Help me set-up my DREAM tank!

[Coues]

Recently picked up my dream tank, and I’m looking for a little help/advice on setting her up. It’s an 8x3x3 (540 gal) acrylic with a black background, built in center overflow, and a 48”x24”x25” (125 gal) sump. I bought it off on a private seller here in town who had it made, but never ended up setting it up. It sat in his house for almost 3 years and he decided to sell. So she’s basically brand new – no drilled holes, never held water. I’ve always just done canisters since they are so easy, so I have very little experience with sumps. From the research I’ve done so far, here is a sketch of my current plan. The dividers in the sump are of course already in, and I also already have the 2 pumps I plan on using (2 Quietone 9000’s). Everything else is pretty much up in the air. I was planning on doing the Herbie method on the overflow, but after reading JCardona’s thread about the Bean Animal and how it’s even quieter, I may look into doing that instead. I am also thinking of using Flex PVC for all lines except the Herbie drain lines in the overflow so please comment on that as well. From what I have found flex pipe is more expensive and looks less “professional”, but is easier to work with and quieter than regular PVC and has less head loss. I want this setup to be as silent as possible as it is going in my living room. I know I’ll need to add some unions also, but I’m not quite sure where yet. Another thing I’m not sure of is how many filter socks I’ll need. I’ll have a little over 3000 gph on this setup and I’d rather have too many than have to change/clean socks every other day. So let me know what you think, and how you would set this tank up. Really want to take my time with this and do it up right!

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[Kaliedoscope]

what are you doing with it?

 

[Coues]

what are you doing with it?

Cichla, cichla, and more cichla . With some dats and geos thrown in for good measure.

 

[jcardona1]

Looks good Kevin! If you have the room for the Beananimal and don't mind a little bit more work and money, I'd definitely recommend it. Like I mentioned in my thread, the two downward facing elbows make for a very quiet design. The 3rd line is purely for safety and probably won't ever get used. But when you're dealing with that much water, safety and repetition are your best friend.

Design looks good to me, just a few comments:

- I see you have gate valves on your setup. That's fine for the return lines, but on the Herbie's main drain you'll definitely need a ball valve here since you'll be fine tuning the flow (and controlling the noise) with this valve. Gate valves are meant for open or closed operation, not flow adjustment. If you think you may want to adjust the flow on your return lines, go with ball valves here as well.

- Depending on how high your returns are, you may want to consider adding check valves for each return (as close to the pump as possible) to avoid a lot of water going back to the sump after the power goes out. If the returns are right at or above the tank's water level, you shouldn't need them.

- Unions: I'd put them everywhere you can! It can get a little expensive, but they are your best friend! First off, you'll want them wherever the tank meets the stand. That way, if you need to move the tank off the stand, you can easily disconnect the plumbing. I'd also add some underneath the stand to make it easy to move pieces around. Try to plan ahead and make breaking down the tank and setting it back up as easy as possible, without the need to hack any plumbing.

- I know the 9000 pump is set up for 1.5" NPT, but I think you can get away with 1" plumbing for the returns. Returns can be under pressure with no problems. That should save you quite a bit of money!
​

 

[Coues]

Jose,

Once again, you are the man! Great info, thanks for the help. I never thought about reducing the returns to 1", that's a really good idea. Would that create any extra noise? And what would you do to diffuse the flow into the tank?

 

[jcardona1]

No problem, glad I can help!

Returns themselves don't create any noise, the drains do. Unless you have the returns above the water, they'll be quiet. If you want to disperse the flow a little bit, you can make a spray bar out of PVC. The longer the bar and the bigger the holes, the gentler the flow will be. If you want to maximize the flow, add an Eductor jet. These puppies flow 4g for every 1g coming through the jet. So take your flow, and mutiply it by 4. That's what an eductor does

Example: http://www.sacramentokoi.com/Jets-Pond-Equipment-sc-307.html

 

[Coues]

Thanks again bro!
And those eductors are wicked! 3000 gph to 12,000 gph??? It'd look like a blender in there

 

[CharlieTuna]

I just finished plumbing my 210 with mostly flex PVC and Herbie overflows.

First off, I have read to use gate valves in the Herbie as they are infinitely adjustable, more so than a ball valve. I used gate valves, they have a very wide range of adjustment, it took tweaking to silence the overflows, I don't think I could have made it work with ball valves. Having said that, I like the Herbies. Very simple, dead quiet, I'm very happy with my decision to go with them.

The flex PVC worked great, much easier to work with than hard PVC. I used almost 50' plumbing my over flows and canisters. Rigid might look more professional, but the flex is easier. I used 3/4" and 1.25" flex, the 1.25" is a little more difficult to work with but still flexes nice. The only draw back I can see to it is that it does not take glue as well as rigid with the small ridges in it, but I did not have any problems with it.

I'm going to use Poret foam instead of filter socks. All of my water volume, probably around 2500 gph, will flow through two 3" thick pieces of Poret. I do not have the sump complete yet so I cannot comment on how well this will work, but I think it will be way less maintenance and better mechanical filtering than socks and will provide some bio too.

 

[CharlieTuna]

One more comment, I used check valves after my pumps and a bunch of unions.

 

[Coues]

Good info, thanks Charlie. Could I use both filter socks and poret foam? If you look at my sketch I have a note with "foam?" where I was considering adding foam in addition to socks and the water would have to flow through. Yeah?