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Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

jimroth

jimroth

Took the rock outta my 58G macroalgae/toilet tank. Gonna take it down as soon as I find a home for the green rasta and clownfish that were living there.
Rock went into the garage to cook for a few months, get rid of all the hair, hydroids, hemmorhoids, flatworms, and other assorted pests.
I forgot, one of those rocks was huge --- like 20lbs.
 
jimroth

jimroth

And Now, a few photos I've been promising...
Reef-sciencefair-partycity011-1.jpg
 
jimroth

jimroth

Here are some detail shots of my tank construction for people curious about Glasscages:
The "calfo" overflow
Reef-sciencefair-partycity099.jpg


Edges with silicone:
Reef-sciencefair-partycity100.jpg

Reef-sciencefair-partycity098-1.jpg


these holes were perfect, and very smooth
Reef-sciencefair-partycity101.jpg
 
jimroth

jimroth

Well, the plumbing is finally finished, the fateful day is at hand. Tomorrow, I fill the tank with water, turn on the pumps and start looking for leaks.
One of my fears is that I forgot to actually glue some of the plumbing, that it's just dry fit together, or that I forgot the thread sealant on some pipe joint.
Another fear is that my Rube Goldberg plumbing design makes a sound like a continuously flushing toilet. Or that the water stalls in the drain (someone has me scared abouth that).
Suppose I'll know soon enough.
Probably it will all work fine! (Laughs nervously).
Imagine the first time they launched the space shuttle.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
LOL. It will be fine, Jim. I'm sure. What are the odds?!


(more nervous laughter).
 
jimroth

jimroth

Tanks got water in it...One snag so far...the return bulkhead leaks a little under the seal. I hard plumbed it and I think the pipe is at a slight angle and is tilting the bulkhead, pulling one side off the glass. I'm going to re-do the connection with spa-flex, that should provide enough give.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Done. I think it's gonna be fine.
Don't ever leave an unattended hose in your tank. They can start siphoning all by themselves. I just drained about 20G of water into out downstairs bathroom, which then travels under the walls, though the laundry room into the garage. Good thing that:
A) It drained onto our concrete slab, rather than a wood second floor with a grand piano in the room directly underneath
B)I has a Shop-Vac.
I found a really great tool at Home Depot. I was gonna try to find an open or adjustable wrench to fit the -- what the heck do you call it -- nut-part of the bulkhead so I could unscrew it. If you use thread sealant it's really hard to unscrew those. Well after looking at some $40 adjustable wrenches I came upon Channel Lock #209 oil filter and PVC pliers. A very clever distorted pliers looking thing that grasps the PVC fitting in just the right way and does very little damage to the faces. $12 at HD. Picture here:
http://www.amazon.com/Channellock-209-9-Inch-Filter-Plier/dp/B0009WG5SU
 
jimroth

jimroth

The replumbing of the return line was a success, yay. I filled the tank all the way, no bulkhead leaks.

The scary part came a few hours later when I couldn't resist anymore and turned on the return pump for the first time. First off, I never owned or ran a Sequence Dart before. MAN, does that thing push lot of water! Second, I seem to have a plumbing problem, flow through the drains was oscillating, it was amazing to see. It's either the stalling thing I was warned about, or just I need better control of air going into the drains.
Water would backup in the tank, then fill up the sump, then the pump would empty the sump, and overfill the tank again. Yikes. I tuned it off and closed all the valves, play more later.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Ran the system for several hours last night, despite the slight drips, which I had some containers to catch. Noise level is very low, good news. Kind of feels like a giant modern sculpture, the tank with nothing in it but moving water.
More unforseen problems:
1) The two inch pump intake very quickly creates a small vortex and starts drawing in air. If the sump level is high enough to prevent this, there's too much water in the system and the sump will overflow if the power shuts off. Someone at the meeting suggested teeing the inlet, and since I have a couple of strainers, that's what I'm gonna do. Off to HD!
2) Because the return from the pump to the tank is so long, starting the pump creates a fairly impressive splash! Got water on the wall and everything. I can't submerge the return line very much because of the enormous quantity of water that would come into the sump. Maybe I need to make a manifold across the short end of the tank with nozzles, maybe loc-line, pointing down the length of the tank. Maybe I need a check valve.
3) Don't block the pump outlet when it's running, even "just to see." Those pipe unions have a pressure rating and if you exceed it, say, by blocking the pump, they turn into sprinkler heads. Good to know.

With all the turning on and off of the pump, I'm glad I spent the money and bought a DJ switch box. I mounted it between the bench and the wall, pointing up, to avoid splashes and accidental switch-pushing.

I finally got the last living things out of my poor beknighted 58G. The corals and clownfish went to a club member. There's still some zoos on the tank wall, maybe I'll scrape them off and give them to my neighbor Tom.
The flatworms and hydroids can go to hell.
 
blange3

blange3

jimroth said:
I finally got the last living things out of my poor beknighted 58G. The corals and clownfish went to a club member.
Click to expand...

And Lady Macbeth clownfish and her new man are spending a lot of time dancing together.

She has hosted in a toadstool next to his LTA, but they meet frequently in between and wiggle their butts off! ;)
 
jimroth

jimroth

Thanks again Bill.

I fixed one leak, in the threaded part of the bulkhead at the back of the tank.

The other thing has been tough, it's a leak in the threaded part of the true union valve at the top of the Sequence Dart return pump. I re-did it twice, including substituting spa-flex for the last section the last time. Still leaked. I think I have learned something: I don't think nipples, close nipples anyway, (yeah, I know ::)) flare out like a regular MPT fitting, and therefore can't make a really pressure tight fitting.

I attacked it with my new PVC-amputating tool (http://www.plumbingsupply.com/images/pvc-pipe-tubing-cutter.jpg), very satisfying. I have a nice single union that will fit, then I can use a slip connection on the part that's been leaking.

Tests of my pre-made globe-valve manifold setup from Aquatic Eco have been very disappointing; the flow from the valves is quite piddling. Possible enough to run through carbon or a 'fuge, not much else. The inlet pipe is only 1/2", I don't know why expected more.

I made a pretty nice return manifold out of a some 1 inch PVC parts. It's a stick of 3 tees and an elbow that goes from the return bulkhead across the narrow end of the tank, the outlets are 3/4". Does a nice job of pushing water down the tank and now no splash when I start the pump. If I keep it I'll probably re-do it in black PVC, and add loc-line to the outlets.

Had a good idea how to make a siphon break so my tank doesn't drain into the sump via the return line. I'm going to put another tee right after the return and run a little bent tube or loc-line up and into the full-width overflow, sort of like that little hose that squirts down the overflow in a toilet tank. The tube would terminate in air rather than water. When the pump shuts down, that should be enough to break the siphon before the water gets down to the bulkhead, since the line from the sump to the tank goes in a hump up and over the laundry room door. Someday I'll host a meeting and all may stand in awe of my engineering prowess.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Tore down my old 58G Oceanic SPS tank, more recently caulerpa and hair algae central. Sniff. It was beautiful in its heyday, with blue torts, green slimer, and orange montipora.
Shovelling out the old southdaown sandbed was a chore, and the smell quickly went from "jersey saltmarsh" to hydrogen sulfide. Pew. Afterwards I symbolically cut all the plumbing connections and dragged the whold kit and kaboodle (glass sump, stand and tank) out onto the deck for further decontamination.
Behind the stand was several years' worth of parrot seed stolen and stored by the field mice who periodically invade our home. I recently read some advice that one should not place a tank in such a way that there is no room or access to get a vacuum cleaner hose behind it. I wish I had taken that to heart sooner and my new tank is away from the wall enough to allow this.
I GOTTA get rid of those birds!
 
blange3

blange3

jimroth said:
I GOTTA get rid of those birds!
Click to expand...

You might have been able to tempt me if I didn't have a cockatiel and parakeet that have been exiled to the basment by my wife, reminding me everyday just how messy birds can be.

Of course it's no where near as bad as the days when I had a Blue and Gold Macaw, Yellow Nape Amazon, African Grey, Cockatiel, Kinkajou, turtles, snakes, fish and a cat in a 2 bedroom apartment that didn't allow pets! ;D
 
jimroth

jimroth

OK, so that really begs the question: How did you get rid of your birds??
You had a kinkajou?? We had one when I was growing up (c. 1967). I never met anybody else who had (or could spell) kinkajou!
 
blange3

blange3

Selling the birds was easy back when I had them, I was still working for Animals & Things.

I met lots of people who wanted birds. ;)

I actually sold the Yellow Nape to the store because I was in a hurry, so I only got wholesale at the time.

A&T was how I got the Kinkajou as well. Someone brought it in because they couldn't keep it anymore. I had him for about 9 years. He started getting aggresive and our first child was on the way. So he left the way he arrived, I found someone working in a petshop who wanted to adopt one!
 
jimroth

jimroth

Yeah, our kinkajou bit the hell outta my dad. Then it escaped, and...that's another story. WHat do you do with 20 year old unloved, no longer tame parrots? I'm going to clip the Nape's wings this summer and try to give hime some heavy duty socialization, see how it goes.
 
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