New member intro, and of course some questions... (1 Viewer)

[merkurmaniac]

I have kept a freshwater fishtank (10gal) for about 4 years and was deciding on moving up to a larger size. The old one was in the kitchen, and I was planning on a 30 gal on the same counter, when my wife suggested that I fit one to the art niche that we have. I measured it up and drew it in autocad and then figured out what would fit. A 34gal hex should fit nicely, so I found a used one on Craig's list in Baton Rouge and the guy shipped it to me and it arrived just fine.....

meanwhile, my brother tells me how much he enjoyed his saltwater aquarium 15 years ago and how cool his crab and anemone were. I started reading and ended up buying a system from a local guy on craigslist here in Houston. Its a 29 gal horizontal with a sump, Metal Halide lights, some live rock and coral frags, a skimmer, and 3 very small fish. I bought his whole system and I am scheduled to move it home tomorrow after work.

So... lots of reading add A.D.D. hyperfocus means lack of sleep. Its great that I'll be getting his water, his sump plants, and hopefully a stable tank. I intend to transfer it all and re-assemble it in my house near the location of the hex. His tank is going to be a temporary one.

Then, I received the hex and its a little bigger than I had planned. I'll have to begin construction on the new set up, but not till after Christmas. That will let the 29 gallon experienced tank settle down from the move....

Are there any members in Greatwood that might like to be on call in case I have any desperate questions as I bring the 29 gallon back on line ???

I'll post a pic of the planned area to set it up.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Here is the place where the hex is planned to reside.

You can see that the tank overhangs the front by about 1". The current plan is to remove the granite (installed 2 weeks ago) and raise it up about 10" so the aquarium is higher, and also bring it out about 1.5". I plan to run the pipes down either inside the sheetrock, or into the gap left behind when the granite is moved forward. Then, I'll cut a door into the sheetrock below and keep my sump filter and protein skimmer in there.

A potential problem is how close the back of the tank is to the corner (see the tank bottom in the pic). I may have to cut more sheetrock there. I plan to build a hood for the tank, and allow about 12" above it to ventilate. I'll probably re-wire that can light so that it turns on the actinic lights.

Now you can see why my wife refuses to let me start hacking things up until after Christmas/New Years.

 

[merkurmaniac]

 

[majikmike9999]

Looks like it will turn out nice, unfortunately once it is all complete it won't be long before you realize that you NEED a bigger tank, LOL, seems to be the way it works. You may look into forgoing the hood and think about wiring a metal halide pendant from the spot where your current recessed light is? you could possibly hide the ballast in the cieling? if your into the minimalist look? you can sometimes find them used for a decent price on here, ebay, and craigslist

Is your aquarium drilled? for the drain and return? if not do you plan to do this or use a HOB overflow?If you go with the HOB you may want to paint the back of the tank to hide your plumbing?
Good luck and keep us updated

 

[merkurmaniac]

Yes, the plastic hooded fluorescent that is on there now was what came with this tank, it'll get tossed. The 29 gal that I am buying has a MH pendant light. I dunno how hot they get. I might be concerned about placing that thing into the sheetrock if it get super hot.

The top of the tank has a large central rectangular hole where the light currently resides. Besides that, there is a single round hole and also a fairly long slot, maybe 1.5" x6" or so.

Will spray paints attack acrylic ? I was thinking of just taping some nice patterned paper to the back three sides of the hex.

 

[majikmike9999]

Another option depending on how you wanted to run the wire would be to place the ballast in the cabinet below the tank and just run an extra long cable to supply the pendant, either through the wall or hidden in some channeling behind the tank i did that once and it wasn't too bad it was only a small plastic channel with a plastic cover that could be painted to match the wall. I am not sure about the paint for the acrylic, i had a Bio cube and it had a tape type cover on it? real pain to remove. I am sure that there is something or you could just place a black or blue board behind it cut to the size of the tank in case you ever change your mind it would be easily changable.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Is the ballast the part that generates the most heat, or the lamp itself ? I am generally leary of putting a bunch of electrical devices behind a closed cabinet door, but I think I'll just wire in a smoke alarm under there and feel better.

In an air conditioned house, will a MH lite heat up the water enough to make a problem ? I really don't want to have to get a chiller, and it doesn't seem too common, so hopefully the answer is that the water doesn't heat up much. I normally have the a/c set to 78°F in my house.

For the back, I was thinking of finding some printed paper that had a transition from dark blue (almost black) at the bottom edge, to a light blue at the top. Probably easy to find in paper, and tuff to do with paint.

 

[majikmike9999]

The ballast and the light both generate quite a bit of heat, pretty much all of the ballast that you see are encased in a heat sink to remove the heat. If you look at the build forums you will see them in cabinets and also mounted in hoods, i think it just more depends on the application.

The MH lights also put out quite a bit of heat, of course it also depends on the wattage and proximity of the light to the surface of the water. My neighbor has a Solana? i think that is how it is spelled, anyway look up their website and you can kind of get an idea of what your looking at doing. My neighbor is running a small chiller but i think he also turns his AC up during the day while he is at work then back down when he is home, some kind of program. I think it only cost him $150 - $200 for a used chiller, you might be able to hide it under the tank.

I believe you will have to get everything set up and running with your light cycle and see how it effects your temp. With the tank open (no hood) it cools better also but you also have more evaporation? I think there is a lot of trial and error involved since almost every setup is different from location to enviroment.

I do know that with the MH you have more variety in the types of coral that you can keep. You didn't mention is this going to be mostly reef or fish? Obviously if you go the fish route your lighting isn't as crucial.

Also depending on your budget there is a lot of buzz about the new LED light fixtures they are supposed to put out a lot of light with out the heat issues but don't look near as slick as the drop down lights.

What is behind / next to the wall where you plan to put the tank? If you have a closet or garage then that may be another option for equipment storage or a "fish room" there are quite a few guys on here that have put everything in the garage and made their tanks (in wall) so they are pretty much maintained from outside the house but viewed from inside. My tank is against an exterior wall and I have my chiller and water station all located outside the house, it makes water changes a breeze.

Good luck, its a snowball that can easily turn into an avalanche, my wife gets irritated as well but its a lot easier if you do what you want from the start rather than trying to fix it after the fact

 

[trb]

The ballast will get very warm to the touch, and the lamp itself will burn you. The heat is quite a bit. You can expect the tank temps to vary from about 78 at night to probably 81 or higher during the day from the light's heat. That is what my tank does. You will probably need some fans on the sump to cool the water down during the day. You can set them on a temp controller, or maybe just a timer once you see how the light heats the water up. I had a few days where the temps got up to 83 or 84 before I put the fans on the tank and adjusted my light timer to turn on later in the day.

Since it is such a showcase tank, I would keep everything around the tank to a minimum. Nothing on the top, keep it open, and just have the MH pendant hanging down. I would drill the back for the overflow and do like you said, put a background on the back panel to hide the plumbing. Maybe even build a plywood box the height of the tank with a removable top to fit in corner and take up the open space. That way you could hide all the plumbing and not have an open space behind the tank to collect dust.

I assume you will fill the holes when you move the slab out with some wood, but does the granite company have any scrap pieces you could get?

Looks pretty good so far!

 

[Carlos]

The MH does heat up the water a lot.... you can try a fan, I never did, since I found a chiller for a good price, and this time of the year my house is in the low 70's, and when the light is on, the chiller runs 2-3 times per hour... since it is winter, you can try, and see how you fare, but I would imagine you will need a chiller, so in the meantime keep an eye open for one?

 

[merkurmaniac]

Thanks for all the good info. Its planned to be mostly corral, and a few fish. To me, I got the most joy out of watching the ghost shrimp in my old tank. Too cool.

For the "hood", I am thinking it would look cool to have a maple hexagon shaped hood. I was figuring that it would have to sit on the tank, but I could build it so that it appeared to levitate 6" or so above the tank, if there is no issue with light reflection, etc...

I am into energy conservation, so I have mostly CFLs and I have dabbled in LED's in a lot of applications. I already planned to try tucking a set of blue LED christmas lights up into the hood, out of sight. They cannot get more simple and use almost no energy. 3 watts, I believe.

I have had a set of them on top of my kitchen cabinets for ambient night lighting for the last couple of years. $8 or so at Target, this time of year.

I plan to reuse the granite that I have now, but if that fails, I have a piece of scrap that is big enough for him to use if he had to modify my existing piece.

I suppose that I will need to have a venting provision for the sump area, esp if it has a fan for cooling.

The 29 gal horizontal has an overflow of some kind. I didn't pay much attention, and didn't know what I was looking for. I had figured that I would be able to transfer it. Would it likely be glued to the old 29 gal glass tank, or held on with magnets. I know that its fitted with and inside the tank box that draws only water from the surface.

 

[majikmike9999]

If you are going with the hood look at Dr. fosters and smith online and check out the LED hoods the cost up front may be worth the savings in electricity and chiller costs

 

[merkurmaniac]

I would drill the back for the overflow and do like you said, put a background on the back panel to hide the plumbing.

I set up the tank that I bought last night, and its really quite loud. Its outside my bedroom door, and it sounded like a toilet running all night long. My main return pump sounds like its cavitating, but a lot of sound comes from the overflow. Dumb question follows:

Can I do an internal box and just run a pipe out the back of the tank and straight down to the sump ? I understand on this one, since its glass, the need for a siphon to get water over the backside, since its impossible to drill the tempered glass; but why have the secondary box on the back. It is a two chambered box, where the siphon drops into one side that has a wier, the water pours over it into a secondary chamber. It exits this secondary chamber via a standpipe with holes or slots on its sides, thru which water pours. This action seems to be the source of most of the noise. So.... on the actylic hex, can I drill the back and have a hose exit the back and drop straight down into the sump. Seems like it would be much quieter.

 

[trb]

The box on the back keeps a reservoir of water in place so the "U" tube over the top will not easily loose suction since both ends are constantly submerged. If all of the water drains straight down to the sump, then air gets in the "U" tube and suction stops. The way it is designed, only the overflow water in the external box flows down the pipe.

If you want to set the new one up like you said, here is a thread with a pretty nice way of doing it that is said to be very quiet:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1310585

I didn't find this until after I planned mine all out and set up the internal overflow and drilled my holes on the bottom, or I might have tried it out.

I've seen a few other tanks on here and other sites with an internal box and plumbing similar to the thread above, but not exactly the same.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Thanks for that great tip. I will most likely end up piping mine up like that.
Man, its a 41 page post....

I finally got the return pump to quiet down. It sounded like it was cavitating (sounds like it pumping gravel) and I figured out that the screws that secure the pump face were not tight enough. Its a little better now.

 

[merkurmaniac]

BTW, the return pump got very load again, and I ended up looking online to buy a new one. I found some review of pumps (that looked like mine) and thye mentioned having to repalce the impellor. I took photos of my pump and went to City Pets. The guy there was able to match the pump from the pics and sold me an impeller. The pump was rattling against the glass side of the sump just a bit, so I took some blue filter material and made a "cradle" for the pump to sit in. Its now much quieter.

 

[Guest]

Did you find that the impellor swap made any difference? What kind of pump was it?

I also use the blue filter material to soften pump vibrations. Keep in mind it loses its rigidity after about a year, so you may have to replace it.

 

[merkurmaniac]

The impellor replacement made an enourmous difference. For sure. Its much, much quieter now. It was a 500 gph Danner. Model 5.

 

[merkurmaniac]

O.K, so I am getting into google sketchup, bigtime. I have modeled the art niche, and the expected framing behind it. I have a lot of pics that I took, while they were building my house, so I have a good idea of what I'll find when I hack into my sheetrock. This first pic shows the overall layout.

 

[merkurmaniac]

This pic shows the sump area. Visible are the sump, the skimmer, the fluval 205 cartridge filter, and the power center with eight individual switches, so I'll be able to shut off specific things and keep the wiring under control.

Finally, a pic that shows my plans to add a solar tube skylight thing to illuminate the tank. Hopefully, I will be ditching the metal halide light that I am currently running.