Randy's Tank Description

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the heads up and please excuse my ignorance. What is the process to start a new thread?

Click this link

Reef Chemistry by Randy Holmes-Farley

Need some help with the chemistry aspect of your aquarium or have some knowledge you would like to share? Please start a new topic. This forum is moderated by Randy Holmes-Farley.

www.reef2reef.com

to get to the forum overall rather than a specific thread, and then on the right hand side near the top is a blue button called "post thread" .

Click it and fill in the blanks.

 

[Miami Reef]

What’s your all time favorite fish? A top 3 list from you would be nice.

 

[A Young Reefer]

What a great tank that was!
hope to see you reefing again soon.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What a great tank that was!
hope to see you reefing again soon.

Thanks!

Happy Reefing!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What’s your all time favorite fish? A top 3 list from you would be nice.

Longhorn cowfish
Ocellaris clowns
Yellow tang

 

[Cthulukelele]

What's in the tank these days?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What's in the tank these days?

Some dead coralline. It’s been empty in the garage for quite a while. lol

 

[Miami Reef]

Some dead coralline. It’s been empty in the garage for quite a while. lol

Haha.

 

[Mickey]

@Randy Holmes-Farley - I dredged up your old thread about your tank setup because I've been considering moving my sump to basement for 10+ years and my back and knees are telling me it should be soon. I thought about doing it way back in 2004 when tank was set up but hubby wasn't too keen on that for numerous reasons. Since I live in CT I think your situation may be similar to what I have to deal with so I hope you don't mind a few questions.

1. Do you have those brute barrels right on the concrete floor or elevated on platforms of some type?

2a. Approximately how much wattage or number of heaters did you need tokeep the water temperature up, especially in the winter? My basement is 55-60 degrees in winter and might get to 65 in the summer.

2b. Did you end up running heaters in summer too given the basement temperatures and all that water in your 10 brute barrels?

3. Did you run your skimmer external or was it internal and mounted on a platform inside one of the barrels?

4. How did you get the water to flow through all those barrels then back to the tank? You mentioned running two Iwakis in parallel, but were they actually plumbed back to back or at different points in the setup? I believe you had two barrels for refugia and two for sumps and maybe more!

5. I have been using two barrels for water changes for almost 20 years, one for water coming out and one for new and I've been thinking about plumbing them together for a total of 80 gallons of new water then setting up AWC with the wastewater going directly down the drain so I'm interested in how you set yours up. If I understand your new SW mixing station correctly, you have two barrels plumbed together, then a pump in one that pumps water through the bulkheads via another tube/pipe into the second barrel, then you add salt to the second barrel (the one without the pump) and then both barrels mix up evenly. Is that right?

6. How did you deal with the humidity from all those open barrels in a cool basement?

Thanks and I know I probably have a few more questions for later.

Mickey

 

[Mickey]

@Randy Holmes-Farley - any chance you can give me some more background on your old set-up?

Anyone else have any advice for setting up a sump area plus all equipment in a basement in New England?

Mickey

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Three of the Brutes were on the floor. Two were on a platform made from a sheet of plywood on cinderblocks to give it some height for gravity feed to the lower ones.

Tank water from upstairs went into one refugium Brute on the blocks,then surface skimmed to lead to a second Brute, that was skimmed to lead to the 2 that formed the sump. The third refugium was fed by powerhead and surface skimmed to lead back to the sump.

All cans were closed with lids on. Holes were cut the same size as lights. I had a bathroom exhaust fan installed in a window and used dishwasher exhaust tubing (cheap thin plastic) to connect the air in each can top to the fan entrance. Did similar with the skimmer air outlet. So all humid air exhausted the room and each can had fresh air over it.

I had a bunch of cheap hobby heaters on one controller. Some cycled in and off, by the controller, and at least one never came on, being set just below tank temp in case of need.

Heaters usually didn’t run in summer as we did not air condition. Tank was cooled with tap water on a controller running through a big plastic tubing coil in a sump. Tap water then went out back to keep the little pond full.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Salt mixing station was two Brutes plumbed by bulkhead at the bottom. A powerhead was in one, and it pumped water through plastic tubing inside the bulkhead to the other. The powerhead only ran during mixing, overnight, usually.An external reef filler pump was used for AWC and sent tank wastewater to a sink drain. Thus a pump drawing from one could use both barrels at once.

Iwaki return pumps (40 RLXT, IIRC, maybe 30 RLXT, it may be stated earlier in this thread) had originally been used under the tank in the living room, plumed separately, and were switched by timer to create different flow patterns.

When I moved the dump to the basement, they were not individually strong enough to get much flow from the basement up to the tank, but plumbed one right after the other, they were.

 

[Mickey]

Thanks, Randy. This is all very helpful.

When you say surface skimming, do you mean you had small surface skimmers in each barrel?

Heaters were all in one barrel, or scattered in several?

So with all the barrels plumbed together I assume the Iwakis were at the very end and pushing water back upstairs. The water just flowed through all the various barrels via the skimmers and by gravity?

I don't quite follow how you connected the dishwasher exhaust tubing to pull the air out of the various sumps/refugiums, but I'll work on it. Seems like that would solve my concern about humidity and also ensure fresh air.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Surface skimming just means a large diameter pvc pipe cut flat to the desired water surface level (angled to increase the surface area. So anything collection in the surface was removed in the overflow into the next stage.

Heaters all in one barrel, also with the controller sensor (very important).

Yes, iwakis attached to last barrel of sump.

I had a board that I used a hole saw to cut a half dozen holes and stuck the end of each tubing section into it. Entry duct to exhaust fan was in the other side, like a suction splitter.

 

[Mickey]

Wow, sounds like it's going to be more complicated than I realized. I'm wishing now I'd done this when the tank was set up in 2004.

So, the PVC pipe used as a surface skimmer I assume is attached to the side of a bulkhead inside the barrel, is that right? Would Uniseals work or are bulkheads better? Hopefully 2" is big enough as the larger 3" ones get super expensive.

Sorry for all the questions but I really appreciate the help.

 

[Rmckoy]

very nice setup @Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Wow, sounds like it's going to be more complicated than I realized. I'm wishing now I'd done this when the tank was set up in 2004.

So, the PVC pipe used as a surface skimmer I assume is attached to the side of a bulkhead inside the barrel, is that right? Would Uniseals work or are bulkheads better? Hopefully 2" is big enough as the larger 3" ones get super expensive.

Sorry for all the questions but I really appreciate the help.

Yes, i used a bulkhead to pass the water out of each Brute and on to the next can. I cannot recall if it was 2, 2.5 or 3" PVC. Leaning toward 3. Mostly doesn't matter unless the flow is high (which it need not be). Not sure what a uniseal is.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

very nice setup @Randy Holmes-Farley

Thanks!

 

[Mickey]

Thanks again. Now just need to figure out what the water level should be.

 

[Mickey]

I'm baaaack!

Still working out my plans for this basement sump. Did you find the need to add small powerheads for circulation in the brutes to avoid very low to no flow issues at the lower parts of the brutes?

I'm currently thinking about having at least 3 brute cans at staggered heights. Surface skimming bulkheads maybe around 2/3 point of the brute then lead to the next one in sequence with entry point at 3/4. Water cascades down a bit then the surface skim bulkhead again at the 2/3 point leading to the third. Last brute in line would have a bulkhead in the bottom third leading to the return pump(s). Does that sound reasonable?

Then I just need to figure out where and how to add my skimmer to all this. Current skimmer is a Lifereef 24" VS3 internal, but I may need to run it external which means another bulkhead.

Thanks, Randy, and I really do appreciate your time.
Mickey