me please....from one home brewer to another, :mrgreen:

I don't home brew, I just buy kegs :biggrin:
I placed a subtle hint of this in the pic ;)

Oh rich guy eh? lol.....hint?,,,,the glasses? I use different branded glasses than the beer Im dinkin. :razz:

Wow, mad skills right there man. I should have asked for your basement for Christmas.. At least now we know where the next reef meet will be. :-D

.. But only if you serve wings.

Wow. I'm diggin it for sure. Love the ceiling well done

HOLY SHYTE Steve! That look absolutely incredibly awesome!! Big change since I dropped off the stand, very very nice.

Well done, that bar looks amazing.

Got busted buying some plumbing parts yesterday during Brett's regular stalking routine so I figure I should probably post a little update.

Decided to rebuild my sumps since I pretty much have the equipment I want figured out and I was getting tired of how it was setup before. Always room for improvement and with the help of a friend I came up with a more efficient and simplistic way of setting things up. I've also been itching to build some acrylic sumps again :mrgreen:

Here's what it looked like before I started:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...2/20130303.jpg

Here's the new acrylic sumps to replace the old glass ones:

This one is basically a frag tank, the black boarder around the base will support my new custom frag racks that I still need to make.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_1.jpg

This one will hold all the equipment.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_3.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_2.jpg

Here's some midway pics from this morning

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_4.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_5.jpg

And here's my progress so far, plumbing pretty much all done.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_6.jpg

Here's my basic plumbing layout

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...0efdd336c1.jpg

Looks good Steve! I can't wait to give the setup a try on my tank. Denny said he was going to send me some pictures of the tank soon.

Where is your overflow water draining into? I see a line that runs along the bottom of your top sump but can't tell where it connects to. The return from the lower sump is on the top right corner correct?

What happens at rona stays at rona I was giving you a free pass :)

Did you build the sumps yourself? Those look sick! What thickness did you use?

Very nice Steve!

Two 1.5" lines from the overflow tie directly into the frag tank. Here's some close up pics

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...8FAEC352B8.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...8FB4E1D7B3.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...8FC428DDAE.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...8FCB9696A3.jpg

Only issue is I don't have enough pressure drop to run both pumps full power, but I have 2 more holes in the overflow I can use. When you do yours make sure you use 2" lines and set the sump a little lower than we originally planned. We'll go over details closer to the time.

Sorry still learning the rules. Yeah I built them, sort of a past life for me. It's all 1/4" Cast.

Thanks bud!

So you put the returns on opposite sides of the sump mostly due to space constraints on the left side of the upper sump correct?

I wonder if I should ask Denny to change my design to have the two returns on the sump side by side? The stacked design may give me similar issues. If we lower the sump then we take away the silent aspect of the overflow box to sump don't we?

Yeah space constraints mainly, couldn't fit two on one side that's for sure. Not sure if the frag tank will benefit more from opposing flow or single direction, ultimately it probably doesn't matter. I wouldn't change yours as that means you'll probably have to plumb underneath which I only did cause I had to.

Noise won't be an issue, you'll need standpipes in the overflow to maintain the water level in the overflow box but the drop will still be small enough to essentially maintain the lines full of water or at full siphon meaning no air and no noise. With your two inch pipes I'd aim for a 6" height difference between overflow water level and the frag tank water level. Worst case you stick a gate valve on one of the lines and go herbie but I don't see that being necessary. I'll get a plan drawn up for you next week :)

A little more progress, I lowered the sumps a little and got pretty much everything the way I want it now.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...2/20130306.jpg

Frag racks :mrgreen:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...5BE999A94D.jpg

Three of them in place, 381 frag capacity :mrgreen:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_1.jpg

Lower sump, the zeovit reactor has it's own chamber so I can dose the zeoback and such so it's forced to the enter the reactor before anything else. Refugium back left, kalk reactor front left.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_2.jpg

Most the electrical is a cabinet, Ca reactor mounted in the side. I just remembered were I left my beer from last night.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_3.jpg

Nicely organized Steve. That's gonna be a small scale aquaculture facility once you get some frags in those racks!

Thanks, as you may know I'm predicting an increase in frag value in the future :lol:

I was playing around with some focus stacking techniques a while ago, not much to show but a few pics. Figured it I need some livestock stuff to balance things out a little. Hopefully get some more up later.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130213_2.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130213_1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...2/20130213.jpg

your wife must LOVE you...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130303_4.jpg

She's seen worse and I think she's just happy it was the bar and not the kitchen.

I was going to say are you calling his wife an alcoholic?

Haha kidding - I love your house that is an awesome looking bar... and the setup from what I can see in your basement looks fantastic.

Nice house!

Wow, nice work! Did you drill those frag plug holes by hand? That is some patience...

Thanks but no I didn't drill them by hand, I had them CNC'd.

Oh ok, cool. Is there a place you recommend for that?

A couple pics of the tank I took a few minutes ago.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_7.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...130306_1-1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...130306_2-1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...130306_3-1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306-1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_6.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_5.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...20130306_4.jpg

Ha, she wishes :lol:

Thanks bud!

Ok, so i see that it. wait. no. ok well, no thats not right either. ok wow if this is basic plumbing, wow. Im very impressed at the complexity and the way things seem to be well organized and thought out. maybe a simpler drawing if you ever get around to it might help (system broken apart view). might be one of those ones when you see it in action everything just seems to make sense. Im no engineer, just a mechanic. sweet shots of the fish as well. very impressive. Really like the bar layout too. Nice work.

Nice job on the sump room and rockwork :smile:

+1 :biggrin:

Yeah that layout isn't self explanatory, doesn't even show pumps. I'll do my best with just some iphone pics rather than drawing up a sketch.

There's essentially two pumping systems:

First is the high flow system from the frag tank. This uses 2 waveline DC10000 in parallel.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...559F9E5222.jpg

There's a removable slotted gate.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...55A67284F7.jpg

The pumps have check valves so that if one is off it doesn't back flow through the other one, ball valves really just for maintenance so you don't have to drain the line if you removed the pumps.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...559941665B.jpg

That line from the two pumps runs straight to the display tank.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...55859C7234.jpg

This provides most of the circulation in the tank, there are three branches that extend down into the tank, each has multiple outputs.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...733C09E7D7.jpg

From the display the high water volume overflows into the overflow box. In there I have two large standpipes. There's two extra plugged bulkheads from a previous revision. I'll likely use one as emergency back up overflow.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...5592D2D8DC.jpg

The standpipes feed back into the frag tank, there are two lines although one is hard to see here. One line for each side of the frag tank.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...558BD6E83A.jpg

The frag tank is essentially inline with the two waveline pumps, so it benefits from the same amount of flow they give the display. The original idea was not to have standpipes in the overflow, but rather install the frag tank high enough so it's water level is basically at the same height as the overflow box water level. Unfortunately I was limited to two 1.5" lines so I could run both pumps at full power unless I lowered the frag tank 4 inches and installed standpipes to prevent the overflow box from draining too much, the overflow box is huge so this was an issue.


The second pumping system is for the actual sump, basically just like a typical setup except I pump into the frag tank and not the display.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...557F3657B3.jpg

The line from the pump runs into the other pumping vicinity so that the water from the sump is forced to through the wavelines and to the display.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...55781C9070.jpg

Excess water in the frag tank simply overflows into an overflow box that leads to the sump below.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...57387AE260.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...571C392624.jpg

While it sounds complicated as I explain it, it's actually very simple.

Also the line that feeds up towards the ceiling is from the lower RD return pump, it will later feed a small tank on the floor above, hopefully it makes it.

The line below the bottom sump is just a drain line that feeds to a sink drain. There's a connected overflow in the bottom sump encase the level ever gets too high for some reason. Also a manual drain for water changes and what not. One of the advantages of this system is I can shut off lower sump while the frag tank and display are unaffected. I can then drain and clean the sump, fill it up, heat the water and add salt before activating it again.

All I have to say it "wow!" I thought that I had planned things out...but this puts me to shame. Nicely setup and kudos on all the DIY stuff you have going on there. It looks mighty professional.

is that a sps frag on your cap?


wicked job is all i can say looks awesome, love the simplicity:mrgreen:

It's in the tank. Thanks bud.

A little side project my wife and I have been working on is the old making a human thing, although I'm sure she'll say she's doing all the work :rolleyes:

Anyways, had a mural painted in the nursery and thought I'd share, I sure hope new baby likes fish as much as me :mrgreen:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...s/20130307.jpg

that turned out hella sweet. congrats again!

Actually that cleared a lot up for me. Very well thought out. That mural is impressive, then I saw the plug and got a feel for the scale. wow. very cool.

That is very cool.

Thanks. Yeah it's a full wall, 10 feet x 9 feet.