58 Gallon Re-design

[reef_dude76]

I am writing this post for two reasons. First, so newbies in the hobby can learn from my mistakes and hopefully not make the same ones and second, to run my re-design plans by some more knowledgeable eyes to look for ways to improve it.

Just like the title says, I am in the process of re-doing my 58 gallon Oceanic reef ready tank. I had kept it, with limited sucess, for the last 7 years prior to this re-design. Initially, it was setup with a 4 inch DSB (don't hate me for that one ), 60 pounds of Fiji live rock, 1 175W 10K MH, 2 55W actinc 03 PC, 25 gallon sump with a refugium, main pump was a Mag 5, and CPR SR4 skimmer.

I was never really happy with the way the tank turned out, after it had been up and running for a couple of years. It never looked like any of the tanks I saw in pictures, or that were featured here as tank of the month. After doing alot of research on this site and reading many books and articles on reefkeeping I think have been able to identify several beginner mistakes that I made.

First, the plumbing was a mess. I had no durso or any kind of formal drain other than a fitting to hold the perforated plastic tube that originally came with the setup. I also had the plumbing dumping directly into the sump with no formal termintion to the drain. Thus, the tank sounded like Niagra Falls most of the time.

Next, I had the draining overflow water emptying into the drain portion of the sump, and flowing directly into the refugium before flowing into the return chamber where my skimmer and return pump was located. Thus, all the dirty water was allowing the detrius to settle out in the refugium and then was either pumped into the skimmer or back to the tank, not a very efficient means of nutrient export or use of the skimmer.

This allowed the refugium to turn into a "crap trap" and combined with inefficinet skimming, and poor nurtient export was the main culprit in why my nitrate and phosphate levels were always so high, why I always had a minor algae problem and why I was never able to keep sps or clams for very long.

The other big problem I now see in retrospect is was that my main pump (a mag 5) was horribly under powered for what I was tring to do. Using the head calculator here on RC has allowed me to estimate that I was likely turning over about 4 times my tank volume an hour (and I was always wondering why my sps never did well )

A final issue I noted was that I had no valves of any kind in the plumbing circuit to allow for fine adjustment of flow into or out of the overflow box, sump, or back to the tank.

After all that, here is my new design, reusing some of the same equipment in hopefully a more efficient way.

Starting from the overflow box, the drain runs through a 1 inch bulkhead which has been fitted with a 1 1/4 inch durso drain built out of schedule 26 or thin walled pvc (I chose this because the ID of the thin wall is almost the exact size of 1 1/2" schedule 40 pvc but is lighter and supposedly drains better in the durso application). The drain then runs to a 1 1/4" ball valve and continues through two 45 degree elbows to the sump where it terminates into a 2" Tee turned on its end. This is to accomplish slowing the water flow down by running into a larger diameter pipe and allowing time for trapped air to exit the top of the Tee while the water flows out the bottom of the Tee. The whole drain is built out of thin walled 1 1/4" PVC to encourage good and QUIET flow.

Next the water is pumped into the skimmer from the drain chamber of the sump. The skimmer is now located in the chamber that used to be the refugium and the discharge water from the skimmer is directed back to the darin chamber of the sump to allow the skimmer a second and even third crack at skimming the water.

Water then flows into the skimmer chamber and a portion is pumped into a CPR HOB refugium that will be hanging on the side of the sump wall. It drains back to the skimmer chamber for a second recycling effect (allowing a portion of the water that just passed through the refugium to pass again increasing nutrient export through macro algae cultivation).

Water then flows into the return chamber and is pumped via a Little Giant 3MDQX-SC pump back to the tank through 1" thin walled PVC. The termination of the return line is built out of LOC-line with a Y adaptor allowing two LOC-line terminations, both of which have a 3' flare fitting on them. According to the head calculator on this site I sould now be turning over about 14-15 times the tank volume an hour with a flow rate of 863 gph.

Lighting will likely still be 1 175W 10K MH and 2 55W Actinic 03 PC, though I may make a change to an HQI fixture in the future. At the moment, I want to experiment with the new setup under my old lighting setup to see if I notice better growth and overall health of my corals and the system.

Sorry for the length, but like I said in the beginning I wanted to share my past experience for all the new reefers out there trying to learn and grow in this awsome hobby.

Pics of the setup will be posted tonight.
Thanks for reading the whole thing

[MeuserReef]

Looking forward to seeing some pics!! I think you will see a difference with the increased flow rate.

-Josh

[Airman]

RD,

Before and after pics would be great.

[Chelsey]

Congrats on your research and making the changes necessary to have a great tank I would love to see some pics and I'll definately be following this thread

[MyMonkey]

I too am anticipating this thread. Another 58, WOOHOO!

[reef_dude76]

Here are the pics as promised.

First, is a full tank shot before any of the major assembly began. It is located in my home office.


Next is a pic of the overflow after I had dry fit the durso together.



This is a pic of the sump and the 3MDQX-SC as I was working out placement in the sump.

[reef_dude76]

This is another shot of the pump and sump as I was figuring out placement.


Here is the plumbing after installing the gate valve and the rest of the return line to the tank. The pump intak is dry fit at this point.

Another angle of the same stage of assembly.

[reef_dude76]

Next, a shot of the whole system plumbed.



This is a close up of the skimmer output back to the drain chamber of the sump, and the Tee fitting to act in quieting the water flow into the sump.

Here is a shot of the fully assembled drain and return lines.

This is a pic of the split LOC-line return plumbing and flare nozzles.


What does everyone think?

[reef_dude76]

I've been looking for some before pics of the tank when it was setup before this rebuild. As I mentioned before, it was not very impressive and thus far I haven't been able to find any pics that I saved. I will keep looking though.

[TomRep]

I don't know that I would have used a gate valve on the pump return. Gate valves are very restictive. Ball valve would have been a better choice in my opinion.
Tom

[reef_dude76]

The gate valve was used to fine tune the pump output if needed. In looking at implementing either a ball or gate valve, it was brought to my attention that ball valves are good for course adjustment of flow, but lack the precision to fine tune flow if needed.

[reef_dude76]

With construction complete, I will be moving some new friends into their home this evening. Will get some new pics when I'm done.

[MyMonkey]

Very nice plumbing. My 58 is waiting for the installation of my Overflow/Sump/fuge etc... Has been waiting for a long while though. Glad to see yours looking great.

[reef_dude76]

MyMonkey: Thanks for the plumbing compliment. I wish I could find some "before" pics of the old setup and how messy the plumbing and sump setup was.

[reef_dude76]

Ok, did my system test last night and I have some problems I need help figuring out.

1. When I turned the 3MDQX-SC on it was loud and got very warm very fast. I know that QUIET is in the ear of the listener and one persons quiet is not the same as another person's, but this pump was loud. This concerned me as when I was looking at pumps other hobbyists had given me the impression that this pump should be running quieter than was my experience last night. Also, I was under the impression that the pump should run fairly cool, again cool being relative, but I cou8ld SMELL the pump starting to burn.

I assume the problem is my intake, which you can see in the above pics. I think I have a flow restriction to the intake side of the pump. The plumbing is 1" thin wall pvc with 2 90 degree elbows and a 1 1/4" union coupling. I am planning to rebuild it with 1 1/2" pipe and elbows and use a 1 1/2" union. I hope this solves the problem unless others have any advice. By the way the input to the pump is 1" FT and the output is 1" MT.

[reef_dude76]

2. Microbubbles galore. They are coming from the skimmer output drain that runs back to the sump, and from the main drain from the tank. I added a 2 " pvc end to the top and bottom of the 2" Tee at the termination of my drain in the sump which helped some. Also, at the time of the test I did not have the water level as high as it should be. I have the the drain designed so that the water level of the sump should be even with or just above the mid potion of the 2" TEE and it was below it last night. I'm hoping by raising the water level this will cut down some of the microbubbles, but how do you get rid of the rest? I have been thinking of putting some filter bags with carbon in the sump anyway, could I use these to trap some of the bubbles as the flow out of the center chamber of my sump to the return chamber?

3. The output line from my skimmer back to the sump gurgles. As you can see from the above pics, the return line rises from the base of the skimmer then Tees to a larger diameter pipe on the top, and the 1" return line to the sump on the side. The larger pipe on the top of the Tee was added during my old setup, as water kept overflowing the top of the fitting (the tee came with the skimmer and had a piece of 1" pvc attached to it which I removed and added the larger pvc). This took care of the problem in my old system and the drain was silent, now it gurgles. What can I do to fix it?

[reef_dude76]

Come on, anyone feel like helping out!!

[reef_dude76]

Guess, I can talk to myself on this thread.

Well, I changed out the 3MDQX-SC for a 2MDQX-SC and that seems to have taken care of the horrible pump noise the 3MDQX was making, this I can only conclude that the intake plumbing was restricting the flow into the pump.

Since I decreased the flow through the sump from 15 to 9 times the tank vloume per hour, the microbubbles have decreased dramatically. I also put a few media bags with carbon in the sump as well as some LR in the drain chamber of the sump to give the bubbles somemore surface area on which to impact and burst.

Now I am wanting to boost the flow either by builing a closed loop or adding some powerheads (either some SEIO's or a Tunze stream). Anyone with experience with any of these please help. I'm not sure that a 58 will accomidate a Tunze's output. I have been considering SEIO's mostly cause I'm not sure how I would go about pluming the closed loop since both the intake and return will need to go up and over the back wall of the tank.

[miztic]

Once the closed loop is filled with water, going over the edge of the tank is not an issue at all, thats how my current tank is plumbed.
only reason to go with the seio/tunze is to not have to deal with any plumbing at all, just pop it in, I will be using a tunze on my new tank.

its really up to you, if you think the extra $$ is worth not dealing with plumbing.

edit: the tunze/seio type pumps do have some really nice wide flow, its moving the sand around a little in my 90.

[reef_dude76]

miztic: At the moment I am leaning towards SEIO or Tunze do to not having enough space to locate a CL pump.

What size Tunze do you have in your 90?

[reef_dude76]

Oh and can you use a wavemaker with the SEIO's?

[miztic]

I have the smallest tunze i could find, the 6060, supposed to be rated at 1500gph.
not sure about the seios, haven't read up on them much..

[reef_dude76]

Here are some updateed pic of the system.
Here is the tank after adding some LR from my 20 gallon nano that was not fairing too well due to poor lighting. I haven;t go the MH up and running yet.


This is the tank after starting up the 3MDQX-SC. It was about an hour after this pic was taken that the pump started making a horrible noise, the microbubbles showed up, and the pump started burning.

[reef_dude76]

I shut down the 3MDQX-SC and took it back to the LFS and traded it back for a 2MDQX-SC. THis next pic is after installing the new pump and the HOB refugium in the sump.


A shot of the sump and refugium again.


Changing the pump dropped my turn over from 15 to 8 times the tank volume an hour. I plan to boost the flow back up using sa couple SEIO pumps. The pump change solved alot of my microbubble problem however.

Here is the most recent pic of the tank.

Another shot.

And one more

[reef_dude76]

Ok, well ... I haven't gotten the response that I had hoped when I decided to post a photo log of my rebuild. Just for my benefit, what makes a good thread that other members will want to take part in? I figured I'd at least get a response for the stupid mistake of oversizing my pump, but nothing. Just wondering if there is some edquite that I breached accounting for the low response rate. Are photo logs, and threads about rebuilds done too mush and therefore of less interest?

Just wondering.