Making it all fit

[skinsfan]

I'm in the design phase of my 120 reef.

In my attempt to fit all my equipment under my stand I have created a scale model of my various equipment pieces.

Then I move the little cut outs into the stand. The stand will be 48x24x36.

Equipment list:
Skimmer - H&S A150
Chiller
2 - 6101's with 7095
25 gallon Ref/return
5.5 gallon ATO tank
CO2 Reactor & Tank
Return Pump - Blueline HD 30

This also allows me to make sure I will be able to get my bigger pieces in and out and what it will take to clean/maintain them after install...

Wanted to get some tips on placing a ton of equipment in a small space and how much room I would need for plumbing and such.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, pretty tight there. you are going to use the back of the stand to get the 25 gal inside, right?

As for the plumbing, it really depends on where you drill, and where the pipe needs to go. Neatness, serviceability, and efficiency, among other measures, will make a big impact to how much room everything will take.

 

[skinsfan]

The front of the stand is the side with 1 center vertical brace, the rear has 2.

I used the cut out and "moved" it into the paper stand and I had enough room to get it in there and into position. I dont want to have to take apart my stand in order to get the sump in and out... So this little diagram should help with that.

Here are a few layouts that I have came up with.

This layout has the ATO over the Ref/Return.

This layout has the ATO outside of the tank.

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Since the ATO is only 5 gallons, the most it would last for is 3 days... If I go on vacation or need something set up to keep the water up for a week I will have to have a 15+ gallon container sitting on the outside of the tank with the plumbing going into the stand.

Or if I ditch the chiller then I'll have plenty of room. The hottest my house has gotten up to is 79 with the AC on... With 2 250's with fans in the canopy do you think I'll have to worry about it getting to hot? I was going to 'plan' for a Chiller just in case and get it if I needed it. What do you all think?

The tank I'm seriously looking at is the Oceanic Tech Series so the tank has dual overflows and are in the middle of the tank.

Thanks

 

[pcardone]

my lfs says its better to keep the chiller outside the stand

 

[skinsfan]

I've been doing a lot of reading on refugium's and Calfo and some others recommend its size be around 20% of your display system. This way you can do water changes and stuff from your ref. Now for a 120 gallon display thats 24g, with a 10g buffer to catch the water incase of a power outage were up to a 35g, and you still need a return section so lets say thats another 8g... So were up to ~45 gallons...

Now 45g of water takes up a good percentage of water in a 4x2 stand. A 36x18x19 is 50 gallons and would work well but then how are you going to fit everything under your stand... because you still have a skimmer (external), chiller, CO2 Reactor and Tank, Kalk, and maybe even an ATO... Man a fish room would be nice

So is having a large ref more important than a chiller, CO2, ATO, ect? since there is room constraints how do I go about hacking stuff out of the system?