is there a reason you can't just make a new hole from the other side? you could even mark 1/2" depth on a large diameter hole saw and save yourself lots of scoring and digging and it would pose no risk to the tank. it might take hours but I'd do new holes rather than have more stuff visible in the tank.

Sadly, that is only for nano-streams. These are the big 6105 pumps. I think that the idea of a small acrylic piece with sand glued to it might be a great option.
I'm a little worried about the strength of the magnets. I know that Tunze says they hold better in water but right now, the magnets on these are rated for 15mm glass and they can't hold the pump without support at the moment...it slides down the wall. My glass is generally 12mm but on that overflow wall, I have two panes totaling 15mm. They make an extension for them that increases the strength to 20mm but I'm waiting until water is in there to check before I spend the $75 to get them.

Yes, I'm sure its possible, but with the changes that the builder made, he shrank my space on that back wall by also indenting it from the sides. It looks nicer than my original design, but any hole size increase means that I'm putting my two Vortechs side by side to the Tunze's and I was hoping to spread them out a little more. I will take pictures to explain this better today.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...0-26164118.jpg

yeah i see now they are already pretty close together. if it were me and pointing the tunze slightly up didn't work out very well i'd try and move the vortechs up as well. looks like you have unlimited vertical room for holes if the overflow box is narrow enough.

Okay, so I promised a pic to explain the pump orientation.

Here we go:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps233640d3.jpg

Don't mind the teflon tape holding up the magnet, apparently these magnets will hold through 15mm glass when there is water, but dry they tend to fall. I want the pump to be at the top of the hole.

In regards to space, there is about 4 1/2" separating the two pumps (Vortech will be above, Tunze below) and I don't really have anywhere to go up with the Vortech as Plumbing, etc, makes moving it difficult...no to mention cutting through wood up against glass.

Murphy doesn't like me whole lot and I have to consider that in any changes too.

I'm probably going to have to glue some sand to small acrylic pieces for under my Tunze's...can anyone tell me what I should use as adhesive?

How about a dremel or modified hand saw to connect the dots between the holes? You may not be happy with fake sand bed you have done all this beautiful work to have something you don't seem 100% positive about

yeah I've thought it through a lot and I'm hoping that with the space below the pump I won't need the acrylic pieces plus I will put the seafloor special (larger grains under it). The pumps will be aimed upward.

Working on rinsing my sand and then getting it in the tank. Can't believe how long it take to rinse this stuff...half Agra Max select and half Seafloor Special.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps7d145d12.jpg

In the end I figure that I should have about 1" of sand or a little less.

Trying to get a few more things done. The overflow plumbing is now all dryfit and I will glue tomorrow if I don't spot any more problems (or as long as no-one here does either)


One simple pic. Left is Full Siphon, Right is partial syphon/backup and center is emergency drain.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...pse0887fae.jpg

Well, today I started the process of adding water...YIKES! Talk about stressful. I won't be pushing too much up to the display today as I've found a couple small drips that need to be taken care of first at the sump area.

Here are some much awaited pictures.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...psdeef852f.jpg

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps12cd2a53.jpg

So exciting! Nice shirt lol.

I recognize that shirt! YAY H2O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, after testing my plumbing at the sump, we realized that although brand new, the volute on my Reeflo pump had a huge crack and water was coming out. I also was having a few issues solving the odd drip that was at the bulkhead.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps2dc40ec9.jpg

So out came the pump and associated plumbing and in when the other new Reeflo that I had as a backup. No cracks, but we haven't got it wet yet as I had to call it a night for my son's 2nd birthday party. Tomorrow, I will give it another try.

Bummer! Is it still on warranty or are you like me where you buy things too far ahead that by the time you use them they aren't on warranty anymore? :lol:

I've found even out of warranty, at least for the most part, these pumps have great support.

Yeah...I pull the same thing as you Mindy...the first pump I bought was in 2009 and its been boxed since...the backup was bought in late 2010. Both came directly from Reeflo and are the Blackfin3600 I hope they help me out but I will understand if they need me to kick in after so much time.

Since I had to solve some leaks and a cracked pump volute, I decided to completely rework the plumbing on my return pump so that it was simpler and hopefully would prevent noise and vibration from traveling out of the Fish room. I hadn't turned the pump on yet, but I figure that if I plan to kill noise, it is a good thing.

Here is the new setup. I didn't want to have to do the quick 90's after the pump, but with the space and angles I was left with coming out of the wall, I couldn't come up with anything else.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps482591d1.jpg

Here is how I am dealing with pump vibration. I have it on a thick foam pad (about 1" thick) then onto a solid board which then sits on another 5/8" of open cell foam. It's all bolted to my bench from there.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps8ade715a.jpg

After all that, I still got a very very very slow drip out of the threaded fitting going into the bulkhead. I should have used silicone rather than just teflon tape when putting that together. About 1 drip every 5 minutes.

Can you in thread it a bit add more Teflon to it more on the heavy side near the end and re seal it quick? I had that happen to me as well

Well my sump is currently full of water...so no, not right yet. The leak is even slower than I thought, after the entire night, there was a little more than a thimble full of water in the cup underneath.
If you wondering why my sump is full, its because I'm prepping to push water up to the display. I'm currently making another 100g of fresh water and I'm mixing 100g of salt water and sump holds about 60G of saltwater (not including fuge). My plan is to fire up my water change station at the same time as my return and try to push about 140g upstairs to the display. I need some more hands as my return nozzles will destroy my aquascape unless someone is deflecting the flow. I also haven't checked my plumbing from the pump up to the display (most of it was done by plumber in wall) so I will want an extra pair of eyes to look that over at the same time too.

Can't believe that this is finally getting close. I have so much more work to do on this...my APEX isn't setup, my dosing isn't set up, my skimmer isn't set up...but water is a major step. :biggrin:

if you are needing a somewhat inept helper, i am going to be passing through your area tomorrow/wed. I even have a little box of goodies to drop off next time i see ya.

I think the gaskets sorta swell slightly when wet just a theory. Sounds similar to a leak or two I've had before that actually stopped leaking after a few days.

Thanks so much Nick. I think I will do my best to get a little farther tonight. If you can give me a heads up as to when you are in town, we'll try to get together. You haven't seen the tank for a bit, but we're getting there!

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/de...-on-laptop.jpg

Wake me up when you are going to carry on with this build thread Mark......:razz:

Haha...I put water in the tank last night thank you very much! I'm up to about 280G in the Display. I didn't let it run into the overflow yet...I have a couple little drips to deal with.
Some other things that came up are that I'm not too impressed with how quiet this pump is...I find it very noisy but a lot of threads online suggested it was very quiet...so is my pump the problem or do we just have different perspectives?
Also, the flow is poor by my standards. I bet I have only about 1000-1100 gph getting to the display. I was hoping for more.
Lastly, I got one of my MP40ES's going last night (the new one that had been sitting in the box for 2 years) and it's crazy noisy. but not at the wet end, the dry end sounds like a buzzsaw. My other MP40 is half as loud but it's still in my old display. Could this be because I have 16mil of glass on that end? I have it on the 5/8 setting. Any thoughts?

Mark, is the pump noisy because you're not used to listening to a big pump? It may be quiet by "big pump" standards? Or maybe there is something in the way it is setup?

:lol: Shoulda bought Tunzes! :p

I recently replaced one of my Reeflo pumps and I was horrified at how loud the new one was, it was louder than the one I was replacing that had a failed bearing. I called Reeflo and put the phone up to the pump after asking "should it sound like this?" .... He thought it was a dry bearing so he suggested I let it run for 10-15 minutes. After that it still was loud so he thought maybe a bad bearing so he asked that I send it back and he'd send me a replacement. As I went to take it offline I noticed that the fan cover had a small dent in it. Went and grabbed some needle nose pliers and pulled it out and sure enough what was happening was the fan blades were hitting the low spot caused by the dent and were basically slowly grinding off.

Anyhow the pump is flawlessly quiet now that I pulled that dent out.

Just something to check. A bit of a long shot, but it couldn't hurt to check for that...

Thanks everyone for their suggestions. I will follow up on both ideas. One thing I noticed is that both pumps are Blackfin 3600's but the 2nd one I put online weighs almost half of the other one. They are otherwise identical.

Any thoughts on my Vortech?

Bad Bearings? It does happen..

Let it run in for a bit. Could be 2 years in the box, the bearing grease needs to be warmed up good & get to all the nooks & crannies. If you're not sure about the spacer setting, you can always play around with that a bit. Also, when I align my VorTechs, I always put my ear to the glass to help find the sweet spot. Even though it's your dry side making all the noise, a slight misalignment could be a factor.

I'd give it a few days to run in, if that doesn't work, you might have a dud dry side.

The pump noise is likely a result from the rigid plumbing attached to it, installing rubber couplings will help if you can squeeze them in. I see space on the output for sure but not so much on the input unless you remove your union valve. However removing the valve is an option, a rubber coupling can serve the same purpose as a union and you could keep a threaded plug handy to replace the purpose of the valve, just not as convenient.

You can get pipe thread compound for threaded joints which I find works good on pumps. Might help with leaks, Teflon tape isn't as effective and using too much can crack the pump housing. The pipe compound is a paste and you can't use too much.

Thanks everyone...I've got my fingers crossed on running them a bit for noise reduction. The Vortech does seem a little (key word "little) quieter today.

I never got a chance to run the return pump more than a few minutes as it was just filling my tank.

Because everyone likes pictures...she's still pretty cloudy.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps0cdb291b.jpg

Wahoooooo!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHH


much better:razz:

Okay...in the name of progress, I got to working on the two Tunze pumps tonight. They are not wired up pretty, but they are running. Sadly they are noisy as hell. They make the Vortech seem quiet. These were bought from a fellow Canreefer about two years ago after being used for only two months by him. I'm running them through the 7096 controller.
Feeling the dirty looks from my spouse burning through me over the noise...I ordered the new c-clamps that these 6105's now ship with when new...along with a spare impeller in case that will fix it.

that's really surprising about the Tunze... really too bad.

Are these new enough to have the one-piece impeller assembly at least?

You know what, I'm not sure. I have ordered some parts as "spare" but plan to take the noisiest of the two and pull it out to "rebuild" it again and at that time I will check out the details. Tunze makes so many changes so fast that I couldn't keep up. The pumps are at least 3 years old from manufacture.

Noisy Tunzes??? :eek: Wtf. My 6055 is from the bfirst batch that came to Canada in 2008(?) and it is silent same with the two newest model 6105 I recently bought. I have had others over the years too, and have never had a Tunze that could be classified anywhere near "loud". The only thing I can hear is if I put my ear up to the pump I can hear it ramping up in power, but they definitely don't hum or rattle. Have you inspected the propellers and housing to make sure they haven't been dropped or had sand sucked into them?

As you might have seen in prior postings, I have these too close to the sand bed but I thought about that and tried the pump free of the c-clamp and it's still chattering like a son of gun. I will take it apart tonight and re-clean it in Vinegar and see if something I haven't spotted is giving issue.

More frustrating today is that I called Reeflo as they didn't return my e-mails. I didn't get to speak to Chris, but they were pretty rude in telling me that they discontinued the Blackfins and not only don't they have any spare parts but that the pump never really performed the way it was quoted to and that I will probably always get less flow than expected.