Randy's Redsea Reefer 250 and the rest of the Coral Farm

[Michael Gray]

beautiful pieces. @RandyC knows what hes doing. grade A quality

 

[brandon0921]

For the first two years or so, I never had a problem maintaining the overflow water level at a specific level with the Red Sea diaphragm valve on the main drain and things were silent. However, for the last few months, I have had to make constant adjustments to the valve every 4-5 days because the water level would increase by itself and the noise from water trickling into the emergency drain became super annoying. I've cleaned the valve a number of times, but still had the same problem. I'm not sure why after two years I began to have an issue, but here we are.

So I decided to make the change to a Spears gate valve for the main full siphon drain. Normally something that should be a simple swap in a fish tank, but the Red Sea plumbing poses a challenge because it is metric.

So here's what it looks like now.

From what I've seen, most people have just taken the return connector part (part number 42221), getting a 3/4" threaded male adapter and wrapping the threaded end with 10-15 wraps of telfon tape to fit it into the metric fitting in place of the barb. For a number of reasons, I'm not comfortable with this solution.

So what I did was take a Spears 32mm to 1" transition union and glued the 32mm end over the outer part of the return connector which measures 32mm. I used PVC primer and cement. The plastic that the return connector is made out is an "unknown plastic" (exact words from Red Sea tech support), so using PVC primer and cement wasn't a sure thing that it would bond well, but it looks like it's holding up. No leaks have been seen and best part, tank is dead silent with water in overflow staying steady.

Here's my parts list

- Red Sea return connector part #42221 (remove barb before gluing - also be carful to not over do it on the cement, you don't want to glue the black screw nut since it's a tight fit)

- Spears 32mm to 1" sched 80 transition union
- Spears 1" schedule 80 gate valve
- 1" blue PVC pipe

Thanks for sharing Randy, my RS drain is driving me crazy needing multiple adjustments daily. Do you know of another place to get the metric to standard transition union? The site you linked has an order minimum of $100.

 

[Michael Gray]

Thanks for sharing Randy, my RS drain is driving me crazy needing multiple adjustments daily. Do you know of another place to get the metric to standard transition union? The site you linked has an order minimum of $100.

I have a spears and my waterbox drain is same. It will get noisy like water line dropped slightly. I'd turn it. Fix it and couppe days later. Loud again etc etc. now its quiet. I havent looked but I bet nowwww suddenly it is going down the emergency drain. I'll look this weekend. I thought I was the only one having such an issue

 

[RandyC]

Thanks for sharing Randy, my RS drain is driving me crazy needing multiple adjustments daily. Do you know of another place to get the metric to standard transition union? The site you linked has an order minimum of $100.

Bummer, that $100 minimum is new. That wasn't there when I ordered mine. Unfortunately, I don't know offhand where to find that union elsewhere.

 

[Michael Gray]

Bummer, that $100 minimum is new. That wasn't there when I ordered mine. Unfortunately, I don't know offhand where to find that union elsewhere.

Coralvue has all metric to us conversions. That's how I changed over all my wb plumbing. If you dont see it call them.

 

[RandyC]

Decided to play around with taking some pics under 100% blues. I used the Custom White Balance on my Canon 7d and tried to get the colors true to what I actually see with my eyes without too much of crazy saturation that you normally see with all blue pics from vendors. These are taken straight from the camera with no adjustments in photo editing software except to resize the picture smaller.

ASD Freak Machine

RR Pretty in Pink

BC Goldfire Mille

Some random no name wild colony I've had for a while

 

[RandyC]

Here's a quick update on the micro-fragging experiment on the RRC Ultimate Orange Passion.

Sept 14 (pic under blues from a day later 9/15).

I let the original piece encrust a little before I chopped it into 3 pieces on Sept 30. Here's a picture of it from Oct 4.

Nov 8 (35 days later) - Looks like a couple of the encrustation from two of the pieces are about to merge

Dec 12 (34 days since last picture update - 89 days since I got the frag)

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Beautiful tanks!

 

[Wrangy]

Dang things are looking absolutely amazing!!

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

Wow!!! Those are some great photos and you did it the old fashion way with the wb and not a filter. Love the sps collection.

 

[Manose]

Thanks for sharing Randy, my RS drain is driving me crazy needing multiple adjustments daily. Do you know of another place to get the metric to standard transition union? The site you linked has an order minimum of $100.

I know I am late but you can get the unions here https://flexpvc.com/cart/agora.cgi?p=PVC-Fittings-Metric-Adapters&p_id=8697-032&xm=on&ppinc=detail

 

[RandyC]

Wow!!! Those are some great photos and you did it the old fashion way with the wb and not a filter. Love the sps collection.

thanks for the kind words! You’d actually be surprised how long filters have been around....been a trick of camera trade for many decades (maybe even a century).

 

[Ross Petersen]

For the first two years or so, I never had a problem maintaining the overflow water level at a specific level with the Red Sea diaphragm valve on the main drain and things were silent. However, for the last few months, I have had to make constant adjustments to the valve every 4-5 days because the water level would increase by itself and the noise from water trickling into the emergency drain became super annoying. I've cleaned the valve a number of times, but still had the same problem. I'm not sure why after two years I began to have an issue, but here we are.

So I decided to make the change to a Spears gate valve for the main full siphon drain. Normally something that should be a simple swap in a fish tank, but the Red Sea plumbing poses a challenge because it is metric.

So here's what it looks like now.

From what I've seen, most people have just taken the return connector part (part number 42221), getting a 3/4" threaded male adapter and wrapping the threaded end with 10-15 wraps of telfon tape to fit it into the metric fitting in place of the barb. For a number of reasons, I'm not comfortable with this solution.

So what I did was take a Spears 32mm to 1" transition union and glued the 32mm end over the outer part of the return connector which measures 32mm. I used PVC primer and cement. The plastic that the return connector is made out is an "unknown plastic" (exact words from Red Sea tech support), so using PVC primer and cement wasn't a sure thing that it would bond well, but it looks like it's holding up. No leaks have been seen and best part, tank is dead silent with water in overflow staying steady.

Here's my parts list

- Red Sea return connector part #42221 (remove barb before gluing - also be carful to not over do it on the cement, you don't want to glue the black screw nut since it's a tight fit)

- Spears 32mm to 1" sched 80 transition union
- Spears 1" schedule 80 gate valve
- 1" blue PVC pipe

Hey mate. Can I ask why you aren't comfortable with the other option? How is this option working for you? Cheers

 

[RandyC]

Hey mate. Can I ask why you aren't comfortable with the other option? How is this option working for you? Cheers

The method I used is working out great. No leaks at all.

Using Teflon tape to make up for a deficiency in not using the correct pipe sizing between the two threads is asking for trouble (i.e., an eventual leak). Teflon tape just wasn’t made for making up gaps. It actually isn’t really meant to be as a sealant either for PVC threading (see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-thread-sealant-use-pvc-fittings-larry-workman). And while it may hold water-tight for a gravity fed drain, under pressure it will most likely leak eventually (if used to hard plumb return line for instance).

 

[Ross Petersen]

The method I used is working out great. No leaks at all.

Using Teflon tape to make up for a deficiency in not using the correct pipe sizing between the two threads is asking for trouble (i.e., an eventual leak). Teflon tape just wasn’t made for making up gaps. It actually isn’t really meant to be as a sealant either for PVC threading (see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-thread-sealant-use-pvc-fittings-larry-workman). And while it may hold water-tight for a gravity fed drain, under pressure it will most likely leak eventually (if used to hard plumb return line for instance).

Thanks - clear logic to me. I haven't dissected this much but will be following your suggestion as it seems the most linear and reliable.

 

[Ross Petersen]

The method I used is working out great. No leaks at all.

Using Teflon tape to make up for a deficiency in not using the correct pipe sizing between the two threads is asking for trouble (i.e., an eventual leak). Teflon tape just wasn’t made for making up gaps. It actually isn’t really meant to be as a sealant either for PVC threading (see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-thread-sealant-use-pvc-fittings-larry-workman). And while it may hold water-tight for a gravity fed drain, under pressure it will most likely leak eventually (if used to hard plumb return line for instance).

Quick follow-up. I've got a peninsula 500. Given that the return drain winds around the sump and does a few 90s before reaching the Red Sea drain valve... I'm wondering if I could just straight cut out the red sea valve and use a 1'' union to splice in a 1'' Spears Gate Valve. I'll have to ask my plumber about this (I'm not a DIY guy per se). Does this sound feasible? Thinking out loud. The downside would be the plumbing wouldn't match (I've got pretty blue stuff = a bit ugly).

 

[Ross Petersen]

For the first two years or so, I never had a problem maintaining the overflow water level at a specific level with the Red Sea diaphragm valve on the main drain and things were silent. However, for the last few months, I have had to make constant adjustments to the valve every 4-5 days because the water level would increase by itself and the noise from water trickling into the emergency drain became super annoying. I've cleaned the valve a number of times, but still had the same problem. I'm not sure why after two years I began to have an issue, but here we are.

So I decided to make the change to a Spears gate valve for the main full siphon drain. Normally something that should be a simple swap in a fish tank, but the Red Sea plumbing poses a challenge because it is metric.

So here's what it looks like now.

From what I've seen, most people have just taken the return connector part (part number 42221), getting a 3/4" threaded male adapter and wrapping the threaded end with 10-15 wraps of telfon tape to fit it into the metric fitting in place of the barb. For a number of reasons, I'm not comfortable with this solution.

So what I did was take a Spears 32mm to 1" transition union and glued the 32mm end over the outer part of the return connector which measures 32mm. I used PVC primer and cement. The plastic that the return connector is made out is an "unknown plastic" (exact words from Red Sea tech support), so using PVC primer and cement wasn't a sure thing that it would bond well, but it looks like it's holding up. No leaks have been seen and best part, tank is dead silent with water in overflow staying steady.

Here's my parts list

- Red Sea return connector part #42221 (remove barb before gluing - also be carful to not over do it on the cement, you don't want to glue the black screw nut since it's a tight fit)

- Spears 32mm to 1" sched 80 transition union
- Spears 1" schedule 80 gate valve
- 1" blue PVC pipe

I gather you can readily remove the integrated component from the bulkhead for cleaning? Thanks for the clarification.

 

[RandyC]

Quick follow-up. I've got a peninsula 500. Given that the return drain winds around the sump and does a few 90s before reaching the Red Sea drain valve... I'm wondering if I could just straight cut out the red sea valve and use a 1'' union to splice in a 1'' Spears Gate Valve. I'll have to ask my plumber about this (I'm not a DIY guy per se). Does this sound feasible? Thinking out loud. The downside would be the plumbing wouldn't match (I've got pretty blue stuff = a bit ugly).

I’m not sure if the plumbing sizes of the new sumps as I have the old configuration, but if it’s a 1” pipeit should work fine. But if it’s using the same 32mm plumbing, then it won’t work without a transition Union or a metric to imperial adapter .

I gather you can readily remove the integrated component from the bulkhead for cleaning? Thanks for the clarification.

yeah, it’s no different than before in terms of connected to the plumbing inside the overflow. Just has an extra point where it can be detached (the Union)

 

[McDam]

I just came across your thread. Some of the nicest coloration and coral growth I have ever seen. I am amazed that you are able to get those colors on such small pieces. It was always believed that the coral would develop the colors as it grew bigger but you have thrown that theory right out the window. lol.
The tissue on your pieces is so healthy and thick, almost bubbling in some pics, what would you attribute that too. You can almost see when it started through some of the grow-out pictures. Did you start dosing anything in particular?

 

[RandyC]

I just came across your thread. Some of the nicest coloration and coral growth I have ever seen. I am amazed that you are able to get those colors on such small pieces. It was always believed that the coral would develop the colors as it grew bigger but you have thrown that theory right out the window. lol.
The tissue on your pieces is so healthy and thick, almost bubbling in some pics, what would you attribute that too. You can almost see when it started through some of the grow-out pictures. Did you start dosing anything in particular?

Thanks! I've kept it pretty simple. I have a calcium reactor and do water changes once a week. I do dose a small amount of Red Sea Trace Colors ABCD, but I do that mostly to keep chaeto alive since without it, I've had chaeto die many times over. I only dose around 6ml per week.