Will my DIY fuge work?

[Krish]

Does everyone understand what I meant with the use of the ABS pipe split in half lengthwise? It'll have notched teeth cut into the upper end of it, at the surface. It'll serve the purpose of hiding the stand-pipe/bulkhead assembly and also create a surface skimmer action....I hope

I kinda think I know what you are talking about. Is it like this in the picture below? This is a top view of a tank. If you cut the pipe in half length ways it will leave you with a dome or semi-circled shape (rather than a circle) that will go around the drain pipe

 

[burning2nd]

oh, like they make the presumped tanks

some tanks have 2 one left and one right, or just one center.

 

[mfinn]

Does everyone understand what I meant with the use of the ABS pipe split in half lengthwise? It'll have notched teeth cut into the upper end of it, at the surface. It'll serve the purpose of hiding the stand-pipe/bulkhead assembly and also create a surface skimmer action....I hope. I hadn't thought about needing to enclose it on the bottom. Do I need to? I hadn't planned on it and had just planned on having it be long enough to hide behind some rockwork on the bottom. Hmmm, maybe I should at least put some kind of screen on the bottom to keep fish from swimming up it...although I can't imagine they'd get stuck. Oh, I'm also planning on putting a strainer on the intake side to keep things from clogging up the system and to keep fish from getting flushed through it.

If you wanted to hide the pvc 90 on the inside of the tank, I suppose this would work. But if the primary purpose was to create surface skimming, it would be unnessary. The water flowing to and into the 90 pulls enough water, by itself.

 

[returnofsid]

The above diagram is exactly how it would look and it's mainly to hide the internal plumbing.

 

[Krish]

The above diagram is exactly how it would look and it's mainly to hide the internal plumbing.

(LOL) Here's what I did to hide my plumbing on a closed loop I had on my 75gal. I used blue abs plastic (same as my background was), some weldon 40 glue and whalla! You couldn't really tell anything was behind there really. Maybe it may give you a few more ideas

 

[Krish]

Sorry...A full tank shot may help huh?

 

[returnofsid]

That actually looks really good!! I like the lip at the top as well. Makes it harder for fish or critters to get in. Oh wait, they can still get in through the bottom. Oh well, still looks great. Krish, can you tell me...what does "closed loop" mean? I read that a lot and have no idea what it means.

 

[returnofsid]

Oh and I'm still waiting on advice on what kind of pump or powerhead I should use to push the water from the sump back up to the tank. Also, is the size (diameter) of the return line important? How does it need to relate to the overflow line? I was figuring a 1" line from tank to sump with a 1 1/4" durso stand and a 1" return line. The return pump will need to lift approx. 4 feet. Will something like a MJ 1200 work? I'm very unfamiliar with water pumps or any of the more elaborate powerheads.

 

[Krish]

That actually looks really good!! I like the lip at the top as well. Makes it harder for fish or critters to get in. Oh wait, they can still get in through the bottom. Oh well, still looks great.

Thanks....And fish can't get into it. I had a strainer on the end

Krish, can you tell me...what does "closed loop" mean? I read that a lot and have no idea what it means.

No problem...I'll try explain it(LOL), but a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll post a pic of mine as well. The best way I can describe it is a closed loop is basically what it sounds like... A "closed loop of flow" You have a pump that is plumbed in in a way where water is contiously being sucked through the pump and pumped back into the tank. It's a closed system because if you were to turn off the pump, water will always remain in the lines. The only way to really break the siphon is to remove the pump totally out of line which is why people use valves and unions to be able to remove the pumps to clean otherwise, if you disconnected the pump, water will continuously drain until something is exposed to air to break the siphon. Hope that made sense(LOL) My mind is kinda blank right now and I should be asleep

Here's a picture of my closed loop to help explain. The red arrow is pointing to the suction for the closed loop and the blue arrow is pointing to the return manifold. So water drains down and into the pump you see on the back through the red arrows plumbing, and is returned into the tank through the plumbing with the blue arrow. If I were to puul out that pump with the tank filled to the top without closing the orange valves you see on the pump, you can imagine what will happen with all the water






Here's how it looks on the other side of the tank...The red again is the suction for the closed loop and the blue is the return for the closed loop. What all this does is circulate 1500 gph in my tank for me without having any powerheads sitting in the tank. On the photo where I made the cover for my 75gal, that was an over the top closed loop because I didn't want to drill the tank to do it like it is on my cube now. I'll fetch you the thread where I put the closed loop on that 75gal so you can see how it was done. HTH

 

[Krish]

Here's how the 75gal was done. You'll have to skip through it all and look for the pics to see how it came out.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13588

Oh and I'm still waiting on advice on what kind of pump or powerhead I should use to push the water from the sump back up to the tank. Also, is the size (diameter) of the return line important? How does it need to relate to the overflow line? I was figuring a 1" line from tank to sump with a 1 1/4" durso stand and a 1" return line. The return pump will need to lift approx. 4 feet. Will something like a MJ 1200 work? I'm very unfamiliar with water pumps or any of the more elaborate powerheads.

As for what pump, you will need to determine exactly how much flow you want to be returned to the tank (which will work out to be the same amount of flow you want your overflow to handle) and search from there for that pump that will give you that amount of gph at the tank. So say for instance you wanted about 800 gph of flow. You could go with something like a mag drive pump (Mag950) because it will give you about that much flow (800gph or so) at about 4 ft. Powerheads like maxijets wouldn't really work because that could never pump that high. You need to look at external or submersible pumps to do the job and not powerheads. As for the plumbing size, if you were to go with a pump that has a 3/4 inch output, you'd want to keep the return line the same size or maybe a size smaller like 1/2 inch if you want a bit more pressure coming out (keep in mind that this puts a bit of stress on the pump because of the pressure so you'd need something that can handle it without damaging the pump or causing it to over heat) People go a half size smaller sometimes just to get a bit more flow out of a pump. Just think of a garden hose. You turn it on and you get this nice stream that may shoot out 5 feet. You put your finger half way over the hole where the water comes out and you can shoot water another 5-10ft! Same goes for a bigger sized hose. You double the hose size and turn on the water, and it may only fall at your feet so that is why people either stick to the output size of the pump or go a tad bit smaller. Hope that made sense

 

[ronj]

here is a pic of my closed loop...the"y" part hangs on the tank and has 2 outflows.. the intake also hangs on the tank.. it is not complete in the first pic... the second pic is after i cut the slots and added a strainer ....a closed loop is for flow..it goes out of the tank through suction, through a pump, and back into the tank

 

[ronj]

the part on the very bottom right of the intake in the first pic that has the ball valve is just to drain the water in the pipes if i take it off of the tank or need to clean the pump

 

[returnofsid]

Alright, I think I understand the closed system and I'm beginning to understand the needs of the pump. What would be a good flow rate for my system? The main tank is a 46 bowfront and the sump/fuge will be a 29 gal. I don't want so much flow that I'm overwhelming the skimmer, which is a remora with a MJ1200. I'll most likely continue running 2 power heads in the tank for added flow as well. I now understand that once I determine a good GPH flow rate, I can look at pumps that deliver that amount of flow with the amount of head needed to push the water up to the main tank. Then I guess the output on the pump will determine the size of line I use for the return. I'm still thinking about a bulkhead around 1" and a stand pipe of around 1 1/4".

 

[burning2nd]

im useing the magpump 7, 700gph. Im useing clear tube drom the pump to the tank, and my tube coeming from my overflow is 1.1/2'

when i turned my return on for the first time i made such a storm in my tank, it was crazy.........

get your nozzel (from return) sucure b4 you turn it on, im pointing my across the center of the tank. get that black u shape thing that krish posted b4 on the other page, and have a couple (depending on sump size) buckets mixed with salt water, cause your gonna need to add as is droping down.

its really ez man, let us know how it goes, (my sumps weeks old)

 

[burning2nd]

here, i dont know if this will help, but im almost the same as you except your plumming it, only IMO will i say that i dont think its good to have anything blocking the possabul trip to the sump that your fish might want to take..... reson behind that is if there gonna go to the sump on a feild day trip if they get cough in the over flow of in the tubes you might not no it till its 2 late.

Im useing the same skimmer as you and its in my sump, i wouldnt worrie about over loading it, i have mine placed center (insump) with the maxi 1200 prefilter basket thing close to the surface (to catch stuff going over) works great.

 

[mfinn]

Something that might help.

http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php

 

[returnofsid]

Thanks finn, that does help. According to that calculator, I can use the Mag 9 and with my amount of head rise and such, I'll end up with about 750 GPH. I think that's plenty. Burning2nd, I won't have to worry about getting fish caught in the plumbing as I'll be putting a strainer on the input and output ends.

 

[mfinn]

Does everyone understand what I meant with the use of the ABS pipe split in half lengthwise? It'll have notched teeth cut into the upper end of it, at the surface. It'll serve the purpose of hiding the stand-pipe/bulkhead assembly and also create a surface skimmer action....I hope. I hadn't thought about needing to enclose it on the bottom. Do I need to? I hadn't planned on it and had just planned on having it be long enough to hide behind some rockwork on the bottom. Hmmm, maybe I should at least put some kind of screen on the bottom to keep fish from swimming up it...although I can't imagine they'd get stuck. Oh, I'm also planning on putting a strainer on the intake side to keep things from clogging up the system and to keep fish from getting flushed through it.

I saw this and thought of this thread.

 

[Krish]

Who's house you've been snooping around in Martin???

 

[mfinn]

Who's house you've been snooping around in Martin???

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I should have said, I just saw this in a thread on RC and thought of what was being talked about here.