Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[krazykarl]

Wow, I cant wait to see wait your set up looks like once it's filled with water and lights and rock and some awesome corals and fish.

[asylumdown]

The day has finally come!

First, a massive thanks to Kevin from Red Coral, when I said 'come over on Saturday and we'll plumb the tank!' I fully intended to be more helpful than I was, but I really could have said 'come over on Saturday, and you'll plumb the tank, while I sit around offering suggestions and otherwise being annoying', and still have been correct.

The display is filling with tap water as we speak, but first, here's some photos!

I came last night and spent 2 hours cleaning the entire set-up. There was like a solid inch of construction dust on everything.




Bulkheads go in:


Checking to see that the hose attachment works


All sorts of 2 inch plumbing:


We went with the Reeflo Dart. This thing is whisper quiet


The two overflows needed to be teed together to feed to the gigantic three-way gate we installed.
South end (office and dining room side)



North end (office and dining room side)


We put gate valves on both sides in the hopes that we can make a herbie work. Since the two overflows join in to each other then flow in to a 3 way valve, it might not happen (in which case we'll do Dursos), but here's for leaving your options open!

And the main event - the three way valve. The ones on our pool in California are smaller than this! Everything was positioned to provide maximum access, and to not interfere with the skimmer chamber.


Filling the return chamber for a leak test. One minor adjustment and we're leak free on the return side!


Started filling the sump for real.


This is the part I was most worried about, the water exiting the skimmer chamber has to split in two and fill both the frag chamber and the water change chamber. Turns out it works perfectly


And now to fill the main tank... This is where I'm at now, so far it's been an hour and it's not full!


Next up - testing the overflow system, and that monster 3 way valve...

[Skimmerking]

looking good man

[mseepman]

Wow, looks good! Always inspiring to hear an LFS getting as involved in helping you as that.

[Zoaelite]

Holy smokes Adam, this thing looks freaking amazing!!!

Kind off topic but what are you guys doing for appliances? Is that a Miele double WO with a built in Thermador F/F combo?

[cale262]

Looks fantastic...now you have me thinking...I needs to build a new house

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

looking good man

Thanks, many more updates to come

Originally Posted by mseepman

Wow, looks good! Always inspiring to hear an LFS getting as involved in helping you as that.

Kevin has been freaking fantastic. He's been involved since day one, helping me figure out the design, and then the re-design, then the re-re-design, the install, coordinating with the builder and the plumber, coming to my place on his days off, being otherwise awesome, etc. I couldn't have done it without him.

Originally Posted by zoaElite

Holy smokes Adam, this thing looks freaking amazing!!!

Kind off topic but what are you guys doing for appliances? Is that a Miele double WO with a built in Thermador F/F combo?

Thanks. I actually dreamed about it last night, the same way I use to dream about tetris when I played too much. And the appliances - I'm gonna admit I have no idea what you just said lol. The stacked combo on the back wall of the kitchen is a 30inch (I think) Miele oven, with a 24 inch Miele steam oven above it with two side panels to make it look like it's the same size. The fridge is also a Miele, and it's the tall cabinet doors to the right of the ovens (we went with built in as opposed to stainless).

How do you know so much about appliances?

Originally Posted by cale262

Looks fantastic...now you have me thinking...I needs to build a new house

If you enjoy your time, sanity, and money, I recommend against it.


I'm gonna take some more pics now that the plumbing is *almost* complete, and the tank is running with water in it

[asylumdown]

K, the plumbing is almost complete, and it's currently running with tap water. I'm going to keep that going until the inspection.

Dining room side

the long white PVC pipe is the alternate flow path. When the handle on that huge valve turns to the left, water from the tank flows straight in to the first part of the bubble trap, and bypasses the rest of the sump. However, when I started testing the system, I realized that I had made a critical error when I designed the sump: I didn't account for the fact that when 100% of the flow of the tank is entering the bubble trap/return chamber, it actually raises the level of water in that chamber by a full 3 inches, above the level of the baffle that separates it from the water change chamber. Essentially, as the plumbing is set up now, I can't isolate the water change chamber if there is the correct amount of water in the sump. This was terrifying at first, and had three possible solutions:

1. pull out the silicone on two of the bubble trap baffle, cut the baffle that sets the height of the return chamber down by three inches, and re-silicone it all in. This would mean that the water exiting from the water change chamber would fall 4 inches, and would be loud and splashy. This is the crappiest solution

2. use the herbies to manipulate the water level in the sump when the flow is diverted. I figured out that when I divert the flow, the water level in the over flow chambers falls by a couple of inches (which compounds the existing water level in the sump problem). I'm sure this has something to do with a principle of fluid dynamics that I barely understand. But, I also found that if I go and tighten the herbies up when the flow is diverted, I can cause the overflows to completely fill, then raise the water level in the display tank by about 1/16 of an inch, which is enough to drop the water level in the return chamber low enough to isolate the water change chamber, but still not reach the emergency overflow standpipe. This allows me to use the sump the way I designed it, but leads to 30 freaking minutes of tweaking the herbies to get them back to where I want after after every water change. huge PITA, and not really what I want to do.

3. The solution that we're going to move forward with, that I think is pretty elegant and simple. We're going to install a third gate valve here:

Essentially, it will act like a herbie on the herbies. During normal operation, water from the tank will flow in to the skimmer chamber, and the two main herbie gate valves will be set to the perfect spot and never touched. When I want to do a water change, I'll divert water in to the bubble trap/return chamber, and use the third gate valve to restrict the flow in to the sump even further. This way I can use that third gate valve to make the water in the return chamber set at whatever height I want. I'm sure with some playing, I can figure out exactly what setting it needs to be and leave it that way, so when I divert the water, the levels all just set themselves automatically. This will save me from having to fiddle around with the main overflow gate valves, plus, it puts the water change controls all on the same side of the tank, so I won't have to go running around in circle adjusting anything.

phew, that was a whole lot of typing. I hope that made sense.

Office side:

I assume the reason the herbies naturally set at a different level when I divert the flow from the skimmer chamber is because water has to travel different distances in the pipes between the two outputs. or something. I dropped physics.

I was and am shocked at how much water moves through this sump. I was afraid my design wouldn't work at all, but other than one minor modification to the water change system, it works better than I expected. because the sump is so deep, I'm going to need to put a couple of koralias in the frag chamber and WC chamber to to prevent any dead spots, but I have a closet full of koralias from my first tank, and I'm not worried at all. The koralia in the WC chamber will serve double duty as the salt mixing pump!

And finally: a FTS from the office

I am happier and happier with the choice to go Starphire. It probably wouldn't have mattered if it was only open on one side, but the cumulative effect of looking through two panes made it soooo worth it. The bottom panel isn't Starphire, so it's reflecting a little green, but once the bottom is covered in white sand, the glass will be nearly invisible.

[fishoholic]

Looks awesome, glad to see water in it

[DCDN]

Wow it looks amazing