Upgrading to 100 gal in summer, question about stand.

Kevman

Hey guys/gals, I currently have a woodshop class where the next project is my choice. I would like to build a tank stand for my breeding pair of Angelfish, and was wondering what I should use. I was going to go with a sturdy construction, 4x4's, with 2X6 cross bars, but my question is, should I pipe in a refugium, and wet dry underneath?

We have a Wet/dry, and refugium out in the office, and it really made a difference in water quality, opposed to doing weekly water changed, it's every 2 weeks. Also, in the event of a black out, what do you do to prevent over flow? A battery backup? And does any one have a similar setup with everything underneath, with a piping diagram? Thanks, KP.

Massey

OK I am going to answer this in the order you asked.
For your stand you can use just about anything from a 1x4 and up for size. The type of wood will matter as will the design of your stand. I made a cabinet stand out of nothing but 1x4s for my 90 gallon tank and it holds the 1000+ lbs of tank and water with no stress on it at all. I made sure that anything that is load bearing was connected to the ground with no gaps. the non load bearing parts could have gaps if needed.

Should you pipe in the Fuge. Well this is going to depend on your tank and fuge setup more than anything else. I have a corner flow tank with the bottom drilled. I have plumbed the whole thing (downflow and return) and added ball valves so I can shut off water flow as needed for maintenance or rapair. Even if you dont have a drilled tank you can still put a fuge in it and plumb it. I prefer plumbing over hoses personally it looks better.

In the event of a power outage I hope you have flood insurance... just kidding. I built the sumps for both my fresh water and salt water tanks. but both tanks have different overflow systems. First off is my fresh water tank. It is 90G and drilled (discribed above) the flow starts up on that with nothing special added just the way the down spout was designed. My sump for that is made out of a 20G high tank and I had to do a little math to keep the tank from overflowing when the power went out. I fist found out what the water level was going to be in the 90G tank after everything flowed back. LxWxH and calculated the square inches (volume). Then when I build the sump I made sure that I had the return area of the sump large enough to hold more than the volume of the 90G's return. so when the power goes out the tank just drains into the sump and fills it up and leaves me a few inches of extra tank, when power comes back on the 90G fills back up and the overflow will start on its own bringing the water back to the sump.

For my saltwater tank things are a little different. The same method of figuring the ammount of volume in the fuge was the same as I stated above. What is different is my overflow. I have a HOB over flow. This type uses a U or J tube to syphon the water out of the tank into a small transfer tank then into the fuge. This system works really good but if power goes out you need some method of restarting the syphon. I drilled a small hole in the top of the U tube and glued in a air nipple. Then I used an aqualifter pump to pump the air out of the U tube and restart the syphon. The Aqualifter type pump will pump both water or air. Some pumps will only do one or the other and will not work for this. This method is the only one I know of to successfully restart a syphon type overflow automatically.

I will look for the link to the pump and post it here for you when I can. and I will also post a few pics of what I have. I dont have them on this computer right now sorry.

Massey

Kevman

Ahhh, I have been wondering about the power outage problem.. I was thinking about adding a valve that would close if there's no more power going through it, so it would close off the downpipe, and everything would be alright.. Do you have any pictures of your setup to the 'fuge?

Enjoihavok

I actually Just went threw this issue about 2 weeks ago on my new tank, I had a canister system at first, and power went out reversed flowed and overfilled the canister and actually broke it enough for me to have to buy a new system.

So Then I bought a Wet/dry sump tank system with an overflow box. First thing I learned on my own was about the pump being unplugged and reverse flow, as stated already whatever level your return line is at is how much will be sucked back into the sump, As for the U joint My overflow is a bit different it doesnt use a pump system to restart it, I simply fill it up, wrap some saran wrap, restart the pump and then the suction will take care of itself making sure theres no air in there. To me taking this 5 minute step is worth saving the $30-40 for the little pump machine to suck out the air in the U pipe. Seeing how you dont have to prime it often only if the power is out.

TO fix the reverse flow, I went to home depot and just bought a check valve for the return line, so as it leads into the tank, its the last piece pretty much it cost $7, and the piece of mind that my tank wont resuck up the water is worth it. As for the last piece of the step, the U joint will keep flowing water out of the overflow box until water drops under the overflow boxes limit, so I now only have to worry about 2-3 gallons or so which my sump can handle like a champ.

Massey

The only problem I see with this is what happens when the power goes out and you are not home to secure the power to the pump until you are ready for the restarting steps? The pump will power back up and fill the tank with the sump water which will overflow unless the syphon is restarted automaticly. I had this problem but thankfully the sound of the syphon stop for my downflow pipe was loud enough to wake me up.

The system with the air lift pump is the only setup I have found that will restart the syphon in the J or U tube over flow assemblies. The only other option you could use is a failsafe for the main power. This device will remain off untill you turn it on if power is interupted. These units are over $100 for cheap and $300 for high quality. You could build one from a few relays and a DC power supply but you would still be out more than the airlift pump and a couple feet of airline tubing. Anyone else have any ideas on this topic?

Massey