Dwolson's 135gal Build

coryg wrote:I saw the title change and I thought you got a new tank hahaha

That would kinda stink, put all this work in this tank not to even see it set up!

Many people have done that. You read all the time in the FS threads that, "I had intentions of setting this tank up but my life's priorities has changed and need to sell this tank"

Yea, I forgot about those. I think if you don't get started, its just sad to look at. I know I wish my lights were done so I could at least look in the tank. I thought about putting a fish in there, but with the crazy temp swings, I think it would be torture.

Working on the mock-up for my LEDS here is what I have so far:


3-5w LED's with 2)50W multi-chips on the ends.
The outside black boxes are heat sinks. 2- 6X9 and 1-6X20 from rapid LED
I plan to have fans(5) cooling the heat sink. The triple puck kits are the triple pucks from rapid led, I bought a kit from them already.

added more rock...thanks nick!

still have to play around a bit, I feel like its a little to fat down low on the right. The right stack is about 4 inches from the top of the water.

I still have a 1/4 bucket left, which will go in my sump, but I ran out of room for water. I have to wait a bit for some water to dissipate, or I may flood

Cant u just drain some water out?

I could, but my salinity was low anyway.

Oh. Speaking of wich you dont have my refractometer calibration fluid do u?

i thought we went over this already, I gave it back to you a while ago...lol, I will look here just to make sure though

Did we? Oh sorry lol i cant find it anywhere

look in the boxes you picked up.

My skimmer is going nuts again since I put that rock in. How long was it sitting out drying? There was more crap on that rock then mine!

Oh and I put some vodka in the tank to try to help and pull nutrients out of the water, but I did that before i put the rock in(over the last 4 days) so now there is a ton of nutrients for bacteria to eat

Like 3 weeks. Did you rinse it off at all?

nope In a few weeks I will run the last of my carbon and GFO to clean the last of it up.

That probbly would have helped

redone, I think I will add a strip of blue and RB on the back down the road. Here is what I have on hand aside from the 50W ones:

I don't think I ever put this up but its a diy skimmer muffler

So after looking around more, I think I am going to go with a 30K white(for the 50W). I looked at a lot of peoples opinion, and I currently have the design to have about a 14K for my 3/5w leds(with full power), so I am going to want to be more on the blue side. I don't want a straight blue LED, and the 30K are a little bit more for the chip(40$) but I think I will be happier with them. IF they come out too blue, I will have enough white in the 5w chips to whiten it up, it its still too white(which I doudbt) I will add a strip of 12 blues to the back side of the fixture.
Here is the 30K led:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50W-Power-LED-30000K-White-4500LM-30-35V-1-5A-Aquarium-Plants-/390410942926?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5ae64e39ce

and someone using them:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2206012

I pm'd the guy on rc, and he said it was very similar to a 20K metal halide. I have heard a lot of chatter about the "20K" leds looking more like 14K" and to go with 30K's

I have my radions set to 20K and I really like the color as well as the coral growth. by supplementing the other lights you will be able to dial in that 20K look or whatever color config you're going for.

From what I've read the multi chips, or leds in general are not accurate compared to metal halide in the Kelvin scale. Ecotech more than likely made the programming mirror what we are used to seeing in metal halides. So to get a 20k multi chip led, I have to order a 30 k, its going to be easier to over power blue with white than white with blue anyway.

So I’ve been asked to give a good description of the overflow and how it works.
Before I begin, I want to credit teslareef on rc for the CAD drawings.
How it works, it’s a bean animal design. The plumbing from left to right is Siphon, emergency, return, wet.

The siphon will be solid with water and have a valve to control flow through it. Since a siphon is the best way to move water and is absolutely silent, that’s takes the bulk of the water flow. Pumps fluctuate, so you couldn’t only have a siphon, because of that you have a wet stand pipe. The wet stand pipe takes any fluctuations that are in the flow. The last pipe is emergency, which will take flow in the event the wet or siphon become clogged. If the siphon or wet (when I install the airline piece in the cap) reach a certain level, they will turn into siphons a “flush” all the water into your sump.
That’s the basic design of the bean animal. Most of the time you see all of this done in one overflow box and in the back of the tank. Because I have a reef ready tank, with two overflows, I could have done a Herbie or leave the standpipe, but neither is perfect, and in my opinion far less superior to the bean animal(also I should note, bean animal took a herbie design and added an emergency, so although the herbie was really good, once the bean animal was made, it’s no longer the best )
How do I make dual overflows work as one was my new problem. A few solutions are to remove both overflows, put in a false wall all the way across making one big overflow (also taking away a lot of display area), I could have run a pipe from overflow to overflow in the display(which wouldn’t have been bad if I kept it under the sand level), and lastly what I did, was to connect the two with a weir. I added the weir because it would serve two purposes, one, connecting the overflows and two, giving me coast to coast(C2C) skimming. C2C skimming also helps to reduce noise and air entering into the overflow.

Here is teslareef’s picture

Here you can see the overflow has been notched out. On my tank I didn’t need to plug the gap, but on his, he would need to otherwise the water would drain about 4 inches. My overflows are solid so all that was needed was to notch out the corners (outlined in red)
Here are my overflows connected:

And here are the notches in my overflow.
Here is the left, note, far left is siphon right is emergency:

Then far right is my wet and my return is the thing with locline on it:

Notice the hole in the cap, eventually this will be tapped and have an airline coming out of it. I intend to put the end of the airline *lower* than the emergency so I can turn the wet into a siphon before the emergency even takes effect.
Here is the plumbing laid out in the tank.

It overflows both the factory weirs and the new weir. Once both overflows are filled (if you were just setting up a tank it would go in both equally) the path of least resistance will be the overflow on the right because the inlet of the wet is too high. So all the water is going to go to the siphon drain. Now remember we set the siphon to take most but not all of the flow. Because it’s not taking all the flow the water level will rise to the inlet of the wet drain and eventually start going down that(like a traditional durso standpipe) the amount of water that goes down the wet is little, so there isn’t a lot if any noise.
In the event that one clogged, the water would continue to rise, and eventually go into the emergency and flow down that. Once you clear the clog, it will go back to normal.

After everything is said and done, the two things I would change are the width of the new weir(front to back) and the valve on the siphon.
I would, if I didn’t have a canopy, make the weir a 1.5” so water could flow easier to the left(with the canopy open there is a little(like less than my mp10/40) noise. With the canopy shut I don’t hear it.
Also, and I plan to do this, is to put a gate valve, not ball valve, on my siphon. It will allow me to have a more fine control of flow. It is very quiet through entering in my sump, but, I want as little bubbles made as possible (and I am just nit picking here) Also while I am on the note of entering the sump, the pipes need to be about 3/4” deep into the water. No lower or higher (you do have about 1/4” of tolerance either way). If you go too deep the water can’t push the air bubble out, and if its above the water, it won’t create a siphon and make a lot of noise.
Hopefully this answers the questions I have been posed, if it doesn’t shoot me a PM
Thanks!

This is the only way to plumb a tank in my opinion. After doing this myself, I can't imagine taking the chance of an overflow or hearing a loud tank. This was very informative, thanks for puttin this together as it is a great reference.

Great write up!

Thanks had fun doing while at work

SO after giving it some thought, I think i am going to put one of the eb8's from the bottom, into the canopy. Then I can plug in a heater into an overflow, my 6025's into the apex, as well as a vdm(which I need to buy still) The idea is two fold, one, less wiring coming down the back side of the tank, and two some of the stuff(powerheads and heater) don't have long enough cords. Also, I was going to buy a vdm anyway to control another channel of LEDs. I may use the spare channel for a pair of 6055s(controllable tunze) Although I'm not sure about that one yet.

Without the eb8 in the sump area, I am ok on outlets, with one exception. Dosing. I am going to need to buy an eb4w/pumps or Bubble magnus doser. I don't have enough mechanical relays in the bottom now. I haven't completely committed to the idea, so any feedback would be great!

I wouldnt put it in the canopy even tho you have LEDs your going to have some evaporation and that may ruin the eb8.

True, but I have evaporation alson in the stand, maybe more so since the skimmer is popping so many water bubbles. Both stand and canopy are going to be vented with fans as to minimize condensation.

Started assembling my LEDs.
Here is my "workstation"


Blue on the triple pucks wired up:


and powered:

Its been a bit since I updated, so here goes,
I have been slowly working on my DIY leds, I am now at the point of having the triple pucks wired up, plus 6 more whites on the white side of that(used a larger driver) and now wired up a set of 4 greens and 3 blue on one channel. Here is the up to date photo:


Note, I still have 4 reds, 3 blues and 6 UV to wire up still.
Also, I now have 2 MP40WES on my tank and will be removing all other pumps. Also been thinking about how I want to aquascape. Man do I hate trying to figure that out!

what about the wavebox?

Don't worry about it

Yeah yoou should put that wave box in the back right corner. That would be some sweet wave action!!

Lol, maybe Jimmy, maybe not....

just throw it in the tank and lets see a video/picture of the wave!

ya! i want to see it working too!

ohh boy...

haha

Nick:
Here

hahaha I think he ment your tank

Ya i did

You've seen one you've seen them all....

This is pretty entertaining

Yup

im just gonna shut up now I have a trade pending with him that I dont want to fall through haha

What trade?

some coffee for his bucket of salt.

not just some coffee but Komodo Dragon, Plus a Mug and french press(no not a sexual reference)

Oh cool

No hot, I like my coffee hot!

dwolson2 wrote:not just some coffee but Komodo Dragon, Plus a Mug and french press(no not a sexual reference)

I love how you cover up our in the closet love for each other!

Don't talk to meet like that you.....