water spray bar

[thefatman]

my tank is 55 gallon long. which means i only have 13" of clearance from front to back. this sort of forced me to haev to stack my live rock against the back wall of the tank. my only concern with this was that it would be near impossible to get the glass or gravel cleaned behidn the rock.

while browsing Shirley's website i noticed she had a length of pvc in the bottom of her tank with holes drilled in it for circulation.

so i expanded a little on the idea and this is what i came up with.

i used 3/4" pvc. tubing. i bought a 5' length and cut two pieces about 20" long each. i then cut a top piece that is about 10" long. i tied them all together with a 3/4" T fitting. the side pieces are capped with 3/4" end caps. using a ruler, i marked off every 1 inch and drilled 1/8" holes along the front of the pvc. these holes will spray water across and through the rock, preventing any waste buildup behind the rock or in the substrate. i then marked off every 1" along the top of the same bars, so that there is also water spraying straight up along the back of the tank, and again, through the rock. this hopefully will help to keep the glass somewhat clean back there.the verticle pvc pipe is topped off with a hagan 402 powerhead, with a rated output of 300 gph. i used this ph because it can be run in reverse, so it shoots water down to the bottom. the ph rests on the pvc, and i also installed the suction cup bracket to keep it against the back of the tank. but the pvc is supporting the weight. the rock is then stacked in front of the pvc, so it hides it all fairly well. (note: the photos only show half of my rock, once the offer half arrives, it will completely cover the pvc all the way to the base of the powerhead, as i plan to stack in a pyramid fashion)

the only modification i plan to make is to rig a brace and adapter, so that i can turn the powehead over and run in it normal fashion. apaprantly running it in reverse is fine, but it reduces the output flow by about 1/3 - 1/2. not to mentio nthe reduction in output caused by the head and pvc itself. i'll post pics once the modification has been completed.

total cost of the project was approximately $3.50 plus the cost of the powerhead as i didnt have one. i picked up the 402, on sale from 35 down to 20 bucks.

enjoy! - jay

[thefatman]

here is a closeup of the holes i drilled

[thefatman]

in the tank

[thefatman]

and finally a closeup of the way the bar is hiden behind/below the rock

[grazhopr]

Hey ! Does it disturb any of your substrate ?
It's a neat looking job you did there!
I've had that idea in my mind, since the first time I checked Shirley's website. Let us know how it works for you....

[thefatman]

hey graz. as yo ucan see from the pics i use a medium grained aragonite. and it doesnt budge. but it sure does move the water and the algae on the rocks! i even did the drop test.. dropped some arogonite over each hole, and watched it blow away...jsut ot make sure each outlet was actually working

so far i'm really happy with it. though i did flip the PH over today and run it in normal mode instead of reverse. WOW what a difference in the output. overtime, i'll be able to see if it helps with waste buildup prevention.. but i'm certain it will. there's some good flow in there. i'll psot pics tommorrow of how i remounted the PH. looks cleaner this way too.

[grazhopr]

Great! I´m planning on building one too !

[thefatman]

here is the modificaion i made. i turned the powerhead on it's side. and had to use two different tubing sizes to get it mounted in the 3/4" pvc. first i inserted a 3" long piece of 5/8" tubing, then slipped a 2" piece of 3/4" tubing over that.

the 3/4 was too big to fit on the output nozzle. and the 5/8" was too small to fit in the 3/4 pvc but combining the two, gave me a good snug fit. i only made the 5/8 piee longer, to give some extra support.

i then used the suction cup bracket on the back of the ph to stick to the glass. however, this made the ph stick out a bit from the tank wall. so i placed the bottom of the spray bar flush with he back wall, and the verticle pipe runs up and out at an angle. i then rotated the output nozzle till it matched up. so between the verticle pipe and the suction cups, i dont think the ph is going anywhere!

[thefatman]

fyi: there are alot of bubbles on the underside of the ph because i accidentaly started it up, while the tnak level was still low from the return being off. and it pushed a whole lot of bubbles through the entire spray bar!!! FW lovers would have loved that bubblewall :-)

[Geoff]

you might want to put a strainer on that live mush maker.

looks great.

G~

[thefatman]

hmm it's got one built in. should i add another?

i'd say the strainer's openings are about 1/8" betwen them.

if i MUST take on another project () what material should i use?

[Geoff]

it would mainly be a difuser for the force of water. even just a small sponge around the inlet would be fine. small fish and other slow swimming critters could get stuck on the input and not be albe to get off. it is that whole increase flow, minimize velocity saying that someone here uses. great advice, by the way.

G~

[Buzz_Hog]

Yeah, definately cover the intake on that PH... I have the same PH and found a blue fin damsel that was a little too curious... It was not pretty when I had to pick him out of it...

For mine, I bought one of the add on filter attachments and removed the filter insert and just use the container as my "strainer"... It's quite bulky, but does the job nicely.

Awesome job on the spray bar... I have the smae 55 gallon tank and run into the same problems of having to stack the rock at the back of the tank. I'm going to have to use your idea.

[CAT]

Originally posted by Buzz_Hog
Yeah, definately cover the intake on that PH... I have the same PH and found a blue fin damsel that was a little too curious... It was not pretty when I had to pick him out of it...

Yep, definitely use a strainer. I use a maxijet for my bakpak - I left the pump going when I removed the venturi to clean it then couldn't get the venturi back in when I was done. Took me a few tries before I finally clued in that something must be stuck inside the intake. With great trepidation I unhooked the maxi and saw a chromis had gotten sucked in. I can still see that green body with a big eye staring at me. Made me feel worse to know I'd squashed the poor little thing several times trying to get the venturi back in. Gross!!! Then I had to pry him out of there... Not one of my better experiences as a reefer

Strainers are good.

[thefatman]

lol yeah after that was built i went in and found the hagen filters that are made for their powerheads. i jsut removed hte filter pad from inside them and attached them to the powerheds... though they were really big. so i ened up cutting them down a lot and now they dont look so bad anymore.

heres a pic.