CrazyA's 150 gallon project

Well about a dozen trips to lowes and home depot got some plumbing done today. She's not the prettyest but I hope it works. As of now most components are dry-fitted.

Added some barb fittings


Not sure if this manifold will work, but i do hope so. (the right side barb has been replaced with a valve, see last pic)


Only thing missing is the return on the top right (ran out of pvc) and the sump return plumbing. I put the little giant to the test on the 135gal temporary while I plumbed all this together. Tomorrow it get plumbed to this tank for dry fit


Oh ya, forgot to mention, i drilled two more holes over the weekend. now there are four 1" bulkheads for the CL pump.
2 feed into an 1-1/2 tee to the CL pump intake and two feed the return of the CL pump via 1-1/2 tee to two 1" pvc

 

well.... I plugged the hammerhead and little giant in tonight.

I gotta say I am very impressed with the hammerhead pump. I got the thumbs up from the wife on the noise level (man those pumps are quiet) and the water movement is awesome. This pump is strickly moving water through the closed loop set-up.

The little giant did as expected as well, nice quiet pump. This is the sump return pump. Which also gave me a chance to FINALLY test out the bean-animal overflow (I've beeen patiently awaiting this monent). The overflow definately keeps up with the water flow. However I do have some questions on this system though.. I'm assuming i need to silicone the top caps (threaded area) as air might be entering the system. I have the valve wide open on the main drain. Water is continously flowing down that drain (as expected), but the drain with the poly hose does not seem to "kick in and out" with the main drain valve wide open?.?. Whether the air line is in the water or not seems to be the same performance. The water level in the overflow box stayed the same height. Anyone have any input on this?
Anyway I only spent about 20 minutes admiring the new set-up. I'll play around again tomorrow. I'll try and post a video if I can get my hands on a camcorder tomorrow.

 

Alright well after a little playing around tonight i figured the bean-animal overflow out. My problem was i was not restricting the main drain with the valve like I should have been. Simple mistake i guess.... But it works great now

I got a little crazy with some blue paint too. Paint looks a little sloppy on the plumbing i know, but i will get back to dolling that up later. As far as the glass, i'm happy with the look and color.


Front side view

 

Sorry i have "new tank syndrome". Only way tonight i could get video was with my old skool Samsung. Dont laugh... (Well apparently i need to learn how to insert a video tomorrow too..)

YouTube - Reeflo Hammerhead closed loop

YouTube - CrazyA's closed loop plumbing

 

Well after running the 3-400w lights I realized real fast that they need to be higher. The original canopy hung the lights 8" off the water. I went ahead and rebuilt one this weekend that is 5" taller. Here are some pics i took while taking a break from staining it. There will be more to come once its setting on top of the tank

Enjoy

 

that sounds about right, mine hangs 16" over the top and does not affect my water temp by more than 1 degree, then again I only have 1 instead of 3.

 

Well thats promising to hear, thanks for the feedback. Once i complete staining the canopy this evening i plan to install it over the 135g and run the lights for a period of time to see what it does to the water temp.

BTW i read earlier you were looking into the bean animal overflow system. I highly recommend it after testing my system out. I might recommend not using flexible hose as down pipes, but rather ridgid PVC to keep the water clinging to the walls of the pipe better. But honestly i hear little noise with the hose so i cant compare it to that method (it still seems plenty quiet with the hose). I went with the hose because it can be removed easily when i plan to move it inside the house. Unions just would not fit behind the 150 without it being pulled farther away from the wall. Its an awesome overflow system. Oh ya, make sure you have access to the valve on the main drain too
If i can get a hold of a video camera i'll take video of the start-up and how it stabilizes for ya

 

the video would be sweet.
by the time I do this I plan on this being built into the wall so the entire back will be exposed and accessible.

 

looking very nice

 

Lookin good so far