southpaw23

Mushrooms are doin great... Ur tank is coming along nicely. Keep the updates goin..

Hey colin... I guess i stand corrected...but do note that altho your weipro is rated at 5000lph, depending on the max head specs of the pump, factoring in headloss and the resistance from running through your entire chiller coil, i'd guess that you'd only be getting maybe 3000lph or possibly less by the time it hits ur main tank. Oddly enough, this is still fairly high a turnover for a resun. Altho i did do a google check and it stated somewhere that the recommended flow rate for a CL650 is 1800lph. I'm not too sure how true that is but if that's the case, it's alot higher than what i had initially thought...and that being the case, perhaps the slightly higher flow rate doesnt have too big impact on performace...especially on a smaller volume tank like urs. Perhaps also, practical applications don't always gel with technical specifications. Oh and on smaller tanks, that's a pretty efficient way to setup, using only a single pump as a return and also to drive the chiller

So ur the chap i met at GO last week. I believe i was there when u and ur girlfriend reserved the first lobo. Good buy..

There is a really simple solution for this my friend. Just remove the hood and cut a groove at the bottom of the hood to facilitate for the return piping from the chiller. Then lay the piping and place the hood over the return pipe where the groove has been cut. To be aesthetically pleasing you can consider using hard piping for the chiller return. It's simple and fun DIY...and you will thank yourself for doing this in the unlikely event that your return pump ever fails *touch wood*. Plus more flow back to the main tank never hurts as well.

Actually the six times turnover between tank and sump is sufficient. To assess this one needs to look at the whole purpose of the sump in the first place..its just a separate body of water connected to your main tank to externally house your equipment. As long as the flow rate in the sump is sufficient to meet the needs of the equipment being housed, it will serve it's purpose fine. Seeing that you're going with a Deltec 851 with a recommended flow rate of 1000 odd litres per hour, the 5000 or so litres of water flowing through your sump per hour is more than sufficient to feed your skimmer with fresh tank water to process. Plus, you mentioned a refugium in the centre compartment, if you go this route then you wouldnt wanna have too high a turnover anyways as refugiums normally has a gentle flow rate anyways.

Hey Conrad...nice of you to drop by Progress with the tank is slow...and mine is but a modest setup...no fancy sps filled hills in the near future. But it's still a fun journey nonetheless..

Hi MAG...unfortunately i've no experience with large angels so cant comment. I'm guessing that may not be such a good idea considering the tendency for angels to nip on LPS...anemone's don't look too different from torches and frogspawns so logically i'd expect the angels to mistake the anemone for food too...

why isnt my name mentioned? Oh ya...didn't get around to helping you out much.. Anyways...the tank's lookin good....lookin forward to seeing how the scape turns out. It's gonna be a heluva task. Have fun!

Just be mindful of one thing...a common mistake made in most chiller setups. If your chiller input pump is in the last chamber and the output goes to the chamber before last...what you're effectively doing is just chilling the sump water. And what'll happen here is the you take water from the last chamber, chill it and dump it back in the previous chamber that eventually flows into the last chamber. This makes the chiller think that it's being more efficient that it really is because it will note a quicker drop in temperature but that temperature is only accurate for the sump tank while the main tank isn't getting all cooled as fast as the sump. This eventually causes the chiller to frequently kick in and out because it'll run for a short while and stop when it's hit it's lower preset limit but the effective main tank temp hasnt reached this limit, only the sump tank has cooled essentially. And as the turnover continues from sump to main tank vice versa, the temp will quickly rise again in the sump causing the chiller to kick in again when the upper limit is hit. IMO this is the most ineffective configuration for a chiller. I suggest you seriously consider plumbing the return of the chiller back to the main tank if it's lowered electricity cost you're looking at as well as redundancy reassurance. Else the cheaper and simpler solution is to swap the position of the chiller pump and place it in the chamber before last and have the output of the chiller go into the chamber where the return pump is. Hope that helps...

Here's another alternative for you to consider. Keep the L45 but T it off so that you can run your FR with the same pump. The FR should take up anywhere from 600 to 1000lph from the pump and with minor headloss etc...the 2000plus litres that goes into the chiller should still be fine for it to function. I'm not sure who told you about the chiller but a highler flowrate doesnt make the chiller kick in more often. It just makes the chiller less efficient due to the lack of dwell time within the chiller. In fact what it might do is make the chiller run a lil longer than usual to chill the tank. This especially applies to less efficient chillers like the resun etc whereby too high a flowrate doesn't work well with the chiller. (Mind you i'm not here to put down resuns) However on the Arctica, they handle higher flow rates much better. On their website, it states that the recommended flow rate for the 1/5 power chiller is at 8 gallons per minute. Working out to 1800plus litres per hour. Note that Arcticas operate at much higher flowrates than other chillers. One question to ask before i give you a final solution on this. How is the chiller return plumbed? Is it directed to the main tank or back to the sump? And if in the sump from which compartment to which? The most ideal situation for you is to have the chiller pump sit in the same compartment as your return pump and plumb the return right to the main tank. That way chilled water goes directly into the main tank and you have your backup redundancy of a second return pump as well. If you go this route, you may even opt out of Teeing off the chiller pump to the FR as the headloss would make up for the excess flowrate from the L45 and provide close to ample flow rate for the chiller. But also in saying that, even with the T-off to the FR, it should still work fine. Unfortunately from the looks of your setup and planning, it would seem you didn't factor in room for a second return to the main tank in your overflow compartment. That being the case you're left with two options, to return the chiller output back to the sump or to externally plumb a second return that runs at the back of your tank to the main tank (best option IMO). Good luck with it...i find this whole setting up phase the most fun part of the hobby Ask questions if you have queries....else, have fun

Hey Jervis...thanks for the lead on the blanket at CF. Unfortunately the specimen was injured so i didn't wanna take the risk. How is ur specimen doing? got a recent picture?

It's a decent sized specimen....love the fact that it's purple...now i'm on the look out for a decent sized Rose BTA to put on the other island and the contract would be great for the tank

Close up and last shot for the day...

here's a nice catch...purple LTA from Marinelife...gorgeous specimen

Pair of True Perculas from CF...exploring the hammer

Hammer..

Couple of recent acquisitions.. mushrooms...

Fullshot from the living room..

Fullshot from the bedroom..

Close up...

From the living room...

Close up..

Small updates....did a lil bit of rescaping on one side of the tank. Here's the new look - from the bedroom

Already feeding garlic soaked brine and mysis twice a day and occasional rounds of Ocean Nutrition pellets whenever i'm around the house. Plus there's red bamboo present in the tank...can't go more cos i'm not home most of the time during the day. Will just have to hope for the best and do what i can i guess...

i'm guessing u don't have a budget for this setup? Cos if you don't, a setup like this can easily go into the few tens of thousands...i won't be surprised if it hits a hundred grand with the kinda specs you're quoting. "equipment and livestock must be of the highest standards with redundancy built it." Nonetheless, it would be an interesting setup to see materialize. Good luck with it. You may want to check out some of our sponsors...they should be capable of taking on a project this size.