Well its been a while since an update but we've been slowly making progress. ;Cat
We ordered all the plumbing parts and last week went to start plumbing the tank only t realize that with the tank being 6ft wide, while we can reach to the back middle of the tank, it wasn't the easiest spot to reach for measuring and glueing pvc. So we decided the easiest plan of attack was to flip the tank 180º on the stand and flip the sump 180º as well to make a "mirror image" of the tank with the backside facing the middle of the room. With the back facing the room, we got to work plumbing the tank yesterday. The tank has an exterior overflow box with 3x 1.5" drains, which we plumbed into a bean animal style drain system, where we reduced one drain from 1.5 down to 1" which is our full siphon drain, and then leaving one of the 1.5" as the durso/secondary drain, and the other 1.5" drain as the dry emergency drain.
Ive never run a bean animal style, as I've never had 3 holes in my tank, but i did/do always run herbie style drains with a single full siphon and emergency so i have a little idea how the bean works, but with all the "complex" plumbing on the system i figured the best thing to do would be share the setup and see what others think. We tried to keep it pretty simple and straightforward, with the return pump only running the tank, with both return lines having union ball valves to tune flow and then a single offshoot for a media reactor.
We had thought about also having the main pump feed the calcium reactor and UV sterilizer but figured trying to tune everything to the correct flow rates, which would require additional flow meters, wasn't worth the added effort and chose to just get a small feed pump for each one at the correct flow rate for that piece of equipment so the flow is always constant. We went with a Pentair 40W Smart UV and We will probably end up with a maxi-jet 900 as the UV feed pump for a constant 230 gph through the sterilizer which recommends between 157-262gph. Since the UV is so large, we decided the easiest place for it to fit and still have access for changing bulbs etc, is directly in front of the sump on the tank stand floor with a pvc clamp holding it in place.
We plan to fill up the tank with just tap water in the coming week and let the system run for a couple of days to make sure all the plumbing is good with no leaks, and since the all the plumbing is facing the middle fo the room, we will be able to easily spot and fix anything that comes up.
Once its run and all the plumbing is checked and no leaks, we will drain the tank, disconnect most of the plumbing at the unions and then flip the tank and sump back 180º so its facing forward on the stand again, and then reconnect the unions/plumbing so we can start aquascaping the tank!
All of our rock has been bleached and acid washed and then cured for about a month- month and a half and then drained back to dry so we can scape it with the rock mortar so theres no risk of any rockslides in the future. Hopefully the tank will have water and start the cycle process in the next couple months!
And because any build thread is useless without pics....
Please let us know what you guys think of the plumbing and if there's anything we forgot to think about. Thanks Reef2Reef!
