rsumner's Reefer 525 Obsession

[mjbradshaw]

nice

 

[DS204]

@OCDean would you mind posting some pics of your externally plumbed fuge and explain how flows work? Have you ran into any problems when the pump is off?

Sure, see below.

Just noticed that your 525xl has the original sump and mine is the v3 design, so my return chamber is next to the partition that I drilled which made things a bit easier for me. Not sure if it will work for your setup, but perhaps this might inspire some thinking for your design. By the way, that's quite the impressive plumbing setup!

I have not run into any problems when the return pump is off. When it shuts off about 1g drains into the sump from the refugium's output, but it's well below the top of the sump walls.

The two white pipes are the main output and the emergency drain. The emergency drain is the cutoff pipe which goes into my return chamber, and the longer white pipe drains into my 'sponge' baffle of the red sea sump, which then flows into the return chamber. It's a LifeReef refugium if you're wondering. I am not using any powerheads in there right now, but was previously. Right now my goal is to have super low flow, to help with anaerobic bacteria growth. I may go back to adding powerheads at some point and getting the chaeto to tumble.

 

[rsumner]

Sure, see below.

Just noticed that your 525xl has the original sump and mine is the v3 design, so my return chamber is next to the partition that I drilled which made things a bit easier for me. Not sure if it will work for your setup, but perhaps this might inspire some thinking for your design. By the way, that's quite the impressive plumbing setup!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or if this helps your build. : )

Thanks for the details. This seems to be a similar concept that people follow with the v2 sump design where they convert the ATO to a fuge. This would likely still work for a v2 sump with there being clear differences in where the outlet of the fuge would dump into the main sump of course. For me, I'm hoping for no additional pump.

 

[rsumner]

So, here's a basic diagram showing what I feel will be the next evolution in my plumbing design. The goals in this design are pretty simple: add a refugium that will have 100% of the display water turnover cycle through it in the first phase. I wanted the fuge to be as large as possible to hold as much macro algae as possible.

So, in this phase, there's two major modifications to the stock Red Sea plumbing that I'm going to need to do:

• swap-out the stock main drain with standard 1" PVC, run it through the stand divider, and dump into the new fuge
• drill the stock sump in sections 2 and 3 to drain the fuge

For the fuge tank, I went with the 25gallon Mr Aqua Cube from BRS. The dimensions are perfect and will consume nearly the entire right hand section of the cabinet. I would have liked it to be about 2 inches shorter, but I'm just being picky.

I got a standard 1" gate valve to replace the stock Red Sea diaphragm valve and will introduce a 90-bend immediately after it or a few 45's. I haven't figured out how I'm going to retrofit this yet with the proprietary Red Sea bulkheads, but I'll be sure to post pics once that time comes. The main drain from the fuge will dump into the original crash-box section of sump and then flow-over a 12" wall into the stock Red Sea sock holder platform. The emergency drain from the fuge will dump directly onto the platform of the Red Sea sock holder platform at 14".

All the parts are ordered and should be here this week. Anybody see any problems/concerns with this design? I'll be sure to provide updates as I progress.

 

[rsumner]

Well, I've got the dry side of my cabinet completely emptied, a small equipment cabinet built, and all my Apex gear and power supplies moved into it. All the equipment for the fuge expansion have arrived and I was just about ready to drain my sump and start drilling it when I started to think about an alternative option.

What if I don't drill the main sump on the left and just have two external durso drain pipes to pull water out of the refugium? I can put the refugium on a little riser/stand to give gravity a boost. Here's an updated drawing of it:

By taking this route, I will only have to drill the two bulkhead holes in the refugium tank and won't have to drill anything in the existing sump. The one question I really need help with:

Will 5" of vertical drop be enough gravity force to create a siphon in the main external durso downpipe?

This design will save me from having to completely drain the main sump, reduce the risk of cracking the main sump during drilling, and will give me about another 4 gallons of total water volume in the refugium due to me being able to raise the water level above the main sump.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DS204]

Well, I've got the dry side of my cabinet completely emptied, a small equipment cabinet built, and all my Apex gear and power supplies moved into it. All the equipment for the fuge expansion have arrived and I was just about ready to drain my sump and start drilling it when I started to think about an alternative option.

What if I don't drill the main sump on the left and just have two external durso drain pipes to pull water out of the refugium? I can put the refugium on a little riser/stand to give gravity a boost. Here's an updated drawing of it:

By taking this route, I will only have to drill the two bulkhead holes in the refugium tank and won't have to drill anything in the existing sump. The one question I really need help with:

Will 5" of vertical drop be enough gravity force to create a siphon in the main external durso downpipe?

This design will save me from having to completely drain the main sump, reduce the risk of cracking the main sump during drilling, and will give me about another 4 gallons of total water volume in the refugium due to me being able to raise the water level above the main sump.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm no plumbing expert but I do think that will work for you. Someone else may chime in with flow expectations, etc. My external refugium is gravity draining to my return section in the exact same manner as yours. The refugium's water level is several inches above the return chamber's water level and gravity does it's thing. Not sure if you will get the desired flow, so perhaps someone with more expertise will chime in there. But in answer to your question, I do agree that the 5" will be enough gravity. Water will always take the path of least resistance and flow downhill. Unless you're in space, that could change things a little! : )

 

[rsumner]

I'm no plumbing expert but I do think that will work for you. Someone else may chime in with flow expectations, etc. My external refugium is gravity draining to my return section in the exact same manner as yours. The refugium's water level is several inches above the return chamber's water level and gravity does it's thing. Not sure if you will get the desired flow, so perhaps someone with more expertise will chime in there. But in answer to your question, I do agree that the 5" will be enough gravity. Water will always take the path of least resistance and flow downhill. Unless you're in space, that could change things a little! : )

Flow is definitely my concern here. I've done these types of short-run siphons before when I had the little 4gallon ATO converted into a fuge, but that was a lot less volume of water. This new fuge will handle 100% of the flow from the display, so we're looking at around 500gph.

I'm gonna roll with it. I can always add a 3rd durso which would make it a bean animal to provide some protection if I needed it.

I'll get the table saw out and start making the riser/stand for the tank and drill some holes for the bulkheads in the new fuge. I'll post pictures with progress.

 

[DS204]

Flow is definitely my concern here. I've done these types of short-run siphons before when I had the little 4gallon ATO converted into a fuge, but that was a lot less volume of water. This new fuge will handle 100% of the flow from the display, so we're looking at around 500gph.

I'm gonna roll with it. I can always add a 3rd durso which would make it a bean animal to provide some protection if I needed it.

I'll get the table saw out and start making the riser/stand for the tank and drill some holes for the bulkheads in the new fuge. I'll post pictures with progress.

Cool! I suppose in your case because you aren't drilling the sump, if you don't end up liking the final setup you could always reverse the changes....?

 

[rsumner]

Cool! I suppose in your case because you aren't drilling the sump, if you don't end up liking the final setup you could always reverse the changes....?

You got it. I bought an extra Red Sea return adapter so that I can build a new main drain downpipe that takes an immediate 90-degree turn out of the main sump (connected to the original Red Sea bulkhead). All I would have to do is swap that back out with the original downpipe and I'm back in business.

 

[DS204]

Sounds like a solid plan - good luck with your setup, sounds like you have this well thought through! It'll be interesting to see it come together. It's enjoyable to exchange ideas and see reefing projects take shape.

 

[rsumner]

Well, it took me a few weeks to get this done due to my back giving out on me while being hunched over with half my body in the cabinet. It's clear sign that I'm getting old

I have a little cleanup of the main sump area to do before I post pics of that side, but here are a few pics of the new expansion fuge:

A few early comments that I'd like to share with everyone:

• I need to install a small internal overflow box in the fuge to help keep the chaeto out of the drains and to provide surface skimming. Since 100% of my turnover goes through this section first, I'm seeing quite a bit of organics collecting on the surface of the water. In addition, the chaeto releases a lot of microbubbles that contribute to surface film. I threw in a powerhead pointed at the surface, but that just caused the chaeto to block the drain worse. I ordered one from ebay that should be here next week.
• While there is enough gravity to generate a siphon, its very delicate and takes significantly longer to stabilize than the main drain coming from the display. Because of this, I'm seeing a frequent imbalance in the water level in the return section of the original sump any time there's a change in turnover (eg. feed cycles). I'm going to address this in two ways:
  • When coming out of feed mode, I'm going to set the ramp time on my pump to 3 minutes to get from feed mode to the level I normally run my pump (5% speed to 70% speed). Hopefully this will give the system more time to balance before all that water is gushing into the fuge.
  • I need to install an air bleed line on the main durso drain. I had one installed initially, but I drilled the cap poorly and it didn't have a good seal. I'm going to pick up a John Guest NTP to Push connect and run it up and over the cabinet and have it sit in the overflow box.
• I don't need ball valves on the durso pipes. Since I"m running 1" drains, the main durso handles all the flow and has plenty to spare. In addition, I have so little clearance where the durso comes into the main sump, that I really don't have room for another 6" for a huge true union ball valve. Honestly, I just have those pipes dry fitted right now and they aren't leaking at all. That makes it super easy for me to pull them out to clean the sump.
• I realized that my bulkheads were threaded on the flange side when I went to install them, so I have a lot more plumbing in the fuge-side of the bulkhead than I want. I also ran out of street elbows, so I've got a male adapter and standard elbows in there now. I snagged some slip-to-slip 1" bulkheads that were delivered yesterday and I intend on fixing this when I install the internal overflow box.
• I'm noticing a TON of detritus buildup in the fuge. I'm assuming people that run a true Triton Method (with no mechanical prefilter) are used to this problem, but it triggers my OCD when I see uneaten mysis orbiting my chaeto.

That's it for now. More pics of the total setup will come once I get the overflow box installed in the fuge and the sump cleaned up.

 

[rsumner]

So, I picked up a internal overflow box from eBay. The seller is based in the US and hand makes the overflow boxes with 1/4" cast acrylic and laser polished edges. The craftsmanship is great and he also includes a reinforced acrylic lid for the box all at a price point that is less than the crappy commercial options. To make it even better, he's a R2F member, so give him a shoutout - @vinay!

The water level is slightly higher than before the installation of the overflow bringing the total water addition to the system up by 22.5 gallons. I also converted to street elbows and went with slip-to-slip bulkheads to keep things more compact within the overflow. The major win of adding the overflow is that the system is able to return to a full siphon much faster than without it. In addition, the surface of the fuge is crystal clear now so I'm not impacting PAR performance.

I'll post a few pics of the main/original sump soon along with a few other additions I made.

 

[rsumner]

In true obsessive compulsive fashion, I ordered a Traceable 4244 Extreme-Accuracy Thermometer a few weeks ago and it finally came in the mail today. This puppy is calibrated at 3 points (0, 25, and 37 Celsius) and accurate to ±0.05°C. WOW! In other words, it's accurate to 1/10 of a degree Fahrenheit where most thermometers on the market are accurate to 1 degree Celsius which is 1.8 degree Fahrenheit. I already owned a Traceable 4354, but it's accurate to ±0.5°C which is nearly a whole degree Fahrenheit. Here's a picture of this beauty sitting on my desk with the probe sitting in my sump attached by the 5ft long probe cable that's included.

I used it to calibrate my Apex's temperature probe which was nearly a whole degree Fahrenheit off from its readings. So, why all of this obsession over temperature? Well, I've been trying to dial-in my salinity levels lately by using the Tropic Marin Precision Hydrometer. Since their hydrometer is calibrated at 77 Fahrenheit, I needed to make sure I knew the exact temperature of my water to get a perfect understanding of my specific gravity.

The funny and disappointing thing after all this money and time I spent? There's only a 0.0001 difference in the SG for 77° water vs 78° water ;Hilarious Oh well, it's one more cool gadget that I now have. I was also able to determine that my 4354 needed recalibration because it was 0.6° off. I'm shipping it to Traceable tomorrow to have them recalibrate.

That's all for now folks...until the next obsession I can find!

 

[rsumner]

I took a few pics of the sump with the lights on. My GFO reactor is empty right now, because I just did a water change and like to give it a few days before I crank up the harsh cleaners again.

Overall I’m really happy with the current setup. I’m still cleaning up my controller and gear storage with a new custom cabinets build that will give me storage for gear on both sides of the stand but still look integrated. Right now, I’ve got reactors and apex gear everywhere in my office and wifey isn’t too happy.