Does anyone still use surge buckets/boxes?

[AviR]

Remember when the cool thing back in the day was to use surge boxes/buckets to create wave like motion in our tanks... I CERTAINLY DONT because I wasn’t born back then. But rereading some of J. Sprungs books again brought me to the flow section where he goes over different options. When I saw surge boxes I really thought they were cool and wanted to ask if anyone has them in their tanks. I’ve seen them at public aquariums but want to know if anyone uses them personally. The wave motion they give I feel would created such a fantastic and natural wave motion that things look like their in a surge zone. Do you know anyone still using these... do you use them?

 

[Uncle99]

Good wave makers will kinda of do that for you these days.
Pumps have small footprint and ease of setup.
My wife would not let me do the water dump thing.

 

[ca1ore]

There was a thread in the DIY section a couple of years ago on the Carlson surge device. Not a dump bucket .... basically a toilet style flush device. I don’t think you’ll find many reefers still using them. I used them on my reef tank in the 1990s after reading Walter Aden’s book on aquatic ecosystems. Noisy, maintenance intensive and messy. Variable flow power heads are much better for most systems. If I ever get a really huge tank, I might return to using one .....

 

[Wen]

I have a Tunze wavebox and highly recommend it.

IMHO,

Pros:
1. the best softy and lps swaying movement, natural and mesmerizing.
2. Fish seem to enjoying the movement. They move in a different manner when the entire water column is moving.
3. Moves water in a totally different way then a wavemaker. Those nooks and crannies are being addressed!

Cons:
Takes up space in DT.
Loud.

I have mine apex controlled to run 4pm-7pm, only due to the noise. If it were silent, would definitely run 24/7!

 

[TaylorPilot]

10-15 years ago there was a huge build thread...Literally the house was built around the tank. It has a 5000 gallon surge tank above it and have a bunch of huge 4" dumps with electronically actuated butterfly valves...they had a custom controller build that could open different valves at different times and in random orders. the deal was, the tank had to be overbuilt so that it could handle dumping 1000s of gallons of water in it and be able to hold it while the overflows processed it..I couldn't find it. It was on RC, and I imagine all the photos are missing after the great photobucket purge...

 

[AviR]

I just think people wouldn’t mind the noise if it sounded like waves I mean people literally put on synthetic white noise these days. Doesn’t the effect of a box under the hood to at dumps a wave every 30 seconds incredible. Another bucket I saw was a siphon system which I would assume would be quieter. The water waits till it fills till a certain point then waboosh into the tank. Our tanks these days have a cobstant flow from all directions but in the reef it’s more of just 1 forward 1 back.

 

[Rmckoy]

Years ago I made one ....
but the problem I had was the water level was so low waiting for the toilet float bucket to fill .
it didn’t even make it to become a reef .

 

[AviR]

The benefits it provides are real surface skimming, true aeration/oxygenation of the water and a natural sway to the water. Imagine what someone could do today... heck someone could build this:
1. Water slowly gets pumped to a chamber

2. water reaches a float switch or surface sensor and a really strong pump shoots the water out threw a long nozzle that stretches across the tanks width

3. Water flows threw a bulkhead on the same side and creates a reverse wave

Years ago I made one ....
but the problem I had was the water level was so low waiting for the toilet float bucket to fill .
it didn’t even make it to become a reef .

The tank was probably to small or you didn’t make the bucket to proportion of the tank.

 

[Cory]

I had one a year back. 350 gallon pond in the basement. 44 gallon rubbermaid carlson surge device. 3" pipe. Would dump every minute or so. 40 gallons of water would drain and surge in about 8 seconds. I have a video i can upload later.

 

[Cory]

Here is the video

 

[John08007]

I just think people wouldn’t mind the noise if it sounded like waves I mean people literally put on synthetic white noise these days. Doesn’t the effect of a box under the hood to at dumps a wave every 30 seconds incredible. Another bucket I saw was a siphon system which I would assume would be quieter. The water waits till it fills till a certain point then waboosh into the tank. Our tanks these days have a cobstant flow from all directions but in the reef it’s more of just 1 forward 1 back.

This is a Carlson wave box. Works like a toilet flushing. From what I remember seeing tanks with these devices is that they added a lot of micro bubbles to the tank. Also, in a reef tank I would expect it to cause problems with the overflow with the changing tank volumn.

Personally now I would use dc pumps and gyres, unless I was building a massive tank, 4-500+ gallons

 

[Gtinnel]

I always though it would be cool to have one but I doubt my wife would approve of the bucket, or whatever horrible looking container I'd use, hanging over the tank in the living room. It seems like years ago I saw a video of a coral farm somewhere that used them for flow in their frag tanks.

 

[R.Weller]

Our system has two. We have a 300gal DT that uses a 18gal modified Carlson design. This has been running for just over a year w/ virtually no maintenance. We also have a 40gal frag tank that we bolted in back in Nov that uses a 5gal bucket with a Bell siphon (no other wavemaker). They are louder than wavemakers & we have microbubbles, but they are remarkable to watch & the fish quickly learned to swim in the surge in search for zooplankton.

 

[John08007]

Our system has two. We have a 300gal DT that uses a 18gal modified Carlson design. This has been running for just over a year w/ virtually no maintenance. We also have a 40gal frag tank that we bolted in back in Nov that uses a 5gal bucket with a Bell siphon (no other wavemaker). They are louder than wavemakers & we have microbubbles, but they are remarkable to watch & the fish quickly learned to swim in the surge in search for zooplankton.

Would love to see some pics and a video of this

 

[R.Weller]

Would love to see some pics and a video of this

Here's the Carlson device on the DT:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/modified-carlson-surge-device-csd-for-improved-health.712054/
And the Bell siphon on the frag tank:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/frag-tank-surge-device-–-diy-bell-siphon.773421/
You should be able to see the full write-ups & the videos.

The Carlson device is quieter of the two, but with a few tweaks, I expect the Bell siphon would be an overall better solution as it is the simpler option. Either way, they are amazing in their reliability, maintenance & power usage.

 

[bigcheese]

Hmmm. Since I'm planning for my next build (in-wall 265), I am seriously considering this. I was looking at the trough-style they use at the Georgia Aquarium but def gonna check some of these other designs out.

 

[zachtos]

I tried but it caused havoc with my sump levels. For flow nowadays, a few gyre type pumps are all I need for a thriving SPS reef. Perfect type of flow.

 

[garbled]

I use one, and wrote the DIY article. My fish love it. They dance around in the surge, and I feel it greatly enriches their lives. I also have an auto-feeder on it, which dumps pellet foods into the tank, and it makes the fish love the stream even more.

 

[ca1ore]

I'm cooking up plans to do a really huge tank once I retire in about 6 years. Been thinking about flow because pumps for monster tanks are either stupid $$ or a major eyesore. I probably will do a surge device, most likely based on a bell siphon.

 

[Nathan The N8]

I have a Carlson surge device on my 225. It's a 5 gallon bucket with a 1-1/2" drain pipe. I use it along with a pair of wave makers. It isn’t terribly loud, just a rushing swoosh sound as the water empties from the bucket but it's far from silent. It's fed by a Jerepond DC pump that fits nicely in one of my overflow boxes. I have a 100 gallon sump and the water only rises maybe an inch with each discharge. The microbubbles aren't bad either, just a mist of bubbles at the beginning of each dump but they dissipate quickly. I like it, it's old school for sure but the surge effect, in my opinion, is more than what I get from having a several wave makers running and the effect looks natural, except for the pvc elbow hovering below the surface of the water.

I've had aquariums since the 80s and this is a tried and true method plus it's cost-effective if you're handy and know your way around a hardware store. Most of my setup is DIY with the exceptions of skimmers, lights,the tanks themselves and the like. My CSD cost me around $60 and most of that cost was for the pump.