3 Foot Office Nano
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eschulist
Active Member
How is the sound with the Duo Durso style setup? Are you running a very low amount of flow through the return since you also have 2 MP10s?
This is a amazing little set up of a aquarium beautiful and top notch I will say amazing work eschulist!!!!!!
CenlaReefer
Active Member
Me too!
CenlaReefer
Active Member
Eschulist, you setup some of the best nano tanks on the planet! Amazing!
Sharvey103
ReefAddicted
Sweeeeeet tank! I bet this helps reduce the stress levels at work.
OP
OP
eschulist
Active Member
Added a marble starfish to my current tank. Waiting on a light fixture and dosing equipment for the new tank.
#reef2reef, #worldwidecorals, #mywwccontest
#reef2reef, #worldwidecorals, #mywwccontest
OP
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eschulist
Active Member
Going to share something embarrassing that happened hoping that others can learn from my mistake. But it lead to a cool discovery.
My tank drain system is basically a herbie with one drain being a siphon and the next being a trickle. 95% of the water goes down one drain and the other 5% goes down the second. The other drain can handle fluctuations but can not handle the same volume of water that the siphon side can. To prevent overflows due to power outages I created some Apex code which I posted before.
The return pump has this code
If power failure happens the first set of code tells the pump to not turn on for 720 minutes (12 hours). This gives me time to reset my siphon manually and prevent water on the floor.
Well it had its first unsimulated test on Wednesday. In the middle of the night we had a very slight snow storm that had maybe 1-2 inches. This is nothing and should have caused no issues. But for whatever reason at 7:50am (Long after the snow storm stopped and 10 minutes after I left to drop my daughter off at day care) I get an alert on my phone that says the Apex has lost a connection to Fusion. This could mean the router went offline or the power went out at the house. I never got an update that it was restored so I figured it was just network wifi issues at home and went to work like normal. If my code should have worked it would stay off until 7:50pm and I would have time to restart everything if needed.
I get home from work and see the return pump is still pumping away and the siphon is going like normal. Must have been wifi issues.... Nope. The carpeting is slightly wet and there is a small puddle on the granite top. In my dumb stupidity I had the Return_Pump set to ON on my dashboard rather than AUTO. ON overrides all code you have setup and this failed to keep the pump turned off. The siphon and system however was running just fine and as I was dabbing up the water with a tower I noticed very little of it was actually on the floor. Maybe 1/8-1/4 gallon. It then hit me that I can do something so incredible easy to solve my overflow issue.
LOWER THE WATER LEVEL IN THE RETURN CHAMBER
If the pump can't physically pull any water there can't be any to overflow the display tank rim. This is what happened after the power failure but there was just a little bit too much water in the sump. I've found the absolute maximum amount that will make the system work every time without any code or interference from me.
In this video I used feed mode rather than unplugging the Apex or return pump but shows how the system restarts itself and doesn't overflow.
My tank drain system is basically a herbie with one drain being a siphon and the next being a trickle. 95% of the water goes down one drain and the other 5% goes down the second. The other drain can handle fluctuations but can not handle the same volume of water that the siphon side can. To prevent overflows due to power outages I created some Apex code which I posted before.
Code:
POWER_OUTAGE
Set OFF
If Power Apex Off 720 Then ONThe return pump has this code
Code:
RETURN_PUMP
Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Output POWER_OUTAGE = ON Then OFF
If FeedD 720 Then ONIf power failure happens the first set of code tells the pump to not turn on for 720 minutes (12 hours). This gives me time to reset my siphon manually and prevent water on the floor.
Well it had its first unsimulated test on Wednesday. In the middle of the night we had a very slight snow storm that had maybe 1-2 inches. This is nothing and should have caused no issues. But for whatever reason at 7:50am (Long after the snow storm stopped and 10 minutes after I left to drop my daughter off at day care) I get an alert on my phone that says the Apex has lost a connection to Fusion. This could mean the router went offline or the power went out at the house. I never got an update that it was restored so I figured it was just network wifi issues at home and went to work like normal. If my code should have worked it would stay off until 7:50pm and I would have time to restart everything if needed.
I get home from work and see the return pump is still pumping away and the siphon is going like normal. Must have been wifi issues.... Nope. The carpeting is slightly wet and there is a small puddle on the granite top. In my dumb stupidity I had the Return_Pump set to ON on my dashboard rather than AUTO. ON overrides all code you have setup and this failed to keep the pump turned off. The siphon and system however was running just fine and as I was dabbing up the water with a tower I noticed very little of it was actually on the floor. Maybe 1/8-1/4 gallon. It then hit me that I can do something so incredible easy to solve my overflow issue.
LOWER THE WATER LEVEL IN THE RETURN CHAMBER
If the pump can't physically pull any water there can't be any to overflow the display tank rim. This is what happened after the power failure but there was just a little bit too much water in the sump. I've found the absolute maximum amount that will make the system work every time without any code or interference from me.
In this video I used feed mode rather than unplugging the Apex or return pump but shows how the system restarts itself and doesn't overflow.
reefaddict82
Community Member
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- Dec 16, 2016
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- 21
The plumbing looks crazy. Great job. Cool little tank for sure!
Higher Thinking
Active Member
Nice! What are you filming with? Footage looks super high quality.
OP
OP
eschulist
Active Member
Hahaha yep thats the fine line I ride. Just a little more water in the sump and it overflows when the pump restarts. Too little and it sucks air all the time. I found the maximum I can have to reliably trust the system.
Thanks! I hope it turns out well once everything gets transferred over.
The videos are all shot on a Canon T2i (A very old dslr that shoots 1080p) I've been trying to save for a Sony A7RII or A7SII (Both shoot beautiful 4K footage) but most of my money has slowly been trickling towards this new build. By the time I have extra funds available the newest Sony will probably be released and I'll go with that.
That stand is very nice! I noticed you had someone else make it. Do you have the 3D plans still? I'm interested in making one similar if you'd be willing to share them. Also very smart with bending the pvc pipe! Not only does this increase efficiency of your pump, it looks much much better and cleaner.
Will this eventually replace your office tank?
What issues have you had having a tank at work and how did you swing it by your boss?! I have a small 5 gallon AIO on my desk but would love something a little bigger. My only fear is coming in on Monday with water and fish on the floor.
Will this eventually replace your office tank?
What issues have you had having a tank at work and how did you swing it by your boss?! I have a small 5 gallon AIO on my desk but would love something a little bigger. My only fear is coming in on Monday with water and fish on the floor.
OP
OP
eschulist
Active Member
Yes the plan is to replace the office tank and just transfer the livestock into this one once everything is ready.
I still have the 3D file and could convert it if you had something similar. Otherwise these are my measurements with color variations to show the different boards. My stand guy still did a lot of little touches to make things cleaner and hide joints
The swing it past the boss thing never happened. One day I just showed up with my 5 gallon tank that I had for about 7 years. It started as a tiny nano reef back in highschool and eventually went to my first apartment and various rental places through the next few years. During this time it was just a single clownfish and some liverock. I got engaged and had it in our townhouse where it got shoved back in a spare bedroom. No one ever saw it so I just decided to pack it up one day and take it to work. After about a year of sitting on my desk I decided it was time for an upgrade. Around the same time I got the itch to do coral again. This was then the birth of the 12 gallon long. I never asked. Just started buying stuff and setting it up. I figured if it looked well done and I took care of it no one would care.
After a few weeks of collecting stuff in my office I put it all together one weekend.
I have flooded the floor a total of one time the 5 years that I've had this tank. In the middle of the night one of my vinyl tubes popped off the return pump and it just sprayed water straight up until the sump ran out of water. This caused a huge mess in the morning and I luckily had the help of 1-2 coworkers and our office building manager to help get some large blowers to dry everything out. I lost a few corals but no fish. I believe the big boss of the building was in a different country when this happened so if he did find out about it later it didn't really look like anything happened when he saw it in person. However on this new tank I've already flooded my own basement due to the power failure I talked about in post #171. I believe I have figured out how I can prevent that from ever happening again.
As for issues at work the main ones you probably already know about. Having to lug water jugs into your space. Needing a location to store various pieces of rarely used equipment and maintenance stuff. Long christmas or family vacations.
pboutin
Active Member
Is your return pump a DC pump? I'm just wondering after watching your power failure test video, if you could ramp up the return pump giving your overflows time to catch up and drain some water before the pump was at full power.
OP
OP
eschulist
Active Member
It is but the ramp up is built into pump and its super fast. It goes from 30% - last set % in a few seconds. If I get the Cor from Apex I'd hope I could do a 1-2 minute ramp and have it do what you described.
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