575g Basement Sump Install (w/ pics)

[brobak]

This weekend, on what might be considered a whim....well, we did plan from thursday afternoon, we setup and installed a 575g remote basement sump.

Interior dimensions are 93"x45"x33" Its currently got about 6 inches of southdown in it, and its filling w/ RO. Which, at the rate of about 75gpd, is going to take a good week Check it out. I'll update more info when we have it.

http://www.phortawesome.com/tank

 

[beerbaron]

so im assuming this will be for your 75 gal tank. thats awsome. what are you going to do with lighting, pump etc. i never thought about using a pond liner. interesting idea. more info please. shat are you gonna keep in it. refugium stuff or corals, or equipment?
BB

 

[brobak]

The plan is to have most of the tank dark. It has a 6" bed of southdown (about 1300 pounds) in it already. One section will be lit for coral propogation to try to offset the tank costs a bit. Another section will have a big basket of macro algae in it. We might also toss some mangroves just for fun.

The sump will be on the 75g lps/softies tank, but also around april, will be hooked up to a 90g sps tank that is being planned for another room in the house. And finally about this time next year, it will be joined to a 180g reef tank that will also be in the basement. So in the end it will support about 400g of display tank.

It will also have an MR-3 skimmer with dual beckett injectors on it. Though we are hoping that most nutrient export will be handled biologically. We are going to test a mag24 for the return pump, which should put out about 1200 at the 11' head we will have, but if it turns out to be insufficient, we'll go with an amp master 3000 for the return.

Lighting for the coral prop will be supplied by a 65kk 250w MH bulb, while the macro's will get 80w of NO flourecent lighting. Most of the sump will be dark however, and to that end we are covering most of the surface with as much insulation (styrofoam) as possible to save on heating costs.

 

[Anonymous]

Cool! You'll be the first guy in the world for whom a 50% water change on a 75 will be 325 gallons! :wink:

 

[O P Ing]

hi.
With sump that big, I doubt that water change will be very often anyway.

 

[brobak]

We are hoping not to have to do water changes but maybe once a quarter. Plus, when you figure that we'd have to do around 200g to make a dent in the total system volume of 800g or so, it would take an entire bucket of salt, which runs about 35$. Expensive water changes

 

[seahawkjohnny]

one thing for sure your system will be VERY stable....

 

[brobak]

Thanks for the comments, and compliments After building the tank out, we found it to be quite deep, and hard to work on. So we built a step to use outside of the tank, to raise ourselves up a bit so its easier to bend over. This helped quite a bit, and since most of the tank will be covered/dark 95% of the time, we didnt forsee a big problem as far as maintenence goes. Hopefully, if anything organic makes it to the sand bed, it'll get eaten by the trillions of bugs/worms/goodies which will be in the sand. If we drop some tools, we've planned to have one of those "pole claw" things that should allow us to grab most anything from the back side of the tank.

As far as pumps go. We looked into an amp master 3000 for the return, and actually decided on a submersible pump for a few reasons. First, we had a spare mag36 laying around with which to test the setup, Second, heating this thing is going to be a constant problem, so actually the waste heat from the submersible pump is actually desirable at this point. Kind of killing two birds with one stone. The head on the pump will be about 10' , at which the mag is flowing around 2400gph. We were shooting for 600gph through both tanks, so its going to be really close with the pipe friction and elbows. If we find that the mag just cant hack it, we'l go out and pay for the larger external pump.

With regards to cutting holes in the tank or lining the tank with epoxy/fiber. This added to the complexity and cost a great deal. Our original though was to go with a plywood tank style sump where there is no liner, but instead use the binary epoxy to seal the wood. We simply werent comfortable with that setup. If there is a leak, we will have the ma36 setup so that we can drain the entire tank in about 10 minutes, even less with us bucket bailing. The computers will actually get moved in the not too distant future, and the washer and dryer will be behind a 12" water break that we will be installing over the next few weeks.

 

[Anonymous]

sounds awesome,haaz :wink:

keep us posted

 

[brobak]

First small mishap The RO unit that is slowly filling the tub fell over and yanked the fill line out and onto the floor, so my floor got a nice RO bath last night. No big deal, but I'm glad we installed the vapor barrier on the bottom side. Water is about 8 inches deep now, and the two heaters we have in there now are having trouble keeping up. Time to plunk down for the 800w heaters

 

[nilestr]

You guys seem to live real close to me. When my 90 gets mature enough maybe I could buy some small coral frags from you guys. I live off of Duke St in Alexandria. If you are from DC then you should know where that is.

 

[brobak]

We'd be happy to set something up. I dont think that we're going to let this much water go to waste without trying to get a little something to pay the bills back out of it. I imagine we will try out hand at coral prop as soon as we can. Can't hurt.

 

[nilestr]

I saw you guys are also into cars and stereos. Maybe we could work out some trades in the future. My best friend owns a car stereo shop. I got all kinds of stereo stuff sitting in my basement. You seem to like Rockford. Want to trade anything for a Rockford Punch G14004. Put out a tested and verified 633 watts RMS. Let me know.

 

[brobak]

If you are interested in trading for what we already have in the tanks, please just drop me a private message on instant messenger. brobak22 is my name. That way we can keep this thread about the sump, and happily discuss trades elsewhere

 

[King Jason]

633 watts RMS

Whoa! 8O

 

[zooqi]

You might want to check with GUY to. He has over 700 gal sump for his main tank and his sump gets light all over. He has one area for cardinals, and corals in some areas, algae in the center. Very nice sump and I wish if I can have something like that someday.