I don't know how many of you have been following my plywood paludarium build journal in the DIY section, but since I've officially moved from the construction phase into the setup phase I thought I'd post this here as well. The tank is a 300g paludarium with about a 100g water volume.
Here's a shot of my plumbing weaponry. The part on the bottom is the section that drains the tank and the part on top is my return manifold.
Water exits the tank through two 3/4" bulkheads positioned midway down on the right side of the tank which combine into a 1" line. I drilled an extra hole into the center of the strainers to increase flow, and I'm going to stick some pre-filter sponges on them eventually.
The 1" drain line enters a Blueline Velocity T3 pressure-rated pump. I placed a union ball valve in front of the pump and a union after it so that I can easily remove it for maintenance.
The Blueline feeds into a pair of Nu-Clear canisters. The first one has a 100micron cartridge and the second is filled with bioballs. The media capacity on these things is ridiculous - I stuck in all the bioballs from my old W/D filter and it was only half full!
The filters then lead to my return manifold. The 45-degree outlets closest to you are 1/2" lines that lead up the back and side Ecoweb dripwalls, respectively. The lower outlet is 3/4" and is plumbed into a Hydor ETH 300W and then returns to the submerged part of the tank. The ball valves let me regulate the relative amounts of flow to the dripwalls and the aquatic portion.
The aquatic return enters the tank via a 3/4" bulkhead plumbed to twin 1/2" loc-lines with flare nozzles. It's obscured by my fake tree roots and not really visible from the front.
Here's an overall shot of the plumbing.
It was a bit of pain to get all the plumbing set up and leak-free. Threaded PVC fittings suck
. I had a particularly persistent leak from the union right after the pump. Re-assembling all the threaded joints with liberal amounts of Great White pipe compound and not over-tightening them finally took care of the problems. Now that I have everything set up I'm pretty happy with it. The flow rate and media capacity kicks the pants off an FX5 (or any other canister I've used for that matter).
Here's a shot of my plumbing weaponry. The part on the bottom is the section that drains the tank and the part on top is my return manifold.
Water exits the tank through two 3/4" bulkheads positioned midway down on the right side of the tank which combine into a 1" line. I drilled an extra hole into the center of the strainers to increase flow, and I'm going to stick some pre-filter sponges on them eventually.
The 1" drain line enters a Blueline Velocity T3 pressure-rated pump. I placed a union ball valve in front of the pump and a union after it so that I can easily remove it for maintenance.
The Blueline feeds into a pair of Nu-Clear canisters. The first one has a 100micron cartridge and the second is filled with bioballs. The media capacity on these things is ridiculous - I stuck in all the bioballs from my old W/D filter and it was only half full!
The filters then lead to my return manifold. The 45-degree outlets closest to you are 1/2" lines that lead up the back and side Ecoweb dripwalls, respectively. The lower outlet is 3/4" and is plumbed into a Hydor ETH 300W and then returns to the submerged part of the tank. The ball valves let me regulate the relative amounts of flow to the dripwalls and the aquatic portion.
The aquatic return enters the tank via a 3/4" bulkhead plumbed to twin 1/2" loc-lines with flare nozzles. It's obscured by my fake tree roots and not really visible from the front.
Here's an overall shot of the plumbing.
It was a bit of pain to get all the plumbing set up and leak-free. Threaded PVC fittings suck
. I had a particularly persistent leak from the union right after the pump. Re-assembling all the threaded joints with liberal amounts of Great White pipe compound and not over-tightening them finally took care of the problems. Now that I have everything set up I'm pretty happy with it. The flow rate and media capacity kicks the pants off an FX5 (or any other canister I've used for that matter).
I showed my husband the thread and all he said was "No"... hehe..
