Its been quite awhile since I have followed up with this thread. I apologize. Since my last update I have been doing a few things here and there through out the year so the project definitely is not dead. Mainly, I have been collecting alot of parts, equipment and hardscaping needed to do the project as I intend. This update will be a progress report from Nov 13' up til today.
Nov 30th
I started drilling my tanks for the 1" buckheads. Of the eight tanks I needed to drill I only lost 1 tank. I replaced that tank the following day and proceeded with drilling and had no problems with it the second go around. Go figure that it was one of the Tetra tanks that was lost.
April 27th
Waited until temperatures warmed up to continue. So basically I was on winter break, lol. Here I cut out the electrical box locations and ran my main tank drain line behind the tanks. Each sump will have a discharge tube that will be indirect drained to the 1.5" main line. I wanted to go thru the wall to drain outside to also double as emergency overflow control when I am not manually draining. But I didn't want to drill thru my brick exterior wall. Instead I will just connect a 2" sump hose to the hub fitting to drain when I open my garage door. Bummer but its not the end of the world.
March 3rd.
I started putting the wier's in place for the overflow system. It was a pita considering the spacing is less than 3" from the glass for a large handed person to silicone in place. The silicone job isn't the neatest by any means but I will try to clean it up once I actually start setting up the tanks. I got a little better as I went along. I will also try to conceal as much silicone as I can with the scaping. After installing the wiers, all tanks were leak tested in the overflow an the tank itself for a week. No leaks on the tanks itself. I did have to reseal half the overflows though. Second time was the charm. But no leaks with the Aqueon or the Tetra tanks. I have gotten into numerous debates about the quality of Tetra tanks in some threads. They are not Aqueons so if you don't trust them, don't buy them. No need to criticize them when most don't have experience with them. Check the quality of the tank before you walk out the store and you should be fine. Tetra wouldn't be selling tanks just for everyone to return them to the store. Worst case scenario, reseal it yourself or use it for scrap glass. I have done it for the latter of the two with no issues. Only the bottom pane is tempered. Best price for scrap glass.
July 27th
I started dry fitting the Bean Animal.
August 23rd
Here I came up with a concept for a return hose holder. Each holder is a 2x2 piece of glass to be siliconed in place. I had to modify the trim of the tank with a dremel to allow clearance for the 1/2" spa tubing. Tube is connected to a 1/2" 45 elbow. I cut up a 1/2" coupling to 1/4" and sandwiched the glass to keep the tubing positioned where I wanted it. It all worked out great. The 45 degree will direct the return flow to my Koralia 550/600 to circulate thru the tank.
Today
One column of one stand is completely glued in place. I wanted to test everything out on one before I duplicated it 3 more times. Solve any issues here first and it solves them for all 4. A video of the fill test is at the end of this post.
Miscellaneous Pics progress thru out the year.
Derimmed 4 tetra tanks to run as sumps. Pic is old but they do have a center glass brace in place now and they will have a single wier in place on both the left and right side to overflow into a central wet/dry filter before its returned.
Custom elbows for inside wier on display tank. From left to right. A normal 1" street elbow. A modified street elbow. A modified 90 elbow with a 1" piece of rigid pvc in place. I like the radius alot better on the regular elbows versus the street so I custom made them all to shorten them up.
Some of the plumbing and equipment purchased.
The original plan was to run (4) 9.5 magdrive pumps but I gained a little knowledge from people turning to dc controlled pumps. For one 9.5 magdrive the wattage is 93w. For one dc (Jabeo 6000 in this case) is 40w, it has controllable pump speeds, it pumps alot more gph and has a higher head than the 9.5 magdrive. So I bought one to give it a shot.
I purchased (4) Watts whole house filters to run 4 Cerges. It will be inline after the return pump and has a bypass valve to hopefully control flow better and keep air out the system since this version does not have a purge. I will run either a custom air manifold or purchase a ready made manifold. The intent is to run the Aquariumplants.com electronic regulator. I have the single co2 outlet and I love it. I won't use anything else so I will be exploring options to make it work. They use to sell a multi manifold for their regulator but they yanked it from the website. I emailed them and I was told to contact a particular person there so perhaps they still make them.
To start I will be running (1) 100w heater per sump. For the first year of setup, the display tanks will only be aquacaped tanks without fish or invertebrates. This will allow me to test out how the water temperatures will vary by seasons and to account for any cooling methods needed. I will also add a second heater as necessary once other life is introduced into the tank.
All in all, I am satisfied with how everything is turning out so far. I am really really taking my time for I am meticulous about this project. This is the reason why no updates have come regularly for I wanted to get things going before really posting results. Below is my drain test for the gravity portion of the bean animal. The return system is not connected yet because I just recently glued it together and it needs time to cure. I will be giving the system a complete run thru with the return pump in place tomorrow. I will then leave it running for a week or so just to thoroughly check everything out before plumbing the other tanks.
Here is a quick video of the test as mentioned.
http://youtu.be/kwgTahfG_u8