The Reef Central Corner Club Thread

[Michael]

thanks TJ, thats a good idea the gravity fed sump from the fudge, i recon i could make that work, cheers, as for the electrics, i can deal with that, im going to move it all to the left hand side of the tank and put a piece of wood in front of it so its hidden, a bit of messing about but easily done, you recon the sand bed is a waste of time? well ok good point i suppose, i doubt i could get more than a 10 gallon fudge under there, 12 at a push, i suppose packed with cheato it will be just as effective

[Misled]

Hookup, the sea swirls don't use water pressure to operate. You can run as little as you want through them. There's an electric 120volt motor that provides the swirl. Mine is gonna only be 400-500 gph and used mainly to mix up the flow from the mj's.

[Hookup]

Yeah, I knew that, but swirling 400gph, over two devices, is 200gph and basically I figured pointless. Even one swirl at 400gph is a gentile breeze at best...

Agreed that they are better than not-using anything... You have way more xperience than I, so I'm completely open to suggestion/advise.

[Michael]

well i popped into the lfs this morning and they have never heard of the maxi-jet kit, im going to have to find it on line in the UK somewhere and hope its a decent price, too expensive and i will just buy another 6025

[Sk8r]

I have 2 sandbeds, one in the display, one in the sump, and like a fool I mounted an Iwaki 100 exterior pump directly to the sump/fuge. SO when the Iwaki ate a cerith and had to be be disassembled and cleaned, so did the fuge: buckets everywhere. And since the sandbed there had been stirred, I had to clean it: I washed it in water-change water, and reinstalled it and crossed my fingers I wouldn't get a cycle.
Nope. Sandbed #1 carried the recently washed sandbed #2, not a hiccup. Sandbed #2 immediately recolonized and layered, and I didn't get any problem at all. There IS something to be said for fuge sandbeds if you've got room for them. I keep about 20 lbs of sand and 20 lbs of rock down there in addition to the algae, and NEXT time I have to do this, I'm doing a cutoff valve between the pump and sump!

[kelso1980]

I need your help. there's someone locally selling some stuff and I'm in the process of planning a sump in my basement. Which pump should I get, if either?
Iwaki 100RLT or Reeflo Sequence 4200SEQ12-SW

Unfortunately I dont know much of anything about pumps. My new sump is acrylic, can I drill that?

[Misled]

Don't know about the pumps but drilling acrylic is easy. I always clamp a peice if 1 by behind where I'm drilling the hole and just use a hole saw on a good drill meant for drilling out door knob holes. Just let the bit do the work and don't force it.

[flipsideleo]

Just thought I'd share pics of the canopy I just built. I really hated building this thing.



Here's my lighting solution for now. I do plan on getting some 24" T5's in there, too. They are on order. I also ordered a couple of fans because my heating shot way up there!

[flipsideleo]

Oh... and this one's for Michael. LOL!

[Esquare]

Kelso, I just checked the specs on the 100rlt and that thing is a beast. I run a Panworld 150 (the 150 is rated at 1100 gph as opposed to the Iwaki 100 which is 1900 gph)and have a lot of extra flow that I have tees off back to the sump.

The Reeflo is 4200 gph so both pumps would appear to be way to big unless you have an enormous amount of head.

[Michael]

Originally posted by flipsideleo
Oh... and this one's for Michael. LOL!

hey leo glad your back posting again pal, were nearly at 600 posts and 8000 views, the threads doing well, its down to you guys as well, your sump area looks really big actually, my problem is the bloody centre brace, i wish i didnt have it under there

[Sk8r]

Re basement sumps and pumps: the Iwaki 100 is grossly overpowered for my tank. I have to valve it way back. You need big lines for it---and the catch-22 is that the lines/fittings exiting your typical reef tank are about 1" and 1 1/2" So I had to use a reducing connector to 'step down' my hose size to deal with the tank. I'd LIKE to have a faster downflow/bigger hose, but I'm stuck with the inbuilt diameter at the tank. The Iwaki 100 if opened up all the way would shoot water right out of my tank and hit the picture windows---and balancing the flow so that you don't have it pushing water in faster than the downflow can get it out was just a bit tricky.

I have about 15 feet of hose involved, 15 down, 15 up.
And here's another problem I ran into: sure, you can GET larger diameter hose, but the bigger the inner diameter, the thicker-walled and the STIFFER the stuff gets. I didn't use pipe for several reasons...1, if you get a little 'gallop' in the water flow, the hose may buck, but it won't shudder, vibrate, and sound like doomsday. 2. you can bend hose to fit your situation. 3. if you do get a clog, it's a lot easier to 'snake' a hose than a pipe.

on the last---I did. I had a nasty clog develop after a kalk accident and an alk test that went bad. I had calcium carbonate 'sand' in the line. You know that ribbed pricey black hose that's pretty stiff and is the divil to cut? Makes a great 'snake' for cleaning out a line in that situation. Ask sometime and I'll tell you the gruesome story about the alkalinity mess-up and wrongheaded problem-solving, but after 6 months of overdosing, say I had one heckuva mess, involving a spendy pump, a cerith snail, and 30 collective feet of hose...

The hose I found that did work pretty well is spaflex.

I suspect an Iwaki 50 would have done the job. The 100 I've got could send water to the fifth floor---if we had a fifth floor. I do know a mag 12 can't push to the second floor: I tried one while the Iwaki was getting de-snailed and de-calcified...a 6 hour job involving breaking down the sump. ugh. So I can't be precise about what kind of pump you need, because I don't know the length of your lines or the run you've got, but I can say for 15 feet, a Mag 12 isn't quite enough (though at the time, we still had one cursed cerith snail in that line) and an Iwaki 100 is massive overkill.

[Hookup]

My sump room is also in the basement, and I'm pushing an estimated 15feet of head pressure thru spa-flex hosing (it's the gods breakfast really).

I had a Dart, but that was horrible, at 15feet it was about 50gph! I looked for a pressure-biased pump and got the wahoo. It's capable of 1500gph at 12 feet, so I have it closed back and some re-circ flowing back to the sump and some (eventually) running my reactors.

I have a photo posted way back in this thread, but I'll throw it on here for quick reference. This is the dart, the Wahoo replaced it in the exact spot.

I would be looking only at pressure biased pumps for a basement return pump.

[Neurotech]

Would you use 1 sump for two tanks? What if one tank was sps and the other fowlr or lps?

[Hookup]

Personally, I would use the same sump... I do not think that you would want to put anything in either system that would hurt the other system... well that could go thru the sump.

I guess with FOWLR you can use some medications that are never allowed to go near your reef, but you do not have too...

The plus would be simpler to maintain, and if you maintain the entire system at SPS levels, the FOWLR will be happy...

[Esquare]

1 Sump

[kelso1980]

wow, I have a lot to learn about pumps...thank you for all of the info so far. it's very helpful

[Esquare]

Kelso,

There are several different views on return pumps. The two main schools of thought that I have seen are, size the pump to exactly what your overflow volume is so that is balanced, and the other is to have the pump capacity be higher then the overflow’s so that the additional flow my be harness for additional uses. I have extra flow on my system and tee it off to a manifold that allows me to run media reactors, RDSB etc. It’s pretty much personal preference.

Another idea (just to muddy the waters) is to have extra overflow capacity so that the extra return can be used as part of a water circulation system (similar to a closed loop).

[kelso1980]

ok...let's start at square one: how much flow SHOULD i have? 55g and 20g sump. The sump will be ~ 10 feet below the top of the tank.
I had a nano (no pump needed) and then when I bought my tank, a pump came with it so there was no need for research. Is there an informational website that you guys should direct me to so you dont have to explain it all?

[tgriffin]

I just came across the thread and thought I'd throw mine into the bunch. I recently bought two 60 gal uniqurium acrylic corner tanks. I am in the process of removing scratches from them. So far so good. I am going to set one up and try to sell the other one. My idea was to take a masonry saw and cut several pieces of my rock in half. I plan on taking the flat side and putting it up against the back sides of the aquarium. I'm hoping for a reef wall look. Anyone tried this, or seen this done?

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but plan on doing so this week.

Great Idea, and I know I'll learn from everyone's posts

[kelso1980]

WELCOME tgriffin!

[Hookup]

Originally posted by kelso1980
ok...let's start at square one: how much flow SHOULD i have? 55g and 20g sump. The sump will be ~ 10 feet below the top of the tank.
I had a nano (no pump needed) and then when I bought my tank, a pump came with it so there was no need for research. Is there an informational website that you guys should direct me to so you dont have to explain it all?

There are varying opinions out there and I cannot debate the points of view other than mine. I keep a VERY low GPH going thru my sump. This is because I believe the SUMP is where all of the "good stuff" happens, like skimming, carbon reactor, phosphate reactors, refuge, and additional live rock, etc. Therefore, I do not want the water flying past the "cleaning system" at top speeds, but rather going down dirty and coming back clean.. I run mine at about 400gph, which is about 4x the DT volume. Even people who seem to subscribe to my school of thought find 400gph low, but so far it's working very, very well. (check back in 10yrs for some real data... until then it's a theory)

This also implies that your return lines will not be adequate for your in-tank circulation, you need (again in my opinion) 30-50x turnover in your DT to keep the detrius and other stuff suspended, and raised to flow out of the DT into the sump (where your filter-sock catches the big junk, and you change that every 1-3days as required)

My DT will have 44x circulation once the pumps arrive next week. I also run mainly SPS, so I want super-high flow more than most, and i also want super-clean, nutrient poor water.. My Nitrate and Phospate have been 0 for 2 months, and i believe they will stay there... its the goal.

Anyhow, if I had your setup, I would be looking at 300gph or 400gph turn over, but I'd try to even get it set-back at about 200 gph just to see for a few months.. my bet is the result will be positive.

You're currently looking at aquiring a pump, so i think it would be wise to get a pump that is over-sized by 50% of your target GPH. so for my way of doing things that would be a pump that could deliver 1000gph at head-pressure... Then you can pull-back the volume (using a ball valve) and divert water into fuges, reactors, etc with some of the over-pressure...

One note, if you use the over-pressure to create additonal flow in your DT by way of adding new return-pipes, you're increasing the GPH in the DT, and subsequently adding more GPH thru your "cleaning system" sump.

Now, I did not write all this to start a debate, I'm kind of hoping someone of a different school of thought will post below to give you multiple points of view.. if this was my home-town fish-forum id be blasted about 8 ways to sunday for posting this "low flow thru the sump idea"... but what can I say... I follow my own flag. (and the idea came from reading on RC, I didn't invent nutthn here)

[Hookup]

Originally posted by tgriffin
I just came across the thread and thought I'd throw mine into the bunch. I recently bought two 60 gal uniqurium acrylic corner tanks. I am in the process of removing scratches from them. So far so good. I am going to set one up and try to sell the other one. My idea was to take a masonry saw and cut several pieces of my rock in half. I plan on taking the flat side and putting it up against the back sides of the aquarium. I'm hoping for a reef wall look. Anyone tried this, or seen this done?

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but plan on doing so this week.

Great Idea, and I know I'll learn from everyone's posts

Hey Tgriffin, welcome!

The first thing that pops into my head when you mentioned your plan was, how the hell is he going to get flow behind those rocks in all the nooks and crevasses in the rock when it's smushed on the glass... I'm always worried about in-tank circulation and rock-work on the walls is troublesome at the best of times... clean-cutting the LR so that it sits flat-up against the glass sounds like it would collect detritus over time and you'd not be able to get it out with "flow" from circulation pumps.

[Esquare]

Hello Tgriffin,

Another way to do it would be the foam wall method. There are many threads on RC about this with one of the more read being Kanin's. I used a different take on the foam wall and have been happy.

[Hookup]

Yeah, I did the foam wall too... an article can be found right on the main-page www.ottawainverts.com on how it was done, what products, etc...