230G Rimless Starphire AquaForest (56K!)

[KC21386]

The builder was mentioned earlier in the thread as well.

Looking forward to an update too! September is coming fast!

[ZID ZULANDER]

Originally Posted by KC21386

The builder was mentioned earlier in the thread as well.

Looking forward to an update too! September is coming fast!

Yes I see it now it was such a small plug that I missed it. Also the pictures in the thread are not really clear and there never was mention of bracing but you can not tell from the pictures.

[jackh]

oh my god. subscribed.

will 2600 lbs in that one spot not crack the floor or do something to the foundation in the house? jw cuz my cousins putting a 5x8 ft tank in his wall and they had to reinforce the foundation when building the house.

[khoile]

Hi, http://www.concepttanks.com/ is the tank builder. Although I don't recommend them, if you want the details pm me.

I'm still working on setting up the plumbing... I hope to get the tank on the stand next week.

Originally Posted by jackh

oh my god. subscribed.

will 2600 lbs in that one spot not crack the floor or do something to the foundation in the house? jw cuz my cousins putting a 5x8 ft tank in his wall and they had to reinforce the foundation when building the house.

Hehe I'm kinda nervous about this, but a quick calculation shows that I have 200lb per square foot weight distribution (3000lb / (6ftx2.5ft)). I weight almost as much and if I stand on my toe, the floor didn't collapse so I guess it's good.

[scolley]

khoile - I gotta tell you, IMO that "shelf", or "hoodless hood", or whatever you want to call that braced piece of stand-matching, light hanging shelf is a stroke of genius! Did you think that up? I've never seen that before, and by-gosh, if anyone has respect for GOOD new ideas, it's me! That is awesome!

Looking at it I see a few major advantages...

1. Most Important - you can run your power cords vertically, minimizing the impact they have if you pull them back to a wall behind the tank (as I have ). This minimization is both visual (all wires - structural and electronic - running the same direction) and practical (pulling electirical wires from hanging lights to any direction other than the physical hanging point) because it allows the light to hang as desired, without being pulled in other directions by the electrical cords
   
2. Least Important - you have a convenient platform from which you could mount other lights (like moon lights or similare LEDs) without having to mess with your major light source.
   
3. Median Importance - you visually emphasize the openness of your tank with the horizontal platform, without actually interferring with the true openess of your tank.

Now MUCH of what I have just said can be repeated for bars, or bracing - as with ADA - for lights. But IMO your solution is MUCH more elegant.

It does have some seeming drawbacks...

1. It will be most effective if you have a high ceiling. That's clearly not a problem for you.
   
2. That height (whatever is is) needs to be high enough to minimize the visual impact of the bracing above the shelf. Again, not a problem you seem to have.

All I can say, is that I see my next project in the works. And it is building a shelf just like yours! Good job!

Thanks for the inspiration. We are even now.

[khoile]

Thanks for the complement, believe it or not, it was my idea all along . Although I didn't think that deep into it like you described.

If you look back at the plan you'll see it here:


It's great that you want to build the same, a warning on mounting it though, make sure you mount the board to some bottom brackets first, install the top brackets and remove the bottom one. I didn't do that, and was using many chairs/tables stack on top of each other to hold the board, it was scary.

[gmccreedy]

Originally Posted by khoile

It's great that you want to build the same, a warning on mounting it though, make sure you mount the board to some bottom brackets first, install the top brackets and remove the bottom one. I didn't do that, and was using many chairs/tables stack on top of each other to hold the board, it was scary.

You lost me here. Do you mean like temporarily brace it while you install the permanent brackets? For a few bucks, you could have just built a rigged up 2x4 brace system underneath, built to the desired height of the shelf and layed the shelf on it while you installed the brackets.

Or you can get a few buddies on ladders and tell them to hold it (bribe them with beer or something, this is what I do when I need to something crazy like that)

But as Steve expanded on, this really is a great idea if it can match the decor and style of the room.

[khoile]

Glenn, your ideas would work too. At the time when I install it, it was just me and my dad. And we didn't have any frame pre-built for this (we underestimated the task, as always). So we ended up stacking my daughter table (short one), one the ladder, then add a chair (up side down) on top of the table, then the board goes on top of the chair legs. Not a good idea at all, we almost drop the board, glad that's over , but now I know better.

[st3v3]

Originally Posted by khoile

Thanks for all the complements.

nellis, fedex list the freight as 750lbs. By my estimation it's ~500lbs.

So my schedule will be,

this week - buy wood for stand
next week - build stand
+2 weeks - do plumbing
+3 weeks - put tank on stand, finish plumbing
+4 weeks - Initial planting

Hope I can meet my personal deadline of fully planted tank by September.

I'm dying to see this thing put together. It's been a long time coming.

[monkeyruler90]

looks great

[khoile]

Not really a major update, but I'm kinda on track to move the tank in this weekend. I've finally finalized my return plumbing setup:

This setup allows me to put two pressure gauges, one before and one after the venturi, so I can dial in that 30% pressure (optimize setting?) differential.




And finally installed the door, I wish they were taller, but... oh well.


And the "missile silo" aka pentair heaters/uv setup.


Lastly, top to bottom, all cords from the light fixture are hidden now, need to do the same for the controller.


One thing I learn about PVC fittings, you'll always be missing that one part!

Enjoy,

[mrkookm]

The Charts below is not taking into account the 1" PVC you have here and there, accessories like a Mazzei which requires a fair amount of pressure, the micron filter that goes down to 5µ, the other Pentair modules that will put a load on the pump, the fancy PVC fittings....etc. You are seriously underpowered for your setup and you will have water quality issues eventually.

I suggest you upgrade that Sequence Reeflo pump or pumps to ones that will be able to better handle your loop and it's accessories. I suggest again that you go with a bigger pump such as a 'minimum' Hammerhead and even then if this were my tank, I would use a dedicated pump for my Mazzei if I went with this lower head pump. In actuality I would use a Dolphin Aqua Sea 3600SP or similar if I was going with a tank this with size and accessory level.

Even if you are considering using 2 pumps you are choosing one of the lowest head pumps on the market. Why spend all this money on good stuff and then slack off majorly on the heartbeat of the system?

Everything looks great otherwise and I especially like the gauges before and after the Mazzei! While I'm in tune with my Mazzei and it's capabilities, I think I'll do this as well so that I can visually relate to what PSI what pressure works best for the Co2 level I would like in my tank...excellent Idea! BTW there is no ideal pressure, you will have to adjust according to your tank needs.

mrkookm

Originally Posted by khoile

intermediate_noob:
No problem, I welcome all comments. Actually you guy are so helpful I've redesigned the plumbing to a better version. Yup I will plumb with an additional pump in mind, so if needed, I can just hook one up, no need to replumb. I've read some thread on the cichlid forum, and realized that the pentair mech modules require more frequent media change than OC, so my solution to the problem? add more problem! So I originally plan only 1 mech, now I have 2 I'll give pentair a chance, if they don't work well I'll just replace the mech/bio-chem block with OC units.

For pump headloss, I did use the calculator for both Sequence Snapper and Dart when I was researching pumps, here are my result:

Snapper:


Dart:


As you can see the dart has only a bit higher flow than the snapper, since I was targeting 5x tank volume (~1000gph) I thought the snapper with its lower wattage is a better buy. If I needed more flow I am better served buying 2x snapper rather than 1 dart. Atleast that was the plan.

I will be (well my dad will) building the stand. It's not built yet. You can see my plan in the diy thread here:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/di...nd-design.html

crabcake:
I did the drawing with Google Sketchup

[khoile]

Thanks for the advice, I choose the Snapper for two reasons:

1. Low energy usage, when I started the system I try to target minimum usage while getting adequate flow rate.

2. Lack of experience, so I relied on calculator.

I do plan to upgrade the pump, I just don't' know to what. The link to the dolphin you sent me look good except it consume 700+ watt to run. How about barracuda or goby?

Thanks again for the advice. I really needed them since this is my first system where I use external dedicated pump, and the pentair modules.

*Edit*
I could also use needle wheel pump instead of mazzei, I just need to undo the mazzei setup and plumb-in the pump. This maybe the route I will take since I have to bite fingernails to ditch out more $$ for another system pump.

[mrkookm]

I'm not familiar with this method but I've read it works well providing the correct size needle wheel is used. An underpowered Mazzei is useless at that gallonage and with the new pumps it will not have the head to generate good sized mist, dissolve efficiently and especially so with all those Pentairs.

You no longer have a 75 gal where tiny canisters will cut it, you chose to go to the big league so we gotta think big all over Ultra quiet, low energy, low head is not gonna kick it with 240gal tank with 6 ~7 Pentair Modules Thats not factoring a whole lot more restrictions that I saw in your diagram.

I think the needle wheel is a smarter approach IMO but it should be used with the new pumps listed NOT with the Reeflo. Do you remember the issues crazy loach had with his setup 240gal? He also went the lowhead, quiet and low energy route but he had multiple issues and he had nowhere near the same resistance as you

[khoile]

Yeah, I checked his thread again and he ended up with the Dart, I got confuse between crazy loach and gsd, and ended up thinking gsd using dart, and he's pumping from bottom floor up, but now that I double checked, gsd is using barracuda. Geez... . Well, what ever the decision is, I'm going to wait to see how the little pump that couldn't performs.