Hardscape
 

looks good to me. Only thing id change is making one structure slightly taller then the other for a more asymmetrical look. The lack of symmetry would imo bring more symmetry if that makes sense. :lol:

Thank you for your opinion!

I know exactly what you mean and it makes perfect sense.

I was actually hoping to achieve a different height in one of the "islands" with corals. So when I was trying different heights with the structures, I decided that this more symetrical height will allow me to choose which structure to make taller with corals and therefore change the look of the islands.

It is very hard to tell (with the rock being so white), but there is actually alot more depth and slopes to the "islands" that tends to get washed out and blended in the pics.

I think it is one of the nicest "bare" aquascapes I have seen. I wouldn't change a thing.

Very well done

Thank You very much!

I love it and wouldn't change anything either :-)

Well, I might add more fish..

Thank You!

HAHAHA yea maybe I will add some salty water and then it will see its first inhabitant, unfortunatly it will be a dead shrimp.:lol:

Exactly. I get what you mean have for example tabling or short stocky acros on one island then say stags and taller branching types on the other.

I like the little cove area especially haha a good place for some nice frogspawn or euphyllia (spelling)

Yea the "V" or "U" shaped island on the right was something that I was kinda torn on for quite awhile. I wasn't sure if it looked tacky or not.

I think its now going to be one of my favorite areas to aquascape and build off of.

Nice pics bro,

The pictures don't do it justice , post up some pics of the sump and plumbing

love what you've done!

Thanks! Yea pics really dont do it justice.

Thank you!

I would just like to give a quick shout out to Denny and Dave @ Concept for first off all building me a awesome custom aquarium and sump and for secondly dealing with some concerns/questions I had today regarding my tank in a very professional, friendly, and adult manner.

I really appreciate the extra effort that they have put forward in trying to resolve any issues or concerns that I had.

So go check out the first page of this thread and see what an awesome custom tank looks like. :D

Its perfect man. I love the dimensions, the side overflow, the aquascape is exactly what I wish I had done. I got too caught up in trying to stuff as much rock as I could in, not.going for a simpler scape. Make sure to post some pics when it's wet!

Wow thank you for the great compliment! I will be sure to post more pics as it progresses.

I am about to start a cabinet that will be beside the stand that will house on one half all my electronics and on the other half house my ATO resevoir, reactors, and future dosing pump and Alk, Cal, and Mag containers. These will be seperate compartments so there will be no chance of any electrical getting wet.

As I get further along in the process I will start an actual build thread

I want to see this in person. Awesome scape!!

Sent from my ST27a using Tapatalk 2

Well if your ever traveling east on the #1 hit me up!

Well the time has come and the tank is now slowly filling. Its very exciting yet somewhat nerve racking, waiting to see how my plumbing skills and bulkheads stand up to the much anticipated leak test.

Given that all my plumbing passes, I will start the process of cycling. During the long wait for the cycle to complete I plan on working on my "secondary" or "satellite" cabinet that will be beside the tank and house on one half, my ATO resevoir and reactors, and on the other half (seperated of course) will be all of my electronics organized and easily accessed.

So my question is has anyone here built something like this and if so please share any tips or ideas or things you had learned and possibly would redo in a different way given the opportunity. As always everyone loves pictures so please feel free to post any photos you may have.

haven't done one beside, but I mounted one to the wall above and hung my light fixture from it. It houses my doser, 3 jugs of supplements, and all my led drivers. I used wiremould from it to behind the tank and it looks clean with all the wires and airline tubing inside it. I don't see why one beside wouldn't work if you have the space for it

Thats a great idea and its these little things that to me really make a huge difference in the over all appearance of a tank.

I definatly have the space. Something like a wire wrap or possibly a piece of pvc to thread all the wires through going to the cabinet was definatly a must. I am still juggling the idea of hard plumbing with pvc a supply and return line to and from the sump for my GFO and Carbon reactors so that is what made me think of possibly just having another horizontal run of pvc that all my wires will run through. Or just simply wire wrapping them and having them run along the floor behind the stand and secondary cabinet.

Well.....the tank is finally filled and the plumbing doesnt seem to have any leaks....BUT....I cant seem to get it running properly! I dont know if I am just an idiot or if I screwed up on my plumbing design.

So I started by filling the display to the point where it just started to run over into my overflow. Next I started filling my sump I began by filling the far left side which is my drain side then it overflows and goes through 2-4" filter socks than that overflows and fills my middle chamber or skimmer section than it goes through a set of baffles and into my return pump section. So I filled all the sections and than let the skimmer and return section fill about 3-4" above the height of the baffles. I plug in my return and the tank starts to fill, and fill and fill....water starts going through the drain but the display fills up to the point that its almost overflowing and than the return section starts running dry so I rush and unplug the pump and even though my drain was wide open, I didn't have a chance to start dialing in the gate valve because as my display was about to overflow the pump started running dry and I unplugged it. I have tried repeatedly with the same result.

Overflow:
Herbie style overflow with 2-1.5" drains.
1 gate valve on the main drain.
Emergency drain is unrestricted.

Return:
1-1" return line all the way till it is reduced to 3/4" loc-line in the display.
Quiet One 4000 (991 GPH).

I posted photos of the sump layout and drain/return lines on the previous page. What am I doing wrong?!?!?:frusty:

What's your over flow plumbing size? If you have the latest generation quiet one pump see If you can turn it down. As well you have alot of turns on the overflow pipe it may be causing back pressure or restricting somewhere. Also try taking that thingamajig of the main line it may be restricting.

Maybe try choking back your return pump to begin with. If you don't have a ball valve right after your return pumps outlet, you should put one there

there is no way a 900gph return pump is overflowing a 1 1/2" pvc drain , there has to be something else going on , a 1" drain should be more than enough let alone a 1 1/2" drain , you shouldnt have to turn down your return pump.

im running 2400gph after 3ft of head through a 1" pvc and i have the pipe restricted about half way with the gatevalve.

Agreed about the overflow that doesn't add up.

For a PVC wire run you could use an angle grinder to cut a wide slot lengthwise down your pipe and mount it with slot urn away from view. Nice and easy to lay wires in there. By nice and easy I mean it will still be a giant pain to remove a wire if needed but better than fishing them through...

Was thinking maybe your stand pipe was too high but I don't see a standpipe in your overflow.. You didn't add one afterwards did you?

Did you put any sort of gating material into your overflow weir? Like acrylic or egg crate? That could restrict your flow considerably without the appropriate size grills.

I went back and had a look at your weir and it does look like you have an acrylic sheet on that back wall with slits cut out for the weir. It's possible those slits are too small and not allowing enough flow into the overflow box. You may have to cut those slits bigger.

Yes it does have one piece of black acrylic covering the pane that is notched for the overflow. I had also thought that perhaps the cuts in the "teeth" are just not large enough. Well I will have to come up with some way of making these larger. The acrylic is siliconed to the pane and it also has a euro-brace. So any suggestions on how to make these larger?

No stand pipe, just a 1.5" strainer that I unscrewed after the first failed attempt.

This was exactly my thoughts aswell!

Before you go cutting and slicing your tank was built by concept was it not. Some how I dont think the teeth are too small it has to be something else.

You may have to invest in a dremel tool if you don't already own one. Or maybe borrow one. They have a lot of attachments that you can use to cut those slits bigger. I don't know how far apart those slits are but you could maybe use a drill bit to drill holes in between the slits (at the bottom) in an effort to turn two slits into one?

1.5" drain line. The thingamajig is just a check valve with a union on either end for servicing or replacing the check valve. I thought perhaps there was some back pressure but even with just a bulkhead wide open the tank fills before there is barely anything in the overflow box, for example the tank fills to the point of almost touching the eurobracing before there is anything significant in the overflow box. I just tried again and i quickly started dialing in the gate valve thinking maybe I just had to start a full syphon and nope it stay at about the point of overflowing the display.

The drain line as complex as it may look is not actually that many twists and turns and the ones it does have are made of 2-45*'s and everything has a down sloping angle. I dunno perhaps it is the line causing back pressure.

Ya it could possibly be something else still so definitely try to exhaust all possibilities as cutting those grills will be a beeotch.

I know that on my weir which has egg crate in it, after the first year of operations of my tank I started to notice the water level of my tank hitting my euro brace. Upon investigation I discovered that just three holes on my egg crate had plugged up with encrusting coraline and bubble algae and that was enough to restrict flow into my overflow box considerably. Since my weir is so shallow with respect to the top of my tank I really need to make sure the grates on my weir are completely free of obstruction all the time otherwise the water line will hit my eurobrace and possibly even flood the tank.

Yes it was built by concept, I am up for any suggestions!

Yes I do own a dremel great tools! The gap between the teeth is 1/16" which seems really small but what do I know right lol

Is your check valve upside down? Pm sent

Ya, if there was a problem with the drain line plumbing I would have expected the overflow box to flood. From your description it sounds like water definitely isn't even getting into the overflow box fast enough.

Kien may be right about the slats too narrow I hope you don't mind I'm posting the pics you took for others to see I just find this odd for a concept tank I have never heard of this issue before but it can happen

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...8AC87B97B8.jpg

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...8ACDFCD543.jpg

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...8AD755B57A.jpg

Those slits sound really narrow to me.

Hey thanks for posting those pics for me! Yea they are only 1/16" as you can see before those pics I drained roughly 15 Gallons out of the display in anticipation of having to somehow widen those slits. When you look at the one photo you can see a scum line from my dry rock of where the water was before I took out the 15 gallons. From that point it raises to almost touching the euro brace and im sure if left it would go over it had it had enough water. At the point of just about touching the euro brace it really starts flowing into the overflow box but by this time it never equalizes and just runs the return pump chamber dry while the display slowly floods.