[Geoff]

i am now starting the rebuild of the Mantled Monster! i have done some preliminary stuff, but not much. the tank has been removed from its high home for now.

here is a pic of the top of the mantle. i have already drilled several of the holes for the 2" drains and returns. that long metal stick in the foreground is my 6' drill bit i used to drill through the floor into the basement.

here is the tank on its side ready to be drilled. there are 4 1.5" bulkheads. the two at the top will be the CLS inputs. the two at the bottom will be for one of the CLS returns. this will be powered by an ampmaster 2100 to start. the 1" bulkhead in the middle will be for the drain to the sump. the two 3/4" bulkheads on the ends are the other CLS returns. one on each side. each powered by a Velocity T3 pump pushing an eductor. i should be getting plenty of flow.

this is where all of the plumbing will go, up on that concrete shelf. i should have enough room for all of my stuff up there. sump, return pump, 3 CLS pumps, a chiller, RO unit, kalk reactor, and a skimmer. i am sure i am forgetting something. i am thinking of doing a gravity feed skimmer. BTW-this shelf is located 50' away from the tank!

here is a pic of the basement right now. quite a mess. the tank on the right is the 125g. the tank in the middle is a friends i am storing for a bit. the one on the left was Nikki's predator reef system.

the final pic is of the ampmaster 2100. the wet end to the left is for a 3600. i amy switch to that if i think i need more flow. i am a little concerned with head loss due to the 100' worth of piping i will need to lay.

so, if any of you all are bored and want to learn how to plumb a tank, come on over, i got a tank you can practice on. no, really, i need the help.

G~

 

[ChrisPrusha]

w00000000000000t!!! :thumbup:

Plenty of flow, indeed!

 

[Casey]

wow G I had no idea the monster was down what are the long term goals for the new set up?

 

[wharyat]

Very nice Geoff, I will be keeping an eye on this thread!

 

[dobejazz]

Very Cool! I bet it was hard to wait til after the holidays to get started!

 

[gwen_o_lyn]

Question since I haven't been here that long. Is this the same house you had before you went to Ireland or a different house?

 

[jlscrug]

I take it that fireplace has seen it's last useful day? Suppose you could get one of those 'metro' candle holder thingys that hold about 10 candles and use that for your fire?

 

[Casey]

Got to be the same one Gwen.

 

[Geoff]

wow G I had no idea the monster was down what are the long term goals for the new set up?

had to take it down when i went to Ireland for the past 6 months. i let a buddy of mine keep my clams, but they did not make it, so now i am back to square one on all critters. the good news is that several of the people i have given frags to have sold them so i have some place to start new frags.

this is going to be a SPS system. with a good amount of clams. the bottom will prolly be sand filled epoxy. i am thinking of making it a modular system. the bottom, the outlets for the CLS's and the LR will all connect together. i hope to have very few places that detritus can hide. the sump is where i hope that it will collect. i plan on only haveing about 400gph through the sump.

i like the way the old tank was, but it was a bit difficult to get up there sometimes to work on it, so i decided to move it all to a slightly more accessable possition. since this is the main room of the house, i wanted to make the tank as quiet as possible.

this is pretty much a complete rebuild. now if i can only get some lessons from dhoffroad on how to build one of those cool canopies i will be set.

G~

 

[Geoff]

I take it that fireplace has seen it's last useful day? Suppose you could get one of those 'metro' candle holder thingys that hold about 10 candles and use that for your fire?

it is actually a gas fireplace. it still works fine. we use it all of the time. have never had a problem with it and the tank.

honestly, it is the one thing i hate about this house. I LOVE WOOD BURNING STOVES. i wish the builder put one of those in the house instead of this gas burner. you can always find wood, but finding someplace that will fill up your 100lb propane tank in the middle of a blackout can get kinda tricky sometimes.

since i will be increasing the number of pipes near the fireplace i will run a test fire of the fireplace and a couple of PVC pipes in there just to be safe. have not had a problem before, but would like to test to be sure. i will prolly end up putting somekind of heat barrier on the PVC just to be double dog sure.

G~

 

[reef_noob]

Wow! Great stuff, I'm excited to watch your progress.

 

[tims]

neato Geoff..

did i miss were the return from the sump is on the tank?

 

[Loverotties]

Looking good Geoff!It's always nice to reset-up and do things a little different.

 

[Geoff]

neato Geoff..

did i miss were the return from the sump is on the tank?

no, i am not going to drill a hole for the return. i wil go over the back for that. i do not trust check valves, so over the top it will be. since the return will only be between 4-600gph i do not think it will be that big of a deal. trying to keep things quiet.

because i am running the "overflow" 50' away, i am going to have to use 2" pipe for the driain. this will leave plenty of room for air to escape, since i am unable to plumb a vent near the sump. so the 1" overflow will immediately be plumbed into a 2" Tee to act like a Dursa, the off the water goes.

G~

 

[Viv]

Geoff, are you building a sump too, or do are you using one you already have?

 

[Geoff]

Geoff, are you building a sump too, or do are you using one you already have?

have not decided yet.

i have an old 20yr old 55 that is in the running, i also have a DIY refugium that was on the back of the 125, back when i thought refugiums were a good idea. right now this one is winning the race. it is a little smaller about 40g, made of acrylic, so it is much easier modified. i am thinking of putting a slanted bottom on the sump. at the low end i am thinking about putting a drain. i am hopeing that the detritus will settle on this side, then it is just a mater of opening up the drain to remove it from the sump. a quick easy water change.

G~

 

[xtopher]

what is it you don't like about refugiums Geoff?

 

[Viv]

Here's an interesting idea, its from Dr. Burgess's mini Atlas

 

[Geoff]

what is it you don't like about refugiums Geoff?

i just feel they are something else that needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. just something else to do maintenance on. i just do not see any benefit in having one. they contradict themselves. why have something that needs to be fed, in order to keep something else from growing, when they all eat pretty much the same thing.

how do you get pods to leave a place they like to be in? why would they want to leave? why do i want pods?

all of my decisions boil down to one simple question: does this really help me keep SPS/clams? for me the answer is no. if i were to keep mandarins the answer would still be no. there would be a seperate system just for growing pods. it would not be plumbed into the main tank. to hard to keep water quality up when one area you want to keep clean, while the other needs to be "dirty".

i feel most of us fall into the i wanta have this and this and this and this and this, but you really can not do that in a reef system. their requirements are to different (now that we know more about their actual requirements).

G~

 

[Geoff]

Viv- those are settling tanks. i am just not able to fit a true conical one in the space priveded, so i will cheat a little, hopefully it will work.

G~