To drill, or not to drill....

[chadmace]

So here's the deal. I am working on getting my 125 back up and recently purchased a brand new All-Glass 125 RR dual megaflow tank. The back wall is 3/8" thick. I have the right drill bits, and have drilled several tanks, so messing up the holes are not of any concern to me. (Knock on wood.) Anyways....so I have been contemplating exactly where I want to go with this. Last time I had two Koralia K4s, and two Seio 1500's for flow. Needless to say I had plenty of flow, it blew my sand around, and still didn't seem to be good flow. That brings me to where I am at now. My options are as follows:

1. Drill the tank. 2 1.5" bulkheads on either end of the tank between the overflow and the end of the tank. 4 1" bulkheads across the bottom for returns. Running them under the sand towards the front similar to what Tracy did. (salmonslayer) Advantage: If i go this route I have everything I need with the exception of the plumbing. If I need more flow I can always tap into the drains, and do an over the top addition. Risk: Drilling a tank voids the warranty, plus this tank would be in my living room and not my garage.

2. Abandon the drilling idea, sell what I have for the process to recoup some money, invest an additional $500-$600 and get two Vortec pumps for either side of the tank. Advantage: No drilling, tank maintains warranty Risk: Not generating the flow I am looking for without all the wave action. More money required which would push out the set-up date.

This is a standard AGA 125 72Lx18Dx22H. Let me know your 2 cents.

 

[roscoe]

2. Abandon the drilling idea, sell what I have for the process to recoup some money, invest an additional $500-$600 and get two Vortec pumps for either side of the tank. Advantage: No drilling, tank maintains warranty Risk: Not generating the flow I am looking for without all the wave action. More money required which would push out the set-up date.

Option 2 is what I would do. Right now I have 2 vortechs, Tunze 6101,6100 and 6060 plus my return. I have 16000gph in the DT and to me still not enough flow. You can do what I did. Attatch the PH to a Wavysea (best because it is fully controlable) or a Seaswirl. If you use an elbow to mount the PH to the Wavysea or Seaswirl you can easily tuck the wires through the Wavysea or Seaswirl so you won't have wires in your tank. I got that trick from Adam. If you like you are welcome over to check out how I rigged mines up. You get plenty of random and chaotic flow especially when the PH meets and the vortech is running full speed on Reef Crest mode.

Sarang

 

[roscoe]

Here is pics of the tunze/wavysea combo.

 

[Myteemouse]

nice pics brutha..
LOOK MOM NO WIRES!!

 

[chadmace]

Sarang,

That set-up is pretty sweet. One of my reasons for considering the closed loop was to get rid of the wires and the powerhead on the glass....which that does both. I've been looking for some good video's of Vortech pumps on a 6' tank but haven't had much luck. (Other than a couple of wave photos which isn't what I'm going for.) I take it all the flow you have is on the 270 you set-up? With just the Vortechs, how far from the pumps can you feel the flow? Do they move the sand alot? How about working detritus out from liverock?

 

[roscoe]

Sarang,

That set-up is pretty sweet. One of my reasons for considering the closed loop was to get rid of the wires and the powerhead on the glass....which that does both. I've been looking for some good video's of Vortech pumps on a 6' tank but haven't had much luck. (Other than a couple of wave photos which isn't what I'm going for.) I take it all the flow you have is on the 270 you set-up? With just the Vortechs, how far from the pumps can you feel the flow? Do they move the sand alot? How about working detritus out from liverock?

The vortech MP40 will move the water the whole six feet. IMO You can feel strong wide flow up to about 3 feet at full speed and dwindles down a bit after that but still moves water nicely across the whole 6'. I have one on each side. It causes a nice wave action on the surface and great under tow beneath it and barley moves the sand. Sand movment I just let the PH barley hit the glass before the Wavysea stops and rotate the other way and that creates alot of my sand movement. What I am seeing with my water movment right now is my Voretch would pull the sand one direction and the Tunze/Wavysea combo pushes it back. I didn't plan it that way but works out great. It keeps detritus from settling. As far as working detritus out of the the rock work. A few things come into play such as aquascaping, type of rock and non constant flow. What I mean about non constant flow is a controlable pump that can rev up and down to keep detritus moving. If you have a constant speed it just forces the detritus into your rock's pours (I hope that makes sense much easier to visually see what I am trying to describe LOL). I love to use branch rock as the base as you don't have a solid rock that can block water flow on the lower half of the tank multi points of contact on the glass for a more IMO sturdy base and the best part is more swimming and hiding places for your fish. I've always tried to aquascape my tanks in a manner where the bottom and back half of the tank gets maximum flow. I see many tanks where people over look the flow in the back and between their rock work which IMO is important to keep detritus moving. Man that took for ever to write:lol:! I hope that help you on your decision making for your water movment. You are welcome over to check out the tank anytime. Just LMK.

Sarang

 

[gotfish]

I have 1 mp40 and 2 k3's on my 125g. I'll be getting another mp40 here pretty soon I hope. With what I have now, it's still a pretty good amount of flow. With the 2 mp40's linked together, I'm sure I'll be happy with it. Using them on reef crest mode, you get a lot of random flow in the tank.

 

[luke33]

Chad, i have the same tank, 125g 6' adn i only run two ph'd that cost me a total of 56bux + shipping. They are 3200gph each. They create great flow and are like generic tunze/korallia magnum's. Been using them for 8-9mths now. Just a thought. Everything in this hobby doesn't have to be rediculously expensive.

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/dehao-d...23QQ_sidZ212090082QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322

 

[chadmace]

gotfish - If you turned off your k3s and just ran the mp40, how does the flow do across the tank?

luke33- Yeah, I think you linked to those somewhere else on here. I know I've seen them before and think you were the only one who referenced them. (Even though someone just posted something in the main forum asking about them.)

 

[roscoe]

Chad if you want something that is off the glass and no wires in the tank than I think you can get away with 2 SeaSwirls/WavySeaand tunze 6100/6101 combo. You can control speed on both and have some wicked randon flow.

 

[gotfish]

Chad, if I turn off the k3's the flow is still there, but the xenia on the side of the tank that is opposite the mp40 do lose quite a bit of motion. That's with the reef crest mode. If I use the short pulse mode, I can get a wave going the length of the tank, but it's not random like the reef crest and it's louder.

I have the k3's on one side and the mp40 on the other. Once I get the second mp40, I'm going to remove the k3's. For a total of about $550 I'll have a nice controllable wave setup.

 

[chadmace]

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. (One on either end.) If I opt to go the powerhead route I would want to use two MP40W's on reef crest mode for flow. Additionally, down the road I would put my returns through some sea swirls to add a little more random flow.

The last time I had my tank set-up I had severl powerheads, constantly on. I noticed (like Sarang mentioned) that detritus was being forced into the liverock instead of working it away from it. I think this configuration would be the best for me since it keeps wires out of the tanks, provides random flow, and saves me from having a bunch of holes drilled in a tank in my living room.

 

[gotfish]

I'd have to agree with your assessment. Keep an eye out on reef central or nano-reef.com and you'll see group buys for mp40's. You can usually get them for about 60 off retail shipped.

 

[braddo]

I just picked one up from Aquacave for 10% off and free shipping. It was a few dollars more than going with a group buy but I felt safer buying directly from a store than sending my money to a 3rd party. The Aquacave sale just ended but another online retailer was just advertising 10% off. I just can't remember what site that was now.

 

[gotfish]

The group buy I was in on as well as dailydriven911, was through an authorized dealer. A guy on nano-reef.com set it up with the retailer, but we were sent a paypal invoice directly from the company and the item shipped directly from them as well. No money went to a third party.