400g Systems - Looking for Input

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
F fishdance

are these what your using?

no trouble with the metal or rubber in water?

i’ve got a drain in my overflow box i had to cut as builder had pre glued it and bulkhead needed to be inside tank vs protruding....

hoping to use this to repair as i’ve failed x 3-4 putting it back together ??

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doing tank 2 -

got some jenky plumbing inside overflow - had to cut my drain that was pre glued for .... i dunno ....

my drain in tank may leak a little into overflow box - gasket looks not so seated -

on demand water heater requirements are more than electric can handle currently - adding some 30amp 10g -
2nd one going faster - copying off the other side.... few more hours ?

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this one somehow went worse ??

was running 1/2 drain as other side was leaking -

output started leaking .... fml....

i have to say - some of you guys are having fun at this ? - think it’s cause i’m rushing / trying to get them going as i intended to have them running 8 weeks ago / got sick / cramped fish ?

take home lesson - tank first - then fish ?

night all! been at it 14 hours ?

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what are folks thoughts?

my media ive been seeding in my 625g sump is potentially contaminated with what ever is afflicting my main tank - it is on the mend it seems and i do have 180 w of UV running in there - just don’t want to cross contaminate

2nd tank set up and running - valves not straight and have one leak

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yes those hose clamps should state 316 stainless steel and are fine in freshwater.

The DEKS joins eliminate the straight~less ~ness and annoying leaks issue the rigid barrel unions have created for you. Be careful not to lose the rubber O ring next maintenance. They can be difficult to put back in place when the barrel union is used sideways.

and when using barrel union vertically, have the O ring at bottom so gravity is your friend.
 
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You should run the water through a heat exchange to heat your tank. Costs me zero dollars to heat my 405 to 81 degrees 24/7 and is pretty simple to do.
 
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You should run the water through a heat exchange to heat your tank. Costs me zero dollars to heat my 405 to 81 degrees 24/7 and is pretty simple to do.

thanks, i’ll have to google that....

using 2 - 500w heaters currently
 
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thanks, i’ll have to google that....

using 2 - 500w heaters currently
You should run the water through a heat exchange to heat your tank. Costs me zero dollars to heat my 405 to 81 degrees 24/7 and is pretty simple to do.
I used a diy heat exchanger on my reef system years ago. It worked well. I don't think I ever broke even off of it between build cost and lowered electric bill though. It was up and running on my reef the last 5 years I had the reef. You have to build or buy it and still need a source of hot water. That hot water still needs to become hot some how. I used my hot water heater which was natural gas so cheaper then electric but the hot water heater kicked on more then in the past. A nice side effect of doing that way was instant hot water at any faucet in the house. I want to say parts was around $500. Probably a couple weeks of research and design time. Took about 8 hrs to install and get running correctly.

Currently I'm in a house with hydronic heating and I have multiple areas of control one being my fish room. I heat the room to 80°f which keeps the tanks around 76°f. The problem with that is it's so hot in there doing any real manual labor is not all that fun. Also if the tank is well insulated it's temp is lower. Some tanks, closer to the radiators are warmer also.

So B Black_Diamond I was wondering if you would be willing to post about your system? If you have a build thread maybe link to it? Or if you'd be so inclined to make a build thread explaining it and link us to it. I would appreciate it and I'd think dr exum dr exum would too, probably lots of others also. TIA!
 
I used a diy heat exchanger on my reef system years ago. It worked well. I don't think I ever broke even off of it between build cost and lowered electric bill though. It was up and running on my reef the last 5 years I had the reef. You have to build or buy it and still need a source of hot water. That hot water still needs to become hot some how. I used my hot water heater which was natural gas so cheaper then electric but the hot water heater kicked on more then in the past. A nice side effect of doing that way was instant hot water at any faucet in the house. I want to say parts was around $500. Probably a couple weeks of research and design time. Took about 8 hrs to install and get running correctly.

Currently I'm in a house with hydronic heating and I have multiple areas of control one being my fish room. I heat the room to 80°f which keeps the tanks around 76°f. The problem with that is it's so hot in there doing any real manual labor is not all that fun. Also if the tank is well insulated it's temp is lower. Some tanks, closer to the radiators are warmer also.

So B Black_Diamond I was wondering if you would be willing to post about your system? If you have a build thread maybe link to it? Or if you'd be so inclined to make a build thread explaining it and link us to it. I would appreciate it and I'd think dr exum dr exum would too, probably lots of others also. TIA!

Hey so ya twentyleagues twentyleagues is correct it’s not free literally... you may pay a little more in the sense that your water heater is kicking on more to heat the hot water tank however that all depends on where you live and how many gallons your water heater is coupled with how many people shower each day and how efficient you house is... really there are many factors.

To break it down cost wise I needed two JBJ 800 W True Temps for my 210 to keep it at 81 and they cost 189.99 apiece, and the running cost of them because they are basically constantly not only on but heating up the tank is roughly 30 to 40 dollars a month. Because the water heater is gas my gas bill probly went up 5 dollars a month so obviously big difference and the tank I just built that’s on the heat exchange is 405 not 210 gallons so I may have even needed a third which I didn’t want to spend the money on cuz let’s face it aquarium heaters even tho I like JbJ are let’s face it pretty crap sometimes and this system is instant and cheaper. I’d say it cost me about 400 to 500 to buy everything I needed and a few hours to install. Also I mean you have to know what you’re doing which everyone doesn’t feel comfortable cutting into their house water supply and changing it up which is totally fair.


I have a thread on here showing my 405 build and there’s a few different instructional vids on YouTube on how to set this up if interested. Good luck.

 
pulled the trigger on the UV for these - sadly the expensive ones are the smallest - and i’m out of space on this build -

1 pump / 1 UV per side - going to run the pumps at ~1000 gph think that will give me the 90,000 - i’m having good results in my bigger tank -
any suggestions kendragon kendragon

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