Meh - Hijack away... The emails saying the theres a new post in the thread reminds me i've got to get off my tookus and get going :D

I honestly can't wait to see this going! I remember watching the video and being like 'Wow, that's cool!'.

Well here's another one :razz:

Well finally got off my duff and pulled the tank out of the storage room - redid the plumbing in a temporary form to sort out some of those fun challenges of the overall system.

Still using the herbie on the displays overflow - but the emergency overflow got a modified version of the stockman (reduces a bit of the noise from the surge). Playing around with the CSD to see if I can't find a nice borderline between a big surge & reduced syphon break noise. Looks like I'm getting about a 1.3g surge at roughly 40 second intervals.

Tossed some nice fine aragonite in it too - to see what kind of sandstorm I'd have going with the surge... Surprisingly not as bad as I figured...

I'll post up pictures later today of the revised system - with a video of the surge in action.

Ok... As of today - tank itself:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t/DSCF7895.jpg
Setup for now on my 110g's equipment shelf (spacing of the shelves was pretty close to what I wanted) Ignore the mess :lol:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t/DSCF7898.jpg
Revised overflow
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t/DSCF7896.jpg

Video of the revised surge in action... I'm getting a bit happier with it's operation - but still sucking in a lot more air than I'd like (yet if I rework it to not suck the bubbles - surge is dramatically reduced - 1.5L).
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ntestsurge.jpg

Still have some finalizing to do then do a full rebuild of the plumbing and build the stand - but there is saltwater running through the system at least :mrgreen:

Looking good, But to noisy for me.

Get a minor sucking sound from the stockman as it knocks off the syphon; the big one's still from the CSD - might just have to add some insulation into the stand to see if I can't eliminate that one...

pretty neet, how does it work, although I think the sound of the toilet flushing ever 30 to 40 seconds would drive me nuts haha

Steve

Physics :)

Basically just a U tube; surge bucket fills until the U tube is covered, once water pressure is high enough - air's forced out of the u-tube - syphon starts... Syphon drains until sucks enough air to stop it - and process begins again...

Not quite toilet flushing, but yeah, there's a syphon break that's either rather annoying or rather soothing depending on how you feel about surges :)

Current FTS - 06/23:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t/IMGP0252.jpg

Ok, Think I've got things mostly sorted out... Truck was broken into last night - and the good camera walked away - so appologies for the crummy P&S pictures...

For the record - hardware I'm using:

Custom built 5g tank (Colby @ Elite built) - 50$ (?ish? been a while)
Standard 5g Sump - 25$
Sterilite Brand plastic file cabinet (roughly 5g capacity) - 5$
Older than god mag2 pump w/ mag3 impeller - ???
Won Bro's 150w heater - bought in 2004 think it was 20$(Christian's big group order back from the days) <fingers crossed>
Old Odyssea 180 Skimmer body I had lying around - ???
Odyssea 250 needlewheel pump - 13.99 (thanks Red Coral)

Lighting - To be determined... Right now using some old flourescents I had kicking around - if I can scrape up some $ I'll be doing some LED lighting... Darn weddings - take all the spare $ away.

Current stock... Little bit of live rock from the main system; tossed in a hunk of digi & some colt (it'll look sweet in the surge) :)

If you are wondering - skimmers up in the surge tank as it displaced water - thus less time between surges (down to about 15 seconds now) also reduced surge down to ~ 1gallon.

Still need to do a final revision of the plumbing - thinking about doing a pair of locline nozzles for the surge outlet.

Overall system:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t/IMGP0255.jpg
Yeah I really need to clean up don't I? :lol: