Chuck's 150 Gallon Reef Project

[ChuckG]

Almost forgot. I decided to go ahead and put more silicone on the leak in the overflow box to see if that would work before I remove the entire side and redo it.

I'll give it a day or two to set before I fill it with water again.

[phlounder]

That's what I would do. Even if you removed part of the overflow and resealed it, at some point you will still be siliconing over cured silicone. So, this would be the same thing.

If it still leaks, I would have to consider cutting it all the way off - and lay the tank down to do it right.

[ChuckG]

Oh no - we won't be doing that. I'd pour a 1/4" thick layer of epoxy in the bottom of the overflow before I'd take the tank back off of the stand.

[papajin]

Originally Posted by ChuckG

Ah yes - I see. I'm sure they will work like that but for the cost of both you probably darn near paid the price of what a good one would have cost.

I had already glued mine in, so figured that was the cheaper route than completely replacing them all. I used quite a few before figuring out they weren't suitable.

Hopefully other people won't make the same mistake we made in purchasing those things though.

[ChuckG]

Haven't left an update in a couple of days because nothing much has been happening. I spoke with Chris from Reeflo about the dead dart. He explained the sometimes the darts won't kick in when you initially fire them up because of the seals being so tight. This is written in the instructions that I didn't read because I'm a man and don't need no instructions. I attempted to kick start the dead dart as described in the instructions and it did kick start however it only ran about 15 min before it died again. I think we have a problem with this one.

The second dart that seems to be louder than the first "may" have a bearing problem. Chris is suppose to call me sometime and listen to the motor running and let me know if it is the bearings or not.

Worse case scenerio, I'll end up with another two brand new darts.

Chris explained that sometimes these do get damaged in shipping even though they look alright on the outside. If they get dropped it can shift things on the inside and cause problems.

OVERFLOW: Appears to not be leaking anymore with just a patch job.

SUMPS: Water tested sumps to find two bulkheads leaking that tighting didn't seem to fix. Gave up, unscrewed them, added silicone and put them back together. Will test again tomorrow.

[Tangboy]

*rings hands impatiently as he awaits a new update* Hey Chuck, we gonna get an update soon? How's the glass sliver in your thumb? Just showed a lot of your ideas and pics to my wife, she just says "that's nice dear" and keep studying her books because my explinations of your project are just greek to her. Kinda fun to attempt it. Keep us posted matey!

[ChuckG]

Not much to report because I've been working my tush off at work and no energy to do much of anything when I get home except veg out.

My boss called me at 3:45 today telling me that she just realized that I could only work 9 hrs today because I would hit the 60 hr per week limit and she'll get in trouble. I informed her that I hit the 9 hr mark at 3:30 so now she's mad at me like it's my fault I went over 60. Ended up with 61.5 for the week. 2.5 hrs of double time just today. Going to be a nice check.

Reeflo is sending me a new Dart for the one that overheats and seizes up. Chris from Reeflo is going to come by sometime next week and pick up the dead pump and personally tweak the noise on the other one or decide to replace it. I didn't know that Reeflo was right here in my own backyard.

Still not done plumbing. I'm having problems with a few leaks. Hopefully I'll get the plumbing complete on Sunday.

The finger festered up and I got a bunch of pus out of it. I didn't see anything in the pus but I think the sliver must have come out because it is finally healing. Feels great.

My own wife has never read this thread. I told her that she should but she'd rather read one of her romantic novels.

[Tangboy]

Gratz on the big check from work! I too will start rolling in the dough when I'm done with my masters.... Okay maybe rolling in the dough is a bit too much, how bout rolling in the tsp of flower?!

Nice that the quality of service that reeflo has is up to par. Nothing worse then ordering something and then having to chase the company down via nasty automated telephone answering machines or some guy named Alehiababalagos from Egypt who makes $.75/hr to redirect phone calls so the CEO's can dodge replacing their gear. Also nice that they are so close you can have easy access if there are future problems.

Hmmm puss, used to love squeezing that stuff outta my toe when I was little and cut my toe nails too short and a hangnail would grow or whatnot. Grossed all the girls out at school... no I did not do this within the last two weeks!

Wives are fickle creatures, just asked the wife if i could get my 40 lbs of LR yet... she said "no" and I didn't want to face her wrath if she came home one day to find a big ole plastic container in the garage with airtubing making bubbles in it for curing the LR. She took kick boxing for 4 years and is 6 foot tall... I like sleeping in my bed thank you very much!

Hope you get some RR this weekend Chuck, don't work too hard on the tank now!

[ChuckG]

Once again, I didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted to today.

Here's what I did do.

Recycling at its best. I needed a vibration and noise dampening mat for the main return pump to sit on. I found some scrap shower pan liner that I had so I cut it up and glued the pieces together. I think it will work pretty good.



Then I replumbed the overflow. The glue set before I got the thing straight the first time around and was actually lifting the glass cover off of the sump. I replumbed it with unions. This way I can tank the center piece of pipe out and be able to remove the sump cover if necessary. I also cut a piece of 2" PVC as a support for the overflow box. Yes - that is water in the overflow box. Been there for several days now with no signs of leakage.



Then I did some of the other plumbing. As you can see in the pic - I'm a messy worker. Plenty of time to clean things up.



Most of the plumbing isn't glued yet. I'll attempt to show what is left to do. Not sure if you'll follow it though.



YELLOW - return to the display tank. Pipes will go through the wall and drop down into the display.
GREEN - Goes to the frag tank
RED - Chiller
PURPLE - Output from skimmer back into the sump
WHITE - Output from the refugium back into the sump

I cut the fluidized bed down a couple of inches so it would sit right under the front end of the CL pump. This way when I need to remove the pump I can just open the drain line and the remaining water will empty right into the chamber and stay within the sytem. Pretty cool - eh?

[ChuckG]

I think I'm half way through another plumbing mistake. I reduced the outlet of the dart to 1 inch pipe thinking it would be ok since I'll have multiple outlets. Now I realize that since I'm reducing before the multiple outlets that it will be restricting the entire run. (I think)



Figure A is what I'm half way done doing.

Figure B is probably what I want to do.

How much am I going to lose by staying with figure A?