One Tank To Rule Them All

[lilscoots]

I'd put a gate valve on the siphon line regardless of which one you use.  The flow rate at full siphon is a lot higher than that of a gravity fed line with air entering in.  My siphon line is the same diameter as the pump line and the siphon line has to be closed close to half way with the gate valve.I would make the "durso" line the largest diameter unless you find your siphon line can't keep up with the pump.  The durso line is technically the first "emergency" line, with the third line being a fail-safe, the intention is to have the siphon line do all or nearly all of the draining.

[Ron]

Anyone have some idea on what size magnets I'd need for a reasonable pulling force through 3/4" acrylic? (Reasonable as in strong, but not so strong that I either become injured installing them or can't remove them afterwards. I know there are some companies making powerheads that are held in place via magnets for 3/4"- 1" thick tanks, but I've been unable to figure out what size magnets they are using.)

FWIW, for anyone else's benefit, I found some reference on RC to needing magnet pairs with 80-120lbs of pulling force for 3/4"-1" thick tanks, in reference to holding powerheads. (This is 2 magnets added together, one from each side, in order to fall in that range.)

My background isn't buoyant and I went with some N45 neodymium magnets in size 1"x1/2" w/46lbs pulling force. Holy cow, these are powerful! I can't break them apart by hand only - need to use a non-magnetic table as a ledge and then they can be driven apart over the edge. After brief testing, they are more than enough. I'll be making some small fabric packets to hold the outer magnet in so it's easier to remove from the tank if need should ever arise. 

[Ron]

Got the background in and then washed ~350lbs of PFS today. Went ahead with completing the hardscape as well (or version 1 at least). The blue in the images is a 5 gallon bucket weighted down, with a HOT filter in it to try and clear up the tank a bit for the time being. Still waiting on PVC parts before I can get the sump running.

Kind of hard to really see it well since it's still cloudy, but here are a few pictures anyways.

Entire tank:


Left side:


Right side:

[lilscoots]

I like the combination of the background and added rock piles surrounding the overflow, makes it "blend" a bit better than I thought it would when I fist saw the tank.

[Rob S]

Looking good!

[Ron]

I like the combination of the background and added rock piles surrounding the overflow, makes it "blend" a bit better than I thought it would when I fist saw the tank.

I was pleased as well. Originally I was going to cut sections to fit against each side of the overflow, but suspected it'd look fake. Right now it's got a rounded shape, which wastes some space perhaps, but looks pretty nice. I'd ordered magnets to hold up the back background - need to order a few more to hold back the edges of the little one a little better to keep the fish out from behind it.

My little HOT filter is making progress clearing the tank, but it's slow going. For some reason it's taken a week and my order of PVC fittings still hasn't shipped ... really killing progress.

[Ron]

Playing around with lighting ideas still. Put 30w worth of 5k LED spotlights on the tank, but think I may need to add a little more and want to add something along the lines of a 50/50 style bulb to bring out the blue fish better. The back of the tank doesn't need to be bright, but seems a bit too dark still. I might wait until I have fish in it to work on this more.


Specialty PVC arrived:


Bacon arrived:


Then I got some more PVC pieces from Lowes and HD:


... and now I'm still slowly piecing things together ...

[danielratti]

Your going slow because of the bacon right?

[Ron]

Your going slow because of the bacon right?

Yes. 

... and because PVC gluing is a slow process. And because I'm still trying to sort out exactly how everything will line up in real life verses my original generalizations. It would have been much faster to just purchase a small army of FX5s to filter this tank tank. I'm hoping the end result of the filtration is as nice as I had originally pictured.

[danielratti]

You would need a small army to clean all those fx5 as well. Sumps are the way to go.

[Ron]

You would need a small army to clean all those fx5 as well. Sumps are the way to go.

If all goes as planned, I should be able to clean the mechanical easily, anytime I want, without shutting anything off. Will be using 2-3 1"-thick sponges layered vertically, so one can be removed, the rest shifted forward, and the rinsed one set at the back of the line.

[Ron]

I've been busy with some non-fish stuff, but am still picking away at this. Today I hit a mile store and figured it was time to update this post for anyone who's still interested.

I started with running the plumbing to the sump. I used long elbows for a smoother transition on the drains. They weren't pressure rated like standard PVC, so I went with a traditional 90 for that one (unpictured). I added unions so I could adjust the angle of the lines during/after installation if necessary. I used FlexPVC for the piping between the tank and sump to allow for easier to installation angles and smoother transitions for less loss of flow.


The drains spill into the sump as follows - the full syphon and larger durso go into a bin where the water must pass through mechanical media first; the emergency drain just goes straight into the sump to help reduce any back pressure it may face.


The white basket I found being sold as a "laundry sorter". It only had holes on the two opposing sides, which was easier to work with than baskets with holes all around or none at all. I put in a styrofoam sheet on the one side to block it off and cut Poret® foam to fit firmly on the other. Through the stryo and bin there are bulkheads to route the water out to the biomedia afterwards. Any water has to pass through the foam. I can remove the foremost foam sheet to clean it and rotate the other forward. The PVC piece in there allows me to press/hold the Poret forward against the container without having to get my arm wet.


Closeup - if the water backs up as high as the upper holes, it's time to clean the foam.

[Ron]

After the mechanical, the water passes to the wet/dry biomedia towers. Right now there are only two and the third drain serves to avoid an overflow. I plan to make a third tower as well and and another buikhead to function as backup to avoid overflow.


Each tower has ~6 gallons of biomedia:


For the return pump, I went with a Laguna 4280 pond pump (4280 GPH at 0' head). I expect it to be around 3500GPH in reality. Also in there is a MagDrive connected to a garden hose - that's the "OMG it's going to flood" pump for safety during testing ... luckily didn't need it. 


To keep the heaters secure and free from touching anything that might melt someday, I found some spare metal to attach them to. The fins will help dissipate any heat and keep them off the bottom of the plastic sump.


These 300w heaters are long and take up a lot of space in the sump:

[Ron]

So it was time to test it a few days ago. One of the first things you'll find researching the use of a Rubbermaid stock tanks for sump use is that the POS bulkhead they sell them with should be replaced with a real one or some day you'll have a leak. From all I found, 1.25" Sch80 was the one to replace it with. Well, it's a bit bigger than some molded flanges on the inside of the container, so I had to grind them down.

I tried hard and suspected I didn't get them 100% flat (not sticking up, not too much gone, they needed to be flat). I start filling up it up, bulkhead if fully submersed, no leaks. Good. Filled it up another 6" and it starts making a puddle on the floor. Tried to tighten it more, though I know too tight would have been bad ... still didn't help.

Draining the tank below the height of my magdrive, as the bulkhead is nearly on the floor of the tank, was a PITA. Did some research and flipped it around so the gasket was on the outside of the tank - should have worked since the outside as 100% flat, but once again, a puddle on the floor after it seemed to be holding. Did some more research and then did what so many people say not to do.

I had some RTV on hand from an automotive project, so I put a ring around the gasket on the inside of the tank and also put some on the outside just for kicks. Hand-tight and let it sit for ~1.5 days. No leaks. 



Fill up the overflow - no leaks. Filled up the sump and tank to let the entire system run, no leaks!

The overflow is working too good right now. Props out to lilscoots for recommending to use the 1.5" for a full syphon and not the 2". Right now I'm still awaiting gate valves to arrive. During start-up, the 2" durso barely gets going before the full syphon comes on hard and drains the overflow. At that point it sounds like a stuck toilet and the water pouring into the overflow makes you think you're at a splash park. I'm periodically running the system still and eagerly awaiting when I can properly regulate the overflow internal height.


I made a return manifold too. Right now all outputs are 1.5" and only the above water portions are glued tight. The rest I can still adjust. Each T has a slip 45, so I have a wide arrangement of rotation to direct the water flow in the tank. I was going for max flow - might try restricting them to a smaller opening to get greater current once I see how the fish poop settles in there.


For the sump, I still plan to build a 2-piece foam cover to help conserve heat and reduce evaporation. The mechanical media portion has it's own cover, so I shouldn't need to remove the main cover to clean the mechanical media:


I'm stillt trying to figure out what I want to do for more lighting. The rock work I'm also not sure on. It doesn't go up as high as I might like, but I also don't want thousands of pounds of rock or any pressure on the rear pane. I'm also still awaiting new algae magnet pads to clean the front pane. Here are a couple full tank shots anyways (I just realized it's only room lighting, no LED in photos:

[Regalblue]

Looks great!  I hope to see it in person some day.