spayne
06-28-2006, 02:47 AM
Truth be told, you guys won't be seeing me much in the equipment area. Jay is the one with the passion for plumbing and mixing electricity with water. Although you can be sure when I get my 350 gallon sump for my 20L, I will post that in here! (laugh)
So here's Jay's closed loop. Ryan at "Advanced" helped a ton with the planning of this. From where to drill the holes to how to cut a hole in the wall and not have the roof cave in on us!
Here's a diagram. And by the way, it is not being run by a Dolphin 8800 anymore. There is such a thing as TOO MUCH FLOW!!! We lost a orange shoulder tang thanks to the shock and horror of the tsunami from the Dolphin slamming him into the front of the tank. Stupid pump. Jay still needs to get rid of the blasted thing, too!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/ClosedLoop.jpg
Now originally, the 240 was drilled... but it was drilled in the bottom which scared the hell out of us. Again, Ryan saved the day and gave us advice on how to patch the holes as well as gave us acrylic to do it with!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3940.jpg
Here's when it was all nice and pretty. Drilled with bulkheads in:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3973.jpg
And an inside shot:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3978.jpg
Now here is a shot of the plumbing. You can see one issue Jay has. Well, a couple. For one, there is a loft in the garage that has become known as the skull cracker when you're not paying attention. So it makes for difficult access into the tank. The other issue is, the PVC sticks out quite a ways from the back of the tank. So not only do you have to watch your head, you have to skillfully balance yourself on the ladder and lean way over onto the top of the tank to get to anything. And since I'm vertically challenged, I don't assist with tank maintenance. Now, don't think I'm complaining. This is all stuff Jay has said. Personally, I'm impressed that he got it to work!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04912.jpg
Here's a better example of how far the PVC sticks out. Jay does plan to tear the plumbing apart eventually and redo this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04914.jpg
And another:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04915.jpg
The other thing... we don't have front access from inside the house. We wanted to capture the "living picture" vibe without putting in cabinetary to take away from that effect. The problem with that is, it's not very maintenance friendly. We would have far less coralline overtaking the front of the tank if we had front access. Putting in new frags would be a heck of a lot easier, too.
Sadly, the header is right above the tank. So for us to make front access, we would have to remove the header and saw out another chunk of the wall... with the tank in place of course... and move it up higher to allow for this. Jay has talked to Ryan about it, but I'm not entirely certain if this is going to happen.
So that is the saga of the closed loop on the 240. And yeah, Jay had trouble getting that one bulkhead to seal. I told him to use duct tape, because that fixes everything, but he wouldn't listen to me.
I'm sure Jay will both be surprised that I posted this (but I wanted to get something in this forum) and will add his insights... or correct me where I botched relaying his vision of plumbing to you! :D
Stacy
So here's Jay's closed loop. Ryan at "Advanced" helped a ton with the planning of this. From where to drill the holes to how to cut a hole in the wall and not have the roof cave in on us!
Here's a diagram. And by the way, it is not being run by a Dolphin 8800 anymore. There is such a thing as TOO MUCH FLOW!!! We lost a orange shoulder tang thanks to the shock and horror of the tsunami from the Dolphin slamming him into the front of the tank. Stupid pump. Jay still needs to get rid of the blasted thing, too!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/ClosedLoop.jpg
Now originally, the 240 was drilled... but it was drilled in the bottom which scared the hell out of us. Again, Ryan saved the day and gave us advice on how to patch the holes as well as gave us acrylic to do it with!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3940.jpg
Here's when it was all nice and pretty. Drilled with bulkheads in:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3973.jpg
And an inside shot:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSCN3978.jpg
Now here is a shot of the plumbing. You can see one issue Jay has. Well, a couple. For one, there is a loft in the garage that has become known as the skull cracker when you're not paying attention. So it makes for difficult access into the tank. The other issue is, the PVC sticks out quite a ways from the back of the tank. So not only do you have to watch your head, you have to skillfully balance yourself on the ladder and lean way over onto the top of the tank to get to anything. And since I'm vertically challenged, I don't assist with tank maintenance. Now, don't think I'm complaining. This is all stuff Jay has said. Personally, I'm impressed that he got it to work!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04912.jpg
Here's a better example of how far the PVC sticks out. Jay does plan to tear the plumbing apart eventually and redo this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04914.jpg
And another:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/spayne377/240Reef/DSC04915.jpg
The other thing... we don't have front access from inside the house. We wanted to capture the "living picture" vibe without putting in cabinetary to take away from that effect. The problem with that is, it's not very maintenance friendly. We would have far less coralline overtaking the front of the tank if we had front access. Putting in new frags would be a heck of a lot easier, too.
Sadly, the header is right above the tank. So for us to make front access, we would have to remove the header and saw out another chunk of the wall... with the tank in place of course... and move it up higher to allow for this. Jay has talked to Ryan about it, but I'm not entirely certain if this is going to happen.
So that is the saga of the closed loop on the 240. And yeah, Jay had trouble getting that one bulkhead to seal. I told him to use duct tape, because that fixes everything, but he wouldn't listen to me.
I'm sure Jay will both be surprised that I posted this (but I wanted to get something in this forum) and will add his insights... or correct me where I botched relaying his vision of plumbing to you! :D
Stacy