Help me design my new 240gal setup!

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Totally off topic, but your painting reminded me, and I felt like shareing info.


Many people have a hard time with this one, and it really suprized the heck out of me. Flat white, dull finish matte white paint actually reflects light better than gloss. I know your brain doesnt want to belive it, mine didnt either, but its true.

Not that it would really make a big differnce for you, but just as a weird FYI, its the truth.

Equally amazing, there is only about a 7% difference between a mirror polished aluminum surface and a thick white piece of paper, or flat white paint.

Now, even more amazing, due to the dispersion qualities of the un-even surface of flat white paint, if you arent useing a proper reflector shape, flat white actually makes a better surface reflector than the polished aluminum things that every lighting setup comes with.

However, if you are going to actually design a proper reflector (only 2-3 I've seen on the market total, and you would be suprized at what popular designs are actually crap), useing polished aluminum is better than flat white. If you aren't useing a proper reflector shape, the flat white paint is better.

*hint about MH reflectors, the bat wing things everybody uses (i bought 2 myself) are really very poor compaired to the lumen-arc setups, and "two little fishies" brand is the the very best design for smaller halides. And, get this, the very best reflectors for MH made are the guys that get used in traffic tunnel lighting and some street lamps. Absoultely superior materials, performance and design than anything available for aquariums. More people should be takeing advantage of them, but I've only seen it once or twice.

Ok, back to your thread :D
 
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Man this is some really nice stuff, love the time you took to document everything, I bet it bit the big one redoing the coating but hey lesson learned right? Looking awesome, hope to see more soon:D
 
Luke, on the whole reflector thing. Sanjay Joshi came out to the club a while back and talked about lighting and reflectors. One of the things that I asked was how much painting the inside of the canopy really helped. He said it wasn't worth doing from a reflector standpoint. It doesn't help in getting light into the aquarium. Now sealing the wood to prevent water damage is a whole other issue and needs to be done. But for reflecting light, paint doesn't even fall on the same chart as a good reflector.
 
Reed pretty much summed up the reasons for me. I was going to just use Varathane or something on the inside to protect the wood, not provide reflection (I will have reflectors for the MH, but not the VHOs). This seemed like a better alternative, and white seemed better than clear! I don't doubt there are different or even better ways to do this.
 
Consulting the structural engineer

A question I've commonly seen asked for large aquariums is "how much tank can my floor support"? I did some poking around and found some interesting articles (here's a good one). But in the end it all comes down to the thing that everyone's tank, floor, and situation is going to be different. For peace of mind, I decided that consulting a structural engineer is really the only way to be sure. A friend of mine was able to recommend someone he used for a remodeling project last summer, so I hired him. Total charge: $250.

Bill (the engineer) asked me to take some measurements and send him a diagram of my floor structure. He didn't think it was necessary to come out to the house (saving me money). I estimated the weight of the tank, stand, water, canopy, and rocks at 3000 lbs worst-case. I think this is a conservative estimate. Reef Central has some calculators for this sort of thing.

Here's the drawing I sent him:
View attachment 11381
He agreed that it is not optimal to place the tank parallel to the floor joists. A perpendicular layout would allow the weight of the tank to be more evenly distributed. Unfortunately this isn't going to be an option with the layout of my room.

As you can see, most of the weight would fall on one joist in my current layout, and he said this could be a problem. Now I'll be the first to say that yes, this might be overkill and he probably wants to protect his reputation by making doubly sure my tank doesn't fall into the crawlspace, but too much reinforcement is better than too little in my opinion.

So here's what he came up with:
View attachment 11380
Basically I need to add joists so they are 6" o/c on the south side of the tank (top half of the diagram) and 8" o/c on the north side (bottom half). That massive beam under my living room takes most of the load off the joists on that side of the room. This thing is huge and looks like a whole tree trunk. My house was built in 1975 and I remember the home inspector saying she didn't see this very often anymore.

So I've got my work cut out for me. Last weekend I ran to McLendon's to get the lumber. This was a problem -- you can see that my joists are just barely longer than 12 feet, which is a common size. They didn't have anything bigger, and finally Home Depot came through for me. With the infinite space they have, they're able to stock 16-foot 2x10's, which is the next biggest size. If you've ever tried to pick one of these up on your own, they aren't light. I was able to have them cut them down to 13 feet for me, which helped. I needed 6 of these and had to rent a truck to get them back to my house. This is not a fun experience at Home Depot on a Saturday morning when everyone in town is gearing up for their weekend warrior projects.

Let me tell you it was an adventure getting 13-foot boards to fit through my crawlspace opening, but I managed to do it. I'm going to have to wait on the floor reinforcement until I move my 75 gallon tank out of the way. I don't want any weight on the floor when I start out. The point is to reinforce the floor with no load on it.

I bought myself a palm nailer to help with hanging the joists. I tested it on some wood in the garage and it's a little awkward to use. I would prefer a framing nailer, but the ones that are designed to fire nails into joist hangers are over $200. I didn't really want to spend that on something I'm probably going to use once. I'll let you know how the palm nailer works out. Worst case, I can just use a hammer. I'm going to have to call my brother over to help me on this one because I can't hold a 13-foot board up and nail it at the same time. Basically every time he comes over I have to cook him a peppercorn steak and open some of my good wine, so this is going to get expensive by the time I'm done.
 
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You can rent tools from Home Depot. might be able to get the nailer you are looking for that way and just return the palm nailer.

Good job on getting an engineer out there to consult on the project. A smart move. I think more people should do this as some are pushing the limits of what a floor can deal with. Even a concrete slab is only designed for so much load.

Good job! You are going to have to be a stop on our PSAS tank tour when you get the tank up and running. Should be quite the site to see.
 
reedman said:
Good job! You are going to have to be a stop on our PSAS tank tour when you get the tank up and running. Should be quite the site to see.
Click to expand...

By all means! I think it will be late in the year before I have anything worth looking at though! Also this is my first reef so hopefully I won't get any false starts... But a bigger tank is always easier, or so the mantra goes.
 
reedman- Just so you know, here is a chart for you. I give and made no argument with reguards to painting the inside of the canopy being helpful to lighting (note that I said its off topic and doesnt matter to slickdonkeys work, it just reminded me by seeing the glossy paint).

Note the values of paper, laquor white paint, etc. I would say they are very very much on the same chart with pure mirror polished aluminum.... :)

Reflective Values
by Jon Reynolds


pure aluminum /polished/ 80 - 87 %
polished aluminum 65 - 75 %
matte aluminum 55 - 75 %
aluminum painting 55 - 65 %
steel 25 - 30 %
INOX 80-90%
polished chrome 60 - 70 %
high polished copper 60 - 70 %
high polished brass 70 - 75 %

light oak /polished/ 25 - 35 %
dark oak /polished/ 10 - 15 %
wood chipboard 25 - 40%
white paper 70 - 80 %

granite 20 - 25 %
lime stone 35 - 55 %
polished marble 30 - 70 % (depending on color)
light stucco 40 - 45 %
dark stucco (rough) 15 - 25 %
concrete /rough/ 20 - 30 %
bricks red/new 10 - 15 %

glass 5 - 10 %
silver mirror 80 - 88 %
high polished mirror 92 - 95 %
white tiles 75 - 80 %
white enamel 65 - 75 %
white lacquer 80 - 85 %



Now, I went to this sanjays lighting site, and read his articles. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/feature.htm I read parts 1, 2, and 3 on reflectors. First of all, this guys testing is mostly useless. Critical angle reflectivity of the water surface should be the number 1 design consideration in a reflector, and testing without it in consideration is merely an exercise. Beaming down a bunch of light at the wrong angles does nothing for your corals, because they never get it, it reflects off the top of the water. Secondly, his 3d plots are very missleading for what he claims the intended purpose is (to help people use the reflectors and postion corals better under them). The most important aspect he missed there was convergence points on the beams that need to be avoided, and it becomes rather obvious when you see the dual spot reflectors turn into singles, then back to duals. If you are an optics guy, you know they intersected, but most aquarists are going to miss that and not realize there is a danger height for the reflector. But then again, these are measured intensitys without bothering with critical angle values being discarded, so its basically all useless anyhow.

My best friend, and racing buddy is an optics major and laser engineering major. He designed laser parts for livermore national labs, and he makes holigrams and things as a hobby. Truely brilliant, and a pretty good race driver as well :). If you would like him to give a speech to the club sometime with some useful info, I can certianly ask him if he woudlnt mind speaking for you guys. Just let me know.

-Luke
 
First of all, this guys testing is mostly useless.
Click to expand...
He is considered one of the experts in the field and is very well versed and educated in the physics field.

Also there is a major difference between lasers and dispersed light. You can't compare the two. A laser is a very focused light and not anywhere close to comperable to what we see in the aquarium. I think you are overthinking the whole lighting topic, but that is just my opinion. I believe there is a finite limitation to how much true science can be applied to the aquarium lighting area. You can measure all day long with whatever instruments you want to use and I'll give you a slight change in flow in the tank and your data becomes garbage. Same goes for adding or removing carbon. Let a fish swim around. It just isn't a lab setting. You make some valid points but you use too broad a brush stroke to apply them. You should be very careful what data you call garbage. It's valid data, you just don't see the application being correct. That's OK. I feel the same about the data you are putting forward.

We'll agree to disagree
 
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Reedman- To work with lasers, one must first master incoherent light, and hence his first optics major. Sanjay is an IE (awsome major, but not specialized in light, in fact IE is my current major, and other than elementry physics requirements, light has yet to even be mentioned).

And I agree 100% about changeing surface turbulent flow and changeing the light that gets used, and its part of my whole point. Becasue you changed the surface critical angles, and hence what areas, and what rays are absorbed or reflected. This guys data does nothing about critical angle air/water interaction. It CAN NOT be left out, its practically everything in the reflector design to be useful.

Now, if you were useing this data for growing plants, or some other air/air interaction, the data would be good (except for the convergence point issues).

Get this expert on the board here and we can chat. I see he is an IE professor, and I find it really hard to belive he would have over looked critical angles key importance in reflector design. Perhaps if you have a way to contact him and get him on this thread we could chat and he could defend the data. I could look into getting Ishan, my optics major and laser buddy to speak with him as well if needed.
 
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Well, there probably should be a different thread to argue the merits of the esteemed doctor's data. I've already chosen my lighting and reflectors:

  • 4x actinic VHOs w/ IceCap 660 ballast
  • Solar 1000 L1 dimmer... ok so this is a 100% luxury item but I really like the effect of a sunrise/sunset so we'll see how this thing works on the VHOs. I am not using the lunar capability of this, as it only controls an incandescent bulb. I think LEDs will be cooler.

  • Lunartracker Moon lights with simulated moon cycle. Again a luxury, but... cool! :cool:
I'm not sure how we got to be talking about lasers but hey, I just like fish and I'm going to see how this setup works out for me :)
 
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I'm also sorry Slickdonkey for getting you side tracked. I just wanted to say that flat white paint is an exellent reflector, then when it was stated it wasn't I wanted to correct the matter, and things got a little carried away.

I have no issues with Sanjay, and I'm glad he was willing to perform some tests for the reefkeeping comunity. I respect him, and I would love to meet and talk with him sometime. I love his bulb spectrum testing, and its very valuable. The reflector tests at least something, and a hell of an effort, even though I dont find the results to be useable in the mannor which he describes.

So, back to Slickdonkey!
 
Slickdonkey said:
Hah, no problem guys, besides... someone probably learned something about lasers :eek2:
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You're doing a SUPER job documenting your adventure Brian!!! Some of us are reading along here for that documentation, not any one else's usage of your information to look important.

Keep us updated... I'm appreciating all of your writing very much guy!!!
 
What about the sump?

So, what to do about a sump? I originally had dreams of a massive water reservoir under my house, since I have so much space down there. But practically this means trouble, because the opening to my crawlspace is only 2x2 -- barely enough to fit me through even before I've had a large pizza and a few beers.

Unless someone can invent me a teleporter (liveforphysics?), there's no way I'm getting anything wider than this down there. This means the huge rubbermaid containers are out, and even large sumps would be questionable unless I could construct them under the house. But then I'm still limited to what size acrylic I can fit through the hole... Anyway, suffice it to say my options are somewhat limited. Besides, with a 240 gallon tank I think a large sump is not as important because I've already got a fairly large water volume.

I figured with a 4x8 sheet of 3/8" acrylic I could create something that was long and skinny and could fit down into the dungeon. So I ran off to Tap Plastics in Bellevue.

After almost giving birth to a goat when I saw the sticker price of $250, the next problem was how to fit the thing in my wife's Taurus station wagon. This was kind of dumb on my part -- I should have realized before I left that it wasn't going to fit in the back, nor could it be easily strapped to the top.

So I did some quick calculations in my head and asked them to slice it into three 16" lengths. I figured that was the best way to get two sides and the bottom of the sump out of a single sheet. This turned out to work pretty well though, because when I tried to fit one of the sheets into the crawlspace as a test, it only barely fit. This is because I forgot to take into account that the entrypoint is in a closet under the stairs, so the ceiling is slanted. As it turned out I could only barely fit in a 16" high piece of acrylic because of the angle and interference.

Knowing what I had to work with, I checked out Melev's sumps and settled on a knockoff of his model F. I like this one because it gives me the option to run the skimmer in or out of the sump, and allows me to control the flow through the fuge independently of the rest of the sump.

Here is a picture of the sump under construction, as well as the blueprints. The flow rates are still subject to change.
View attachment 11403View attachment 11402

The dimensions are 16Hx80Lx16W. Long and skinny! If my calculations are correct, the return section of the sump will be between 7" and 9" high, holding between 20-26 gallons. The fuge will be almost 40 gallons. The whole thing should hold up to 88 gallons when filled to the brim, which should give enough room for the power outage condition.

The PVC pipe coming out of the fuge drains to the bottom of the return should help keep bubbles out.

I was a little paranoid about working with acrylic since I'd never done it before, and ripping up a $250 sheet seems a little different than a $15 piece of plywood. I started out by reading about the "pins method", which seemed intimidating for a first-time project. Luckily both Travis and Ed had done this kind of thing and advised me to forget about making it look pretty and just stack the sides on top of the bottom, hold them up with some electrical tape, and squirt some Weld-on #4 into the seams. That's what you see in the picture above. Worked like a charm. This is probably boring to you old hats, but I'd never done this before.

For those who haven't seen it, GARF has a neat calculator (thanks Travis) that will give you all the dimensions you'll need to build your sump. Cutting it was a piece of cake on the aforementioned table saw using a laminate cutting blade. It gives your garage a nice "plastic" smell.

I don't have any pictures of the finished sump, but I will post them soon. I had a few dribbles during the first leak test, but Ed had a neat trick up his sleeve whereby I filed some acrylic dust off some scrap pieces and mixed them up with weld-on #4. Let it sit for a minute or two and you have a nice gooey slime that will seal those leaks right up.
 
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I think you chose well with the model F design. When I get my new tank up and running I am going with the same model. I like that design exactly for the reasons you mention; it allows for a higher flow through the skimmer section, while you keep the refugium area with lower flow.
 
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