gunit
Community Member
I'm starting to plan for a new tank that'll go in our freshly remodeled house and would love to get the communities thoughts/insights as this will be my first large build and definitely the most "integrated" one I've done. An by "integrated" I mean that I plan on doing a remote sump in the garage so the plumbing for this thing will run through our floors/walls. Before this I've always just had either AIO nano's or you basic sump under tank setup.
It'll be awhile before this thing ever gets wet, but given that this is closer to an in-wall install and I hope to not have to touch the plumbing once the walls get drywalled over I thought it'd be smart to get the wisdom on the community for things to watch out for.
Here's what I'm planning so far:
~130g Corner L Drop Off that will sit in the corner of the 2nd story office
Tank will be in corner of office with the desk centered in the room.
The long side of the tank will have a slight overlap with the desk so I can't do the long side too deep.
48" on the long side and 36" on the short side.
Stand will be a custom built extruded aluminum stand with wood veneer.
Lights will be in a floating canopy to keep things looking clean.
Sump will be remote in the garage and I'll be running the plumbing through the floor/walls.
For plumbing, I plan on an external overflow with the Herbie drain setup and two return lines.
It'll be a mixed reef with SPS in the upper run with the drop-off portion be my lower flow/light section.
Here's a mock of what I was thinking so far (view from the back where the grey parts will be against the walls):
So all this brings me to my questions:
1) I'm planning on running 3 1.5" drains in the Herbie setup. I shouldn't go much smaller to future proof things and ensure my emergency drains could handle any clogs correct?
2) Nor should I try to combine the two emergency drains before they go into the wall?
3) I haven't gotten an exact measurement of the head height that I'll be dealing with, but I suspect it'll be in the 12' range (the lower floor has 8'1" ceilings + 1' of floor thickness + returns into the tank will be about 5' off the ground - 2' sump height off floor in garage = ~12' of head height). I want to do dual returns to give my system a bit of redundancy in case one of my pumps fail. Would anyone have any recommendations for pumps? I was thinking the Ecotech M2 or L2 should be able to handle the above head height while still giving me ~5x-10x turnover which is what I'm shooting for. Going a bit higher than 5x should give me 3x in case of pump failure which should still be fine as the majority of my flow will be via Vortechs
4) Any other suggestions on things to keep in mind for a setup like this?
It'll be awhile before this thing ever gets wet, but given that this is closer to an in-wall install and I hope to not have to touch the plumbing once the walls get drywalled over I thought it'd be smart to get the wisdom on the community for things to watch out for.
Here's what I'm planning so far:
~130g Corner L Drop Off that will sit in the corner of the 2nd story office
Tank will be in corner of office with the desk centered in the room.
The long side of the tank will have a slight overlap with the desk so I can't do the long side too deep.
48" on the long side and 36" on the short side.
Stand will be a custom built extruded aluminum stand with wood veneer.
Lights will be in a floating canopy to keep things looking clean.
Sump will be remote in the garage and I'll be running the plumbing through the floor/walls.
For plumbing, I plan on an external overflow with the Herbie drain setup and two return lines.
It'll be a mixed reef with SPS in the upper run with the drop-off portion be my lower flow/light section.
Here's a mock of what I was thinking so far (view from the back where the grey parts will be against the walls):
So all this brings me to my questions:
1) I'm planning on running 3 1.5" drains in the Herbie setup. I shouldn't go much smaller to future proof things and ensure my emergency drains could handle any clogs correct?
2) Nor should I try to combine the two emergency drains before they go into the wall?
3) I haven't gotten an exact measurement of the head height that I'll be dealing with, but I suspect it'll be in the 12' range (the lower floor has 8'1" ceilings + 1' of floor thickness + returns into the tank will be about 5' off the ground - 2' sump height off floor in garage = ~12' of head height). I want to do dual returns to give my system a bit of redundancy in case one of my pumps fail. Would anyone have any recommendations for pumps? I was thinking the Ecotech M2 or L2 should be able to handle the above head height while still giving me ~5x-10x turnover which is what I'm shooting for. Going a bit higher than 5x should give me 3x in case of pump failure which should still be fine as the majority of my flow will be via Vortechs
4) Any other suggestions on things to keep in mind for a setup like this?
following along to find out 
