CrazyA's 150 gallon project

No sweat. It's coming along really well. Nice work.

 

Well what can I say.... today was a good day. Stopped by the LFS and owner gave me a used acrylic 50 gal to use as a sump. It needed a little TLC, but i scrubbed it down enough to fit under the stand as a model. I was surprised to see it fit through the back side. As lil' Jon would say....."YYEEAAHH !!!"



In the stand


Little bit of extra room for pump or something..


View from the back

 

Forgot to mention. I will add in dividers and what not to make a fuge and a compartment for the skimmer. I'm so excited. Thanks Oasis !!

 

Not only good news about the sump...but a friend of mine has some extra metal halide shop lamps that he was no longer using. They are 400 watt each. My original plan was to use 3x 250 watt, but for the price of these i could not pass them up. Only bummer thing i can see with these is there are two support braces molded onto the top rim of the DT. They are located exactly below where these will be mounted. There will be approx 8" between the lights and these braces. Does anyone se posential hazzard with this method? Please let me know...Thanks.

 

I would get rid of the hose on top of the standpipes as you will have proplems with them clogging from salt creep.

That is cool. My sons name is Tanner and he will be 5 in February. His middle name is Jayden so he is TJ for short. I will hand him over my DJ business when he gets older so he will be "TJ the DJ"

Yes you will melt the cross braces with the heat from the lights. You need another light or you will have shadows in the tank. KOgle on here has a 180g and he puts 2 250w MH's on the outside of the tank with a 400w MH in the middle. Many you can reverse that and put a 250w in the middle or just get another 400w.

Also you might have a problem with flow on the OF. You have made what looks like a Durso Standpipe but it will be unable to use pressure to push water out of the bulkhead since it is right beside the outlet. The whole purpose of the pipe is to build pressure with water volume and push it out the bulkhead. Read the bottom paragraph of this page about oversizing the pipe.
Make Your Own Durso Standpipe

You might be ok as long as your not wanting 3,000gph out of the tank.

 

Thanks for the response. From what I've read the hose is needed, It'll bend around the inside of the DT. ( however I've never used this type of overflow system before, just basing off what I've read here.) Sure hope it works since its got 3 dedicated holes drilled for it :-/

Thats cool, I love the name Tanner. We have a little one on the way, a boy. I'm shooting for Gunner, my son likes the name, but not the wife....

Thanks for that feed back. I will try and track down another 400w.

EDIT.... The guy i got the two from said he had another. I'll pick it up today.

Overflow was build using the Bean-Animal principal. As for flow it will be fairly slow, the CL will provide water movement, the overflow will provide circulation through fuge/skimmer.

I greatly appreciate the feedback Otty

 

I have not used that type of OF so it may work. I would just worry about air getting in the OF and causing siphon to stop, because air can not get out. I drill a small hole in the top of all the caps and then enlarge the hole if it starts to make a flushing sound like pulling a straight siphon. All three of mine have a 1/4" hole in the top to let air out and they are pretty quiet but are the Durso type of standpipe.

Keep us informed on how it works. Just make sure you do some freshwater trials on your plumbing and flow before you start filling with saltwater. I filled my tank 3 times with freshwater before I was happy with flow.

 

Ya i definately planned on doing a trial run or two when she's all plumbed up. The benefit of one air line on one of the overflow plumbing devices is to start a true siphon if the water level is too high, then once level drops below the air line it has minimal flow. I'll post a video when i get it plumbed up. Thanks Otty for the feed back, its greatly appreciated.

 

its coming together...

 

Been super busy at work this last week which has left me with little time to work on the new set-up. Throughout this last week i did aquire a 3rd 400w metal halide fixture. Tonight i started in on the electrical wiring, but had to call it a night, work early tomorrow. Completed the conduit from the breaker to the small space below the house, tomorrow i will feed the wire through and take it to its final destination. There i will wire the 240v supply to the ballast which will hang under the house. Then i will feed the wires to the light sockets up through the wall to a box which will host 3 outlets so i can plug my halide sockets in. I also plan to install two outlets supplied by 240v. This way i will have the ability to convert the CL pump to 240v and run more efficiently. Sorry if this sounds like a bunch of rammbling, i'm tired and feel guilty for not posting any pics. I will do so tomorrow.