse in and out rather than just, well, flow.

That would be a concern for me as well, but wait until a person who's more hardware-inclined to pop in.

Right, that's about all for now. Will try to add images when I can, but struggling to find the right button - my pics aren't online anywhere so can't use the URL thingmy.

I'm not sure if I see the right button either and I looked when I was answering your post, but I swear by this site. It's great, been using it for years and if you have a smart phone with apps, you can upload directly to the site from your phone. Hahaha, half the pictures I upload onto TFF are from my iphone.

http/photobucket.com/

So nice to have you back, Paul, it really is. I remember your system fondly.

 

[pmb_67]

Thanks for the tips - will start compiling monster book of ideas to peruse before finalising the design...

On the sump contents front, I'd kind of decided to skip the macroalgae thing - I got into NP pellets (the Deltec/D-D ones, can't remember the exact name) as the 'fuge area in my current sump is about 6 inches by 6 inches, enough for a clump of chaeto to roll around a bit but not really doing a huge amount for nutrient export I think. Anyways, ever since I added the NP pellet reactor I've had almost zero nitrate and zero phosphate - haven't had to change the Rowaphos in months, it's there more to mop up anything the NP doesn't.

This of course leaves the burning question, what to do with the extra sump volume I have when I have a new bigger sump? I don't like the sound of deep sand beds, the crud that accumulates in even half an inch of sand on the tank bottom just makes me scared of having inches of the stuff. Similarly, thought about a whole lot of LR rubble but wondering if that won't just get all mucky as well. What I'd really like is a place to rear lots of "natural" critters for the main tank's occupants to eat - it does look like they've picked the rockwork (~60kg in 400l tank) clean of any kind of pods etc. Would some good quality, ungrazed LR do for that?

Paul

 

[pmb_67]

Hmmm, replying to myself - must be going mad. Or is that madder?

Anyway, I've been wondering a bit more about this whole outlet change thing. I currently use the Tunze 1074 overflow but am switching away - was looking at drilling the back wall (or maybe a side?) to accommodate Tunze's 1076 outlet, but am now thinking about drilling the bottom and converting to a "proper" drain with weir box etc. Resulting questions...

1) How wide does my drain need to be? According to another forum (http/www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/bulkhead-size-and-flow-86977.html) it looks like this is dependent on the flow I want *up* to the tank from the return pump. Now, checking out Tunze's manual for the 1073.04 return pump (I don't have shares or work for them, btw!) I'd get 1500 lph with a head of 1.5m - in practice head is a few cm smaller than that but I do also T off the return line back to the sump (via UV and heater). Anyway, sticking to 1500lph - or 400 US gallons per hour, which said site seems to be discussing, implies a drain of just 0.83 inches, or 21mm. This is WAY smaller than I'd thought... are there any issues with having too large a drain - excessive water noise? I was thinking 32mm pipe at least, if only because the current drain is down a 40mm hose so going much less than that wouldn't seem right. Oh, and I figured a wider drain would be much harder for a snail etc. to get stuck in

2) Are two drain lines better than one? If so, how close / far apart do they need to be?

3) How easy is it to create a weir box - i.e. an extra box with walls all the way to the floor of the tank, around the outlet - in an existing glass tank? You can assume at this point that I will transfer all occupants to holding tanks! Do I need to use glass, or will acrylic sheet be ok - assuming I can silicone it in place? Is thickness an issue, given there will be minimal pressure across the wall if the water height is the same inside and out? Found some 5mm black acrylic sheeting on eBay and wondering if that'll make a nice box, surrounded by live rock. Actually wondering if I could stick dried out live rock rubble to the walls before assembly... I already have a piece of weir comb I bought intending to use for my current sump but didn't use in the end.

4) Weir box / outlet placement - corner or central? Corner feels better in a sense of having it out of the way and less of a feature in the tank, but I wonder if its function would be compromised by any wave action (am planning to create some with new pumps at overhaul time). Also, I'm planning non-wet sections of cabinet at the two ends, with sump in the large middle section - so would prefer drains there... If I need 2 drains (under question 2 above), can they sit in the same weir box in the middle or would the 2 corners be better?

Have many more questions but will save them pending any thoughts on this lot first!

Thanks,

Paul

 

[lljdma06]

Hmmm, replying to myself - must be going mad. Or is that madder?

No, Paul, it's just terribly frustrating to me because I really can't help you. I run either planted marines (excellent nutrient export) or picos and I don't use any of the hardware you're describing.

From what I'm reading. You seem to know what you're doing. Keep chugging along and become a sump overflow expert, because I could sure use that here! LOLOL I went off for a bit to get the latest on pico care, so I understand if you need to run off to get your questions answered. I will offer my continued support in your endeavor and interest in your thread.