400 gallon plywood aquarium. 600+ gallon system

[jdpeters]

Still waiting for the Pond Shield. Its delayed due to black Friday and Christmas.

In the mean time i have tested the surge tank design. And filled the sumps with water to check for leaks. So far so good.

The surge tank is a 100L tank that i drilled in the bottom to fit a 50mm (2") bulkhead. This is connected to a 50mm motorized ball valve. It drains the 100l in about 15 seconds. I think this will give alot of flow in the tank! I still have some testing to do, but this i need to do when the main display is connected. This is to check for air and sound in the design. I have some issues with the motor for the valve. This is a 220v motor wich opens when you apply power and closes when you remove it. But the return is operated by a battery inside the unit. This means the the valve have to be powered for some time to charge this battery. The time needed to charge is more than the time it takes to empty the tank. This again means that it will suck air from the bulkhead. I could change the actuator to be fail open. This means that it will be powered when closed. But if my system loses power this valve will open and all the water will go in my sump. Which i think will overflow with this and the water from the tank! I have a few ideas that i need to test, so i will have to come back to this at a later stage!

Below a few pictures and a video of the surge tank in action.

Sumps with water:

And the video:

Nice work!

 

[garbled]

I don't know that I wold trust an electrical device to do that, unless you can safely fail open or closed. For example, what if the valve sticks closed, and you keep pumping water up there?

 

[Mr_Stian]

I forgot to mention that there will be a float switch to send feedback to my apex to stop pumping water. If this fails I will have an emergency overflow so that the tank will not get too full...

 

[NP57]

Pardon my ignorance but what is the purpose of the surge tank?

 

[Mr_Stian]

This is to generate random and "violent" flow in the tank. In stead of using high power pumps i will try to use my two apex wav pumps and this surge tank to generate enough flow in the tank. The wav to keep continuous flow around the display and the surge to generate the random flow where the wav pumps might not reach.

 

[McPuff]

Wow, that is quite the sump system on your current tank. Very nice use of vertical space! Looking forward to the build progression.

 

[NP57]

This is to generate random and "violent" flow in the tank. In stead of using high power pumps i will try to use my two apex wav pumps and this surge tank to generate enough flow in the tank. The wav to keep continuous flow around the display and the surge to generate the random flow where the wav pumps might not reach.

Interesting concept. I assume your overflow is designed to take the surge of water.

 

[Mr_Stian]

Interesting concept. I assume your overflow is designed to take the surge of water.

I have 3 overflow in the tank. One 32mm and 2 40mm. The 32mm will be the feed for the skimmer. One 40mm to adjust for sound and the last as an emergency.

Even if the overflow was not designed for the surge tanks 100 liter, this is only 0,55cm of higher water level, so i think i am good!

 

[Mr_Stian]

Some bad news. The Pond Armor that I ordered from a friend in the UK was stopped in UK customs. They did not give any good reasons other than it was not allowed to ship to Norway. I later found out that it is not allowed to send this by air freight. So i guess i was lucky when i got it the first time.
Luckily we have a Norwegian company that specialises in shipments from US. There are many companies there that will not ship international. So when you use this company you get a US adress to ship to. From there you can select air or sea freight. Since this does not go by air i had to choose sea. Which means a transit time of at least 3 weeks. So most likley i will not get this until end of January or beginning of February. Which was not a part of my plan. But i do not have any other options.

So the build is at a pause now. I still have a few things to do, but not anything big. The outer bracing is still not completed, and i need to paint a steal beam just above the tank. The inside screws need to be filled and sanded.

I will also start on modifying the light so that i can rund this from my apex. I will update on this once i have started.

So i guess there will not be any major progress until i get the shipment with pond armor.

 

[garbled]

Waiting for parts on boats is the worst. I'm waiting on LED's right now, makes me stir crazy.

 

[Mr_Stian]

Alright, guess its time for an update on the progress here. I finally got the missing pond armor and could finnish the waterproofing of the tank. I had some issues with getting the pond armor to stick to the filler i used on the screws, but cleaning with acetone helped. Not just sanding.

So todays status is that all the plumbing for the two sumps are done, the overflow is glued in place and the tank has been full of water, with a return pump going for 4 days now. So far so good. Only a minor leak in one of the bulkheads, but that was an easy fix. In front of the tank there is no deflection of anything. Same measures as before filling. On the rear there is maybe 1-2mm over 2,5 meters (with of the tank, deflection measured on one side) of bowing. It is a bit difficult to get good measurements but I am happy with te result. On the bottom/top and sides they are the same as before filling.

So to the pictures. Here is one from gluing the overflow box. I wanted to have it transparent to be able to easily adjust the height. To have the correct height i used what i had available at the time!

The outside of the overflow box. 1 32mm pipe that feeds the skimmer, 1 40mm pipe to adjust the height in the overflow and 1 40mm pipe for emergency

Return is a 32mm pipe that splits into 2 25mm reducers. These have 3/4" threads and there will be some kind of adjustable pipes. i have 2 different kinds that i want to test.

The plumbing between the two sumps. 40mm x 2. Only one is operational now as the last one will be an emergency overflow.

And lastly i have made an ekstra safety for power outage. This consist of a separate 100l tank that will take whatever the last sump cant handle when the power goes. In normal operation the sump can handle the water from the main tank. But since i had to change the way the surge tank valve works this will open when it looses power. And i dont think the sump can handle this when all this water comes down. So this tank will only be for power outage use. There will be a float switch here so that the surge tank does not start if this tank has been used! It will be interesting to see how the system will work when all is connected!

The front of the tank got new mouldings yesterday, and they are now painted. Pictures of this will follow probably later today.

For the rest of the progress i am starting to set up the surge tank. By the end of this month i will have to go on a long business trip ( about 40 days) so the tank will sit with fresh water for that time...

 

[Mr_Stian]

As promised, pictures from the display side of the tank. Dont mind the speakers. I had to remove the grills to get them re-painted.
Haven't decided yet if i want to drain the tank prior to leaving on the work trip, or leave the water in the tank!

 

[Mr_Stian]

Getting ready to leave for a few weeks so the tank is now draining.

I bought a used DIY lamp that is 150cm wide. I had to do some tidying up in the wiring so that was done this week. Finished with the 230v side, but I have still something to do on the LED side. I just wanted to test the light. It will be controlled by my apex that's why it's only half way done. It is controlled by 2 potentiometer only now.

Quite happy with the result

Still needs some work

The kids had to test the tank before draining. It's the only chance they had when it still had fresh water inn it!

 

[ocean gems]

Getting ready to leave for a few weeks so the tank is now draining.

I bought a used DIY lamp that is 150cm wide. I had to do some tidying up in the wiring so that was done this week. Finished with the 230v side, but I have still something to do on the LED side. I just wanted to test the light. It will be controlled by my apex that's why it's only half way done. It is controlled by 2 potentiometer only now.

Quite happy with the result

Still needs some work

The kids had to test the tank before draining. It's the only chance they had when it still had fresh water inn it!

Dyi led meanwelldrivers is it dimmed by apex

 

[Mr_Stian]

They are dimmed by 1-10v so yes

 

[Mr_Stian]

Guess it is time for a new update. Not much has happened lately. But at least there is saltwater in the tank. Seawater collected about 1 km offshore at a depth of 85 meters and 5 meters above the sea bottom. This is collected at an ocean research institute. Quite lucky to have this option available as it is good quality water year around, and it is very easy to collect!

I also had to do some minor adjustments to the sump PVC to get rid of some sound and excessive movement on the water. The light has also been suspended by wires. This also needs some minor modifications after all of the rocks have been placed. Hopefully I will get the rock installed tomorrow! I have the rock that has been curing in the tank at work. Not sure how successful this has been. But i will add some rocks from my existing system also.

A few pictures. Lets start with the light:

And transferring of water from the car to the holding tank outside my house:

 

[lavoisier]

Living in Kansas City your water source is not available to me. I am curious how it compares to "made" water in terms of price and parameters.

 

[Mr_Stian]

I have been using sea water for at least 5 years now. At first I collect from the pier close to my house. But I could only do this during winter as the water contains to much algea during summer. So it was nice when the opportunity to collect from the institute came along.
Regarding the parameters it has been a wile since I checked all of them on the collected water. The institute has a screen showing salinity and this has always been 1.026 so this is very good. CA is 410, MG 1350 and KH 7. As to the cost it is just above 20 dollars for 1000 liters.

Enough with the water and back to the tank. Today I managed to put all of the live rock i have had curing for some months now. I needed a small platform on the rear so that I was able to reach all the way to the bottom. But with the platform this worked better than expected. So the aqua scraping came along quite nice. Pretty pleased with the result. Added a few rocks from my current tank to help with the rest of the cycling. The scape is quite open now, but that is because I have a few formations from my existing tank that needs to go in there.

Here are a few pictures of the result:

I had to have a few work lights outside the tank to be able to see the bottom!

And the result with the led light. Very pleased with the look with the lamp. A bit difficult to see the correct light on the picture.

Now let's hope the rest goes just as smooth. I have another offshore job starting next Sunday so I will be away for another two weeks after this.

 

[venomcc]

Great progress thus far. Over the years I have personally learned the hard way that sometimes analog methods are the best way to engineer long term stability & reliability. Anything and everything electrically controlled will fail at some point. In the case of your surge device, i once used my classic apex for a similar purpose, but alas, the reliability of the system ultimately drove me to abandon that method.

 

[Mr_Stian]

I am very pleased with the reliability of the apex system that I have up and running today. For the surge system this will only be controlled with a timing program. With a manual overflow. So I do lot think this will cause too much problems. But time will tell.

I just purchased some Gyre 350 pumps so the need for the surge tank is not so urgent. But I will get it up and running at some point.