And so it begins....my new tank

[jgoal55]

I put the deposit down for a new tank that will be going into the new apt Im moving into. The tank is a custom 60x28x22; about 160 gallons total. 3 sides starphire. External beananimal style coast to coast overflow. Back glass smoked and painted to cover the overflow and equipment. I cant wait to see how this comes out and I am very happy with the builder I chose.

Im going to try my best to do a build thread but in all honesty, there wont be as much building as there will be taking apart my current tank and using mostly the same components. That and I am a lazy *** when it comes to posting pics and taking pictures. But like i said, Ill definitely try my best to keep you guys up to date.

Before I start the build thread however, I have a couple of questions i have to figure out so here they are:

1) Sump question: On my current 90, I have a 20 gallon sump and a 30 gallon fuge but they are two separate tanks plumbed together. I would like to try and combine fuge sump into one and just get a bigger tank as my sump. The question is how do I make sure that the new sump I get doesn't overflow if/when the power goes out? Basically, how do you figure out how much water drains into the sump before the siphons break from the DT overflow?

2) Electricity: I replaced a regular outlet with a GFCI outlet where the tank is going to go but I dont think that the breaker that corresponds to the particular outlet can handle all the tank equipment? What do I have to do to fix this? Im not sure what the current breaker is but I can tell you that the apartment is about 7yrs old if that helps????

3) Overflow setup: if you are familiar with the Beananimal overflow system, you know that there are 3 drain pipes and 2 returns. My question is where I should position the holes in the bottom of the ext. overflow. I was originally thinking of putting the 3 drains in the middle and the returns on the outside but then I remembered that with the 2 vortechs on each end of the tank I prefer the return flow to be in the middle of the tank so I was thinking this ("D0" represents the drain bulkhead, "RO" represents the return hole):

-----------DO------------RO-------------RO----------DO----------DO-----------

How does that sound?

4) Return Pump: Currently I am running a mag 12 as my return and that also feeds my fuge which is about 6ft away from the DT. In the new set up, there wont be a separate fuge but the stand will be taller than your avg stand and the tank is bigger. I am going with a 38" tall stand. I want a submersible pump because this is a living room tank and very close to my TV so quietness is huge. Do you guys think the mag 12 will suffice?

Thats it for now......

 

[ralph atl]

make sure you put your build in Member Tanks, so we can follow along! who's building?

 

[jgoal55]

a local guy here in Miami. His name is felix....his website is reefsavvy.com.

doesnt have the best images on his website but Ive seen some of his tanks personally and he does great work.

Thanks for the advice there bratliff.......however as for the mag 12 being overkill, I could just knock it back right??

Ill do my best with pics and definitely post in member builds

 

[ralph atl]

I use the lowest mag I can to help my fuge and skimmer. I have plent of flow in my tank with my tunze's.

 

[harleyguy]

bratliff;368383 wrote: I've -heard- that throttling your pump back is harder on it and can lead it to fail prematurely... I don't have any first hand experience with that happening though. If you're trying to save some cash, see if you can trade someone here for a Mag 7 or 9 or, just go ahead and run the 12 and watch your flow through your sump. Your skimmer will work MUCH better if given time, ie, slow flow. Your return pump should just be for water circurlation. Use powerheads for intank flow.

I agree and disagree with this... Slow flow through your sump isn't 100% nessicearry... It's only necessary if the refugium is in direct line with the sump. If you will use a "reef" sump with built in refugium then you T off of your drain and control the amount of flow that goes into your refugium... So by doing this your flow through the sump has 0 effect on the refugium. I also don't agree that slowing down the flow in your sump affects your skimmer at all (again this is my opinion please don't bash me for saying it). You see, if you're using an in sump skimmer (or external skimmer for that matter) the pump that feeds the skimmer controls the amount of water in it. The longer you can keep the water in the skimmer the the better it's skimmed... That's why a recirculating skimmer is better than a non-recirculating... As a matter of fact I think very slow flow can actually hurt the function of the skimmer... Basically it's like this; lets say you have 500gph going through your sump, but your skimmer pulls in 600gph. In this case your skimmer is actually going to be pulling in "clean" water about 16% of the time... where as if the flow through your sump was 1000 gph the same skimmer would always be pulling "dirty" water...

As I've said this is my opinion please don't bash me. From my experiences I have seen this to be true.


With all that said, I say use the Mag 12 you have... If it were me, I'd get a larger pump like a Mag 18.

Shane

 

[jgoal55]

hmmmm....interesting Shane. I had always heard the same thing Brett and Ralph were saying, basically slow flow through a sump is better but your point about the skimmer makes a lot of sense. The pump feeding the skimmer is really all that matters it seems with what youre saying. But I also do think that slower flow through a "fuge" is important and I do want to have my fuge in my sump.

I think that is what you are addressing here but I am not sure what you mean:

"If you will use a "reef" sump with built in refugium then you T off of your drain and control the amount of flow that goes into your refugium... So by doing this your flow through the sump has 0 effect on the refugium"</em>

By t-ing off the drain I can control how much water goes into the fuge but the return pump will still pull the same amount out wont it? I imagine im misunderstanding????

 

[harleyguy]

bratliff;368568 wrote:

If you set up your sump so that it has three chambers, say skimmer-return-refugium in that order and then split your returns so that only a percentage of your water runs into your refugium and put a valve on that line you can cut the flow to your fuge and really slow it down. I have a single overflow. It's got a T to split the line so that water flows into both sides of the sump. I've got valves on each side. The valve to the skimmer section is wide open. The one to fuge is slightly closed to restrict flow. Make sense? :unsure: If only a trickle is going to the fuge, only a trickly is overflowing into the return chamber of your sump to be able to go back to your tank.

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">This is what I was referring to as a "reef" refugium. Basically your sump is built in such a way that you can control the flow going through the refugium. As for the flow to the skimmer... I think both ways will work but like so many things in this hobby where is more than one way to skin that cat. I have tried both high flow and low flow sumps and I tend to have better luck with say medium flow pumps. For instance I will be running a Mag 9.5 for return on my 93g cube with a 37g sum (half of which is a fuge)... Personally I would start with your Mag 12 (you already have it so you're not loosing anything) and put a T valve in line. That way you can control the flow and see what works best for you. If you find that lower flow is better you can always change your pump then and if you think more flow is needed then, again change your pump then. Very few of us get it 100% right the first time.</span></span>

 

[lukestimp]

I agree with Harley on this one. The slow flow through the sump made since when most sumps were being set-up as Skimmer-Fuge-Return. By setting up the Sump as Skimmer-Return-Fuge you are actually able to increase the Flow Rate through the Skimmer and Return section while controliung the slow flow through the Fuge and actually use it to increase your Flow inside the Display Tank.

 

[jgoal55]

the good thing with what you guys are saying is that with the beananimal overflow I think i get two constantly working overflows if i understand it correctly. That means I can run one to the fuge chamber and the other to the skimmer chamber. I think.

Ill probably just end up using the mag 12 since i have it but I did realize last night that I use a mag 7 on my salt mixing station and it wouldn't be hard to just swap them if I dont like the flow pattern with the 12???

 

[lukestimp]

Just my opinion but I wouldn't run an overflow to your fuge without at least a Filter Sock. My suggestion would be to T off your return Line and add a Ball Valve to that so you can control the flow. Your Overflow is going to be skimming the surface of the water and bringing alot of junk down to your sump, let your skimmer take care of all this junk. Your skimmer isn't going to remove anything that your Fuge needs. Without something filtering your overflow drain to the fuge it's going to wind up prettyy nasty in there.

 

[jgoal55]

yeah...im way too lazy to ever use a filter sock. thats just not gonna happen so is what your saying an alternative? When you say T off the return, you meant the drain right?

 

[harleyguy]

the good thing with what you guys are saying is that with the beananimal overflow I think i get two constantly working overflows if i understand it correctly. That means I can run one to the fuge chamber and the other to the skimmer chamber. I think.

quote]


<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">I wouldn't do it that way. I would run both returns into my sump and T one or both of them off to the fuge. You would want to have a ball valve on the fuge feeds though (to control the amount of water going into your fuge). </span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana"> </span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">The problem with running one drain into the fuge and the other into the sump begins if and when you have a blockage in the drain running to your sump. If that drain gets blocked then one of 2 things will happen... If you are using a valve to control the flow into the fuge the sump will be pumped right into your tank most likely cause an overflow... If the drain isn't using a control valve then your fuge will completely overflow into your sump...</span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana"> </span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">Hope this helps,</span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana"> </span></span>
<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">Shane</span></span>

 

[lukestimp]

Jgoal - No, I do mean the return... Drains bring the Nasty water to the Sump, Return takes the Clean to the Display. I suggest you t off the Return Line to feed the fuge, for the same reason Harley guy mentioned above, if One of your drain lines gets blocked/Clogged.

 

[jgoal55]

ok I see what you're saying.....something similar to this???

PS - in asking someone about the beananimal overflow a bit better, I was told this about how the 3 drain pipes work.....so i was misunderstanding a bit.

A: Backup - open is straight up. This only drains if some is clogging the other two drains, i.e., when the water rises above the backup drain.

B: The full siphon drain. This is the "main drain". It has the valve for flow control. It will always run a full siphon.

C: The open channel drain. This is the drain that may run only partially. Depends on how far you have the full syphon drain constricted.</em>
<fieldset class="gc-fieldset">
<legend> Attached files </legend>

 

[jgoal55]

ok I see what you're saying.....something similar to this??? illustartion below...

PS - in asking someone about the beananimal overflow a bit better, I was told this about how the 3 drain pipes work.....so i was misunderstanding a bit.

A: Backup - open is straight up. This only drains if some is clogging the other two drains, i.e., when the water rises above the backup drain.

B: The full siphon drain. This is the "main drain". It has the valve for flow control. It will always run a full siphon.

C: The open channel drain. This is the drain that may run only partially. Depends on how far you have the full syphon drain constricted.</em>
<fieldset class="gc-fieldset">
<legend> Attached files </legend>

>

class="gc-images" title="Sump Plumbing Plans-1.pdf (1 page)-1-1.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a> </fieldset>

 

[lukestimp]

Your illustration is exactly what I was talking about.. As far as I understand, the Beananimal Overflow works the way you are describing.

 

[jgoal55]

new question: How do I figure out how much flow in GPH i want through my sump? (Not that I have ever had any idea what kind of flow i get through my sumps and so far my tanks have been pretty successful but I figured id try to get this right from the start)