I have a 240g acrylic 8x2x2' tank that I'm getting ready to fire up soon. The plan for this is to be fairly high tech with pressurized CO2, good lighting, filtration, etc. The tank is drilled on the bottom with 1.5" for drains and 1" for return (1 set each towards each corner). I had the 1.5" already set up for PVC to a sump, and was going to run a MAG 18 or 24 for the return. During the couple of months (before top bracing popped off corner) I was testing/fine tuning this setup I was having difficulty getting what I felt was enough CO2 into the tank. I was originally feeding the CO2 through some diffusors into a MAG 18. My question is am I better off maybe sticking with canister filters to minimize CO2 loss? If I stick with a sump, should I be setting up my CO2 to diffuse into the tank under a couple of Koralia or something like that? I have a could or 2" Atomic diffusors that work nice in my 125g. I also have two Eheim 2078's that I can fire up as well. I was getting pretty frustrated with the sump although a lot of people swear by them for big tanks. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Drilled (bottom) 240g options?
- Thread starter Bryeman
- Start date
Hi Bryeman,
I recently started my first large tank with a sump and would never do without now. Maybe if you elaborated on your frustrations we could help you correct what was causing then.
Mike
I recently started my first large tank with a sump and would never do without now. Maybe if you elaborated on your frustrations we could help you correct what was causing then.
Mike
mike;91652 said:
I'm mostly concerned with CO2 loss and some advice on how others are getting CO2 into the tank with sumps. Do most people try to feed CO2 into the return pump or do you have something set up outside of the sump that puts CO2 directly into the tank? One of the big problems is the sump I was using was an open top that I tried sealing myself and I was probably losing CO2 there in large amount. I'd prefer to use a sump if I can get an efficient method. Are you using a home made sump or a brand name one?
Actually, I think I may have found a solution to part of this. I'm going to get 2 five gallon buckets with covers and I'll have one PVC pipe drain into each and will have all my media in these and will have holes at the bottom for the water to grain out of. At least that should help a lot since I would think a lot of the CO2 loss is going to happen when the tank water drains into the sump as long as I can keep the area where the PVC goes into the bucket sealed. Both buckets will fit into my sump. I'll then try to figure out a way to seal as much of the sump itself as possible, but that will be difficult. Still, this should help a lot I would think, plus make my system even more silent. I think what I'll do then is put one of the Atomic diffusors suctioned to the bottom of the sump next to the Mag 24 intake for CO2. I have another CO2 tank in house so maybe I can use that one on a diffusor directly in the tank under a Koralia or something. Any thoughts on this?
How about what I did:
NW pump in sump. Connects to cerges 'reactor' or dwell time unit as I call it, then back to sump for pick up by the sump pump?
Works well on my 220 and the mist is greatly reduced from using just the NW direct to sump pump...
NW pump in sump. Connects to cerges 'reactor' or dwell time unit as I call it, then back to sump for pick up by the sump pump?
Works well on my 220 and the mist is greatly reduced from using just the NW direct to sump pump...
Gerryd;91659 said:
I may do something like that too. It would certainly dissolve more CO2 I would imagine. I think if I can get the water draining into the sump sealed it's going to help me out a ton and that's where I'm hoping the 5 gallon buckets come into play. Should work much better versus what I started with.
Bryeman;91655 said:
The way I got around CO2 loss was to make sure my drains were fully submerged and that the main drain was working at full syphon, so there was no air going down the drain and by having them submerged you don't get the splashing that causes to co2 to out gas.
Bryeman;91655 said:
It's a home made sump, I used a 27 gallon tank and added glass deviders. I would have liked to use something bigger but I didn't have enough room under my stand.
As for CO2 diffusion, right now I'm feeding it into a small Rio 600+ that has a needle wheel impeller. The output of that little pump has a tee on it that I tucked under each of the sponges on my 2 return pumps. I have a Mag 9.5 and a Mag 18.
You can see more details here along with a video that shows the overflow and sump about half way into the video.
http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/10939-My-125G-in-action
Mike
mike;91672 said:
I have overflow boxes and my tank is drilled through the bottom. I currently have the drains setup as Durso. I could remove the top part and just have a pipe with open top submerged but isn't that going to create a very loud noise? I'm going to be testing this tank this weekend so maybe I'll try some things and see. Nice video by the way!
Yes it will probably be quite loud.
How may drains and returns do you have? Are they all in the overflow box?
If you have a total of 3 you can still make a BeanAnimal overflow but you may have to have your return come up over the tank rather than use the drilled return.
You will need enough room in your overflow box to add some tee's and elbow.
Mike
How may drains and returns do you have? Are they all in the overflow box?
If you have a total of 3 you can still make a BeanAnimal overflow but you may have to have your return come up over the tank rather than use the drilled return.
You will need enough room in your overflow box to add some tee's and elbow.
Mike
mike;91734 said:
I have two overflow boxes, one each towards the back corners. Each box has both 1 drain and 1 return. I have 2 - 5 gallon pails in my sump and I have one drain PVC pipe going into each. The pails have a cover with a small hole cut for the PVC drain pipe. Working pretty slick. The pipes in both buckets are under water and there's plenty of room for media, so that part is going to work well I think. Holes drilled on the bottom of the buckets (they are sitting on about 1" acrylic pylons I put in) and the water drains out the bottom. Not a lot of movement/splashing in sump, so that's good too. I will cover the small opening from my imperfect holes I drilled with duct tape and those buckets will be virtually sealed. The problem I have right now is the Mag 24 is just too much for my sump. I have to drill a couple of holes to let more water into pump chamber, but I may just install the Mag 18. The 24 is exremely noisy right now and the 18 was close to silent. It will reduce the flow out of my 4 loc-line return heads (I have two snaked off each return pipe), but still should be sufficient. Plus I have one of those Koralia 1050 and I think that with the 18 will be plenty. Just having the overflows increase water movement a lot more than I was expecting when I bought it. Excited to get this going!
The down side to sumps/tanks with built in overflow boxes is the amount of CO2 needed (well, at least for me). I have all of my loc-lines pointed down now, but I'm going to have to fire up second CO2 tank today and make some design changes. I thought the pvc drains going into two 5 gallon buckets full of media (pipes are below water line inside buckets) would be much more efficient compared to what I had, but long ways to go yet. CO2 has from one tank has been running for about 12 hours now and I've only went from 7.44 pH to 6.95 pH. I'm estimating I'll need to get to 6.4 - 6.5 to get my drop checkers to show proper color. The water inside my sump (two buckets sit in a sump and have holes drilled in the bottom for water to exit) is not turbulent on the top at all. Pretty sure I'm losing most of the CO2 from my two overlflows. The one overflow has water that drops only about 1/2" - 3/4" from the tank into the overflow box, and the other drops about 1" or slightly more. Not really sure if I can do much with them. Time for more messing around I guess, which I don't mind since it's my hobby!
Don't forget that you have a LOT of surface turnover with the overflows and that will contribute to CO2 loss. If you don't have a lot of turbulence and your biotowers are sealed, then your CO2 injection method needs to be improved to counteract the surface overturn loss.
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shoggoth43;92049 said:
I have good tunnover, that's for sure. I have it down to 6.85 now just by doing a few things. Working on sealing most of sump now and some other things. I'm going to have to go with a different CO2 method possibly though. In all fairness, I'm only running the one CO2 tank right now and it's only about 3 bps, so it's not like I'm dumping a lot in right now I guess. I currently have it hooked up to a 3" Atomic Diffusor suctioned right next to my return pump and all of the bubbles are being sucked into the Mag 18. One of the potential issues with this method that I see right now is it seems like the current bubble rate is about all this diffusor can handle. I can turn up the CO2, but my bubble rate as seen through the bubble counter is about the same. I have to clean up a few things and then I'm going to hook up #2 inside the tank under a Koralia 1050 I think and see what I end up with. Not in a huge hurry since my lights, bulbs, and about everything else I have on order are delayed.
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Hey,
Can you increase the HEIGHT of the standpipes in the overflows. This will force more water to be in the wier and the waterfall will be reduced. I did this on my reef ready 180 with twin overflows.. Worked very well.
Can you increase the HEIGHT of the standpipes in the overflows. This will force more water to be in the wier and the waterfall will be reduced. I did this on my reef ready 180 with twin overflows.. Worked very well.
Gerryd;92075 said:
I think I can, but not by much. I think it's going to be hard to improve the one too much more, but I think I can do better on the other one. I'll add it to the list! Going to get this reactor going first this morning, then observe it, then fix the leaks, and then I'll see if I can improve the water level in the wier. Thanks!!
Gerryd;92077 said:Hey,
3 bps of c02 is NOT going to cut itMy bubble count in my 220 is a torrent.
Yeah, I know I'll have to increase it for sure. Not impressed with the Cerges at all though to this point, so probably means I'm doing something wrong. Using the 3 bps with an Atomic diffusor placed at the mouth of the Mag 18 inlet I could get down to 6.83 pH, but with the same bps I can't get past 7.07 with the Cerges. I was hoping to get this taken care of today, but not looking good unless it's going to take more time to come down, but given the fact it's not rising further makes me believe my current Cerges setup is just not nearly as efficient as the Atomic Diffusor was. I doubt there's leaks because if there was I should see water I would think. Frustrating!!! Between the tank breaking a month ago and all of this I may have to take a day or two off.