Forrest Gump : 260 litre with sump

Stunning pics Adrian Think I need that lens... my Nikon kit lens just aint cutting it.

 

think u need more

 

Dude tank is looking great! You see, you just need to wait and be patient then all will come together slowly but surely!

Need to come take a couple of lessons from you! Photos are awesome!

 

@Linxie , do it!!! What body are you using? All these pics were shot on manual focus. Even with 38 focus points that the D7000 has, macro photography in the aquarium environment is too quick for auto focus. And certainly for that lens

Will add a few more. The other night I walked down to the beach and found about 5 nice white mussel shells and plonked them in.

Thank Sunny! Yes yes, patience. haha, I had patience building the system, was running low on it at the end. Thanks! Come down to Cape Town and show me how to climb. I'll show you some lekker hikes

 

Nikon D80 (same one you have if I'm not mistaken). Yeah, not possible to auto-focus in the tank, everything on manual. As soon as hubby receives his pay, I'm going to beg him for a new lens. He owes me one (I think hehehe)

 

Yes I have a D80 as well, keep it because I have a waterproof housing for it. But am getting another housing made for the D7000. But, a good camera still. I got plenty good shots with it. Good luck with the begging... hehe

 

I bought a 2 litre Excel the other day for R489. I hear that's very cheap, with prices around R650 - R700 being more typical. Think it was old stock, but hey it works. I will add it every day this week and cut my lighting to 4 hours per day. (because I left the lights on the whole of Saturday night, and partially last night - Adrian error on the timer!!! )

The corydoras have been going nuts in the glosso, kicking up a lot of rubbish which the vacuum could not get. So I guess they'll be worth their weight in gold. And now I can see why you warned me about getting them too early. If the glosso hadn't been rooted properly these guys would have been at the receiving end of my temper

 

@AdrianT do you have any more details on your overflow? I see a couple of pics of it but I'm not seeing exactly what you did. From the pic on page two it looks like you have a overflow with two durso standpipes and a third strait syphon for emergency. Is that right?
How noisy is this design?
I assume the tank is drilled?
Is it a "calfo overflow" (i.e. length of tank)?
Is there anything you would do differently?

Have you see the "BeanAnimal" design? [1]

I keep thinking about the best way do do a sump. E.g. overflow vs syphon linked from the bottom to pick up dirt, with appropriate syphon breaks. Now I just need some time to test them all out, oh and lots of money, that too

[1] http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx

 

Howzit Andre, yes the overflow is exactly based on the Bean Animal design. Yes it's two Durso standpipes (one vented to atmosphere, one not) and an emergency. Not that noisy but not perfect. My emergency must be made longer, and that's something I have not done yet and have been too lazy to do. I live on the beach, so the ocean drowns a lot of the sound, but my lounge is next door to my bedroom. I believe that system can be more silent, but I also believe it depends on the ball valves being used.... (that is critical) What is the definition of silent? You tell me.

Yes there are many things I would have done differently, many. I have not elaborated on that yet. Firstly, the overflow is frikken awesome for any sump, secondly the sump is awesome for any system where you wish to hide equipment. But.... in a heavily planted tank there are so many plants the equipment is easy to hide so why bother. For this system I would have done external canister, however at the time my LFS had crap external filters so I didn't bother importing.

I would change many things, mostly the size of the overflow box and the actual sump design but am too lazy to expand on that right now and need to do screenshots to explain where I went wrong.

The main thing: why have a sump? For me it was easy. This tank won't be a planted tank forever. It will be converted to marine when my life has settled somewhat and I am at home more and probably I'll start another planted and it will be surely be Eheim external like my Malawian. However it has it's merits, no doubt.

 

Oh right, I did not see that one was vented to the atmosphere. Makes sense

Well the designer (Bean) of the Bean Animal design claimed that it was not just quiet but completely silent. I think you are supposed to set it to get the correct flow rate though. Is the water flowing down the emergency, is that making the noise? The theory is that the main standpipe should be syphoning and thus silent. The vented standpipe then drains very little water so there is no syphoning and it too is silent.

Why do the ball valves make a difference to the noise? I've not seen that discussed before?

Good point. I only recently saw the Bean Animal and more than anything am just thinking about how it works, sad right? ;-) But cost and space wise I think you are right that a canister is probably best.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

 

The middle siphon (the emergency) takes no water when running, I have my system balanced perfectly. The system is not 100% silent no matter what the claim. Because the full siphon is choked and a ball valve is not a great device for controlling flow rate and thus you're not achieving laminar flow in the system. It is silent enough I guess.

Well cost wasn't so bad. (I will sell you pipe for cheap -- unless you want to buy 6 metres at a time) A good external canister is expensive. You also have loads of freedom to change your sump design and add more or less media, or a bigger or smaller pump. Surface skimming is also excellent. There are many overflow boxes, the marine forums go into that a lot. Check it out.

Hope the info helps. Any questions just shoot.

 

Told you to invest in a wheel gate valve! hehe. Na, actually no need to a better ball valve, I've figured out that you just need to close the ball valve just enough that water flows in both the full siphon and the open pipe, but not the emergency pipe. No need to adjust it too fine, as long as the air purges out of the full siphon and the little extra that is flowing in the open pipe, there should be no further adjustments.

It should be 95% quiet, but also it depends on your definition of quiet. hehe. If system is installed and adjusted correctly, you should only hear a very slight sound of water falling, but it is so minimal that any other sound (radio, neighbours shouting at each other, etc) will drown out the sound. My system is 60% quite, but and a very big but... the pump that I'm using is the cheap chinese pumps, so it is KAK noisy! F%^*(^*... If it wasn't for the pump, then it would be as quiet as an external canister.

 

lol.... my pump is 99% quiet, and the overflow system around 92% maybe. I have very good hearing, courtesy two ear operations this year!

 

Bit late, but thanks. But things are going well. Did a trim last night, that octopus is wild stuff wow!

 

Yes same here now. It's wild. Can grow 20cm in a week... Octopus on roids!

 

Not really an update. But maybe it is, I don't know, I'm not even sure what changed, probably nothing I'd like to announce that I'm fighting the hair/thread algae, whatever it is, but I don't have the energy right now. Dosing Excel and being consistent in everything, and have been trimming a bit. Motivation should return soon.

 

Waw, your tank made alot of progress. Vas byt, you'll beat the algae.