New Swiss 1900 liter (500G) Build

[Laith]

Another option I thought of last night for the door was to attach a thin length of wood/pvc vertically on the door frame in such a way that it would act as a doorstop but on the frame instead of the floor...

 

[crusso1993]

I think that a restrictor shown in the video below would work well for you.

 

[Laith]

I think that a restrictor shown in the video below would work well for you.

That might work really well... I'll look into that thanks!

 

[Laith]

Just got a message from rock supplier... rock should be delivered Monday the 2nd!

 

[Enea]

@Laith You are a little far away but when you finish the tank I can come and see you. But as a drain, do you use only a direct 40 mm tube and an open 40 mm tube? How much interchange would you like to have?

 

[Laith]

@Laith You are a little far away but when you finish the tank I can come and see you. But as a drain, do you use only a direct 40 mm tube and an open 40 mm tube? How much interchange would you like to have?

One full siphon 40mm and one open "trickle". I'm planning on about 8,000 liters per hour through the sump.

A full siphon 40mm moves a lot of water! ;Happy At least according to my calculations.

 

[Enea]

One full siphon 40mm and one open "trickle". I'm planning on about 8,000 liters per hour through the sump.

A full siphon 40mm moves a lot of water! ;Happy At least according to my calculations.

I'm doing some testing. Now I'm monitoring a direct descent of the external 20mm and 18 internal PVC with a height of about 150cm of fall. So practically no pressure. the flow sensor tells me that it will discharge 950 l / h.

 

[dragon99]

I've really enjoyed reading this. I've never seen an on location tank build this detailed. I can't imagine the stress you must be going through, I wouldn't sleep for weeks.

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

I'm still terrified of the door handle hitting the side of the glass.

What about reversing the way the doors swing, so they go outside instead of swinging in?

 

[Laith]

I'm doing some testing. Now I'm monitoring a direct descent of the external 20mm and 18 internal PVC with a height of about 150cm of fall. So practically no pressure. the flow sensor tells me that it will discharge 950 l / h.

I've done my calculations calculating Velocity and Q (Flow Rate) accordingly. My original calculations showed higher flow rates because I used 40mm as the diameter while in fact the internal diameter is 36mm.

For 36mm internal diameter and a drop of 1.65m, on a full siphon (both ends of pipe under water, no air at all), my calculation shows a flow rate of 20,795 liters per hour (5,494 gph). Even if we take away 25% for friction etc you can still get 15,600 liters per hour. My drains are pretty straight down into the sump.

So I expect to have the gate valve on the siphon drain about half closed.

Now, that's the math... let's see how that works out when I fill the tank and get it running! ;Joyful

Worse case scenario: I use the return pipe bulkhead as a second full siphon drain... ;Happy

 

[Laith]

I've really enjoyed reading this. I've never seen an on location tank build this detailed. I can't imagine the stress you must be going through, I wouldn't sleep for weeks.

Glad you're enjoying!

Sleep? what's that? ;Joyful

 

[Laith]

I'm still terrified of the door handle hitting the side of the glass.

What about reversing the way the doors swing, so they go outside instead of swinging in?

It's an idea... but that would mean replacing the whole door frame (and probably doors). If I can find another way around it I'd prefer avoiding having that discussion with my wife ;Wideyed ;Happy.

 

[Laith]

So a solution has been found for hanging the lights! ;Happy

The ceiling mounts of the Mitras hanging kits slide right into these aluminum rails:

 

[Laith]

The store only had three of these 120cm rails so I've installed two of them over the tank to test. The finished system will have two 400 cm long parallel rails; 300cm over the tank and an extra 100cm to the right of the tank so that if necessary I can slide lights to the side away from the tank.

I've hung one Mitras on the installed rail to see how it slides. With two rails the five Mitras will be perpendicular to the length of the tank. The mounts slide really easily in the rails!

 

[crusso1993]

I've done my calculations calculating Velocity and Q (Flow Rate) accordingly. My original calculations showed higher flow rates because I used 40mm as the diameter while in fact the internal diameter is 36mm.

For 36mm internal diameter and a drop of 1.65m, on a full siphon (both ends of pipe under water, no air at all), my calculation shows a flow rate of 20,795 liters per hour (5,494 gph). Even if we take away 25% for friction etc you can still get 15,600 liters per hour. My drains are pretty straight down into the sump.

So I expect to have the gate valve on the siphon drain about half closed.

Now, that's the math... let's see how that works out when I fill the tank and get it running! ;Joyful

Worse case scenario: I use the return pipe bulkhead as a second full siphon drain... ;Happy

Wondering if you know the flow rate of your overflow as this will also have a limit on it.

 

[Laith]

Wondering if you know the flow rate of your overflow as this will also have a limit on it.

This was the calculation I showed towards the beginning of the thread:

Any fluid dynamic engineers around? I need some validation of my calculation on whether having the overflow lip 5cm (1.96") from the top of the tank will allow enough flow. I would like about 4-5x turnover going through the sump which means about 8,000 to 9,000 liters (2,100 to 2,400 gallons) an hour. So here we go (be gentle, haven't done this type of calculation since college ).

Here is the current plan for the overflow (for info, it will be a Bean Animal style drain setup with 3x 40mm (1.57") pipes:

So, assuming the overflowing water makes a 2cm drop into the weir... ;Bookworm ;Bookworm

First to calculate velocity:

v = square root of (2 x g x h) where g is gravity (constant of 9.80665 m/s) and h is height (in this case 2cm or 0.02 m)

This works out to 0.6263 m/s

Then to use that to calculate the height of the water bead going over the lip to give me a flowrate of 8,500 l/h:

Flowrate = A x v where A is the cross section area of the water going over the lip. So,

8,500 l/hr or 8.5 m3 per hour or 0.00236 m3/s = A x 0.6263

0.00236 m3/s = (l x h) x 0.6263

The length of the overflow is 65.2cm (70cm wide tank less 2x glass thickness of 2.4cm), or 0.652 m

0.00236 = (0.652 x h) x 0.6263

0.00377 = 0.652 x h

so h = 0.00579 m or 0.579cm (almost 1/4"). This is the height of the water going over the lip of the overflow with a flowrate of 8,500 l/h. ...

The conclusion was that an almost 1/4" (0.58cm) layer of water going over the lip of the overflow will give me a flowrate of around 8,500 l/h.

I used the same formulas to calculate the pipe flow...

Hope I haven't made some stupid mistake in my math ...

 

[Enea]

Hmm, the only certain data I can give you is the maximum water flow of my ascent. I use a red dragon high pressur 9000l / h pump. then I go out with a 32 mm tube and then divide it with a Y into two 25 mm tubes. They put the pump at 100 W and received a 150 cm level between sump and aquarium, the flow sensor measuring 4600 l / h (the royal graph says that in theory I should have a teroic flow of 6000 l / h). So I assume that the maximum flow rate of two 25 mm diameter pipes is 4500 l / h

 

[Laith]

So today I plugged in the light that I had hung up... and it wouldn't turn on ;Rage .

Tested it with another PSU from another Mitras and it worked fine. Surprising, these are solid PSUs...

Anyway, I contacted GHL today and they've already shipped me a new PSU, no questions asked ;Happy.

I love that type of customer service!!

 

[Laith]

Hmm, the only certain data I can give you is the maximum water flow of my ascent. I use a red dragon high pressur 9000l / h pump. then I go out with a 32 mm tube and then divide it with a Y into two 25 mm tubes. They put the pump at 100 W and received a 150 cm level between sump and aquarium, the flow sensor measuring 4600 l / h (the royal graph says that in theory I should have a teroic flow of 6000 l / h). So I assume that the maximum flow rate of two 25 mm diameter pipes is 4500 l / h

Don't forget that the cross sectional area of a 25mm pipe (20.4mm internal diameter) is about 327 mm2. The same area for a 40mm pipe (36mm internal diameter) is 4,072 mm2, or about 12x. That makes an exponential difference in the flow that can go through the two pipes...

 

[Laith]

Tasks slowly getting ticked off the list ...

The disadvantage of 19mm PVC panels for the holding tanks is that not much is made that fits this thickness. The magnets that come with the GHL float sensor holders don't work (in any case I advise against using magnets for this type of application as they move too easily: I tested them on much thinner thickness of glass and they don't hold solidly). And I can't screw in my emergency backup floats through that thickness.

On the other hand, the advantage of using PVC is this:

With my handy tool:

A bit of creative carving (the Dremel goes through PVC like butter):

And problem solved!