Daplatapus's upgrade

[daplatapus]

Thanks guys! Helps knowing people are even reading this, lol

Got the rest of the doors on and all but the one drawer front. A bit cool on the island this week (-10 here this morning brrrrrrr) and the only make up air for the spray booth exhaust in the shop I spray at is opening the door to outside. Sooo, probably not going to happen this week.

Also got all the plumbing upstairs done, now just have to deal with the fish room.

[hillegom]

Just read the whole thread. Just awesome!
You have skills!
Following along, keep up the excellent work

[wreck]

Wow awesome!!!

[daplatapus]

So, I still don't have my doors painted, lol. We got them to my buddies shop and actually got them primed out with ClawLock. But he got married the weekend after that, and work has been off the wall so they've been hanging in his shop till now.
So a painter friend of mine was doing another kitchen door spray job and has agreed to finish my doors for me. Hopefully I'll get them back by next week and this thing will at least look finished on the outside.

Got home a wee bit early yesterday and was able to get the majority of my plumbing done on my mixing station. On my existing one, I'm not that crazy about the pipe I have filling/mixing the water in the SW tub. It's just a 3/4" line that goes in to about 4" off the bottom of the barrel then has a 45 degree elbow forcing water in a circular motion. It's ok, but no more than that. I found I don't get a whole lot of mixing with the top 1/3 of the barrel. And if I add salt too fast I get a big pile right in the middle of the barrel from the circular motion of the water.
SO.... I figured what I would try on this one is a pipe that goes down to roughly 4" or so from the bottom, again with a 45 degree elbow. Because of the slope of the top of my new barrels, the pipe actually goes from the top left side of the barrel to the bottom right side. I've pointed the elbow back towards the bottom centre of the drum and drilled a bunch of holes in a helical pattern all the way down the pipe. The hope is the water flowing through the holes in the pipe will create tons of turbulence in the barrel and will minimize any piling up of the salt in any one area. Only time will tell I guess

Anyway here's a couple pics of yesterday's adventure.

The helically drilled pipe. I did this on my drill press with the drill bit entering the pipe as far to one side as I could and not on centre. My hope is that this pattern will actually cause the water to spin out of the pipe, in essence creating a bit of a vortex in the barrel. However the angle of the pipe in the barrel, may counteract that effect...so I'm not sure, lol.


The pipe installed in the barrel


The finished product. I have an old Reefflo Dart that I've got hooked up to this thing. I may plug it into my Apex and have it turn on for a half hour a day to keep things aerated a bit. If anyone hasn't read the whole thread, I'll be doing automated, daily water changes via a big dual head dosing pump. Pics are back a few pages. That's what that extra little manifold is on the right side of the setup.

[reefwithareefer]

Where did you find the Barr containers?
Love the build and great craftsmanship!

I am interested in the pump as well. How much water can it push with a high head?

[daplatapus]

I picked up the containers directly from Barr plastics in Van.
Thanks for the compliment, all I can say is I try, sometimes it works, sometimes not - those I don't usually post pics of

Being a peristalic pump, I'd imagine it would probably push a long ways. It's not affected by head as a impeller pump is. There will only be a few feet of 1/4" tubing on each end of the pump, so not an issue for me. They did have the option of having 3/8 tubing, but for some reason I didn't clue into that until after it had shipped.

[gregzz4]

Lookin' awesome Dom. You've been a busy boy

I like the spiral holes in your mixing tubes, and the cabinetry looks wonderful

Looks like your stuffed animals are busy too

I may have missed something but it looks like you have water in your DT ...
Are you cycling the rock ? Could just be my old eyes