Dual Tank System Build Thread

[lanimret]

Glad you guys are enjoying it, it's been a 'project' hehe.

Wanted to mention I did something a bit experimental. Because I am using the sump as both a sump, and a water change resevoir (I will pump out all the water in the sump straight to a drain in the laundry room and refill it with the black tank on top) I needed to be able to drain the entire sump. I decided I needed baffles so what I did is drilled two 1/2 inch holes in the lower baffle and plugged the holes with rubber corks. When I do a water change, I simply remove the corks and turn the pump on. We'll see how that works, hoping for the best!.

Oh one other crazy thing. Turned the main pump on for the first time to test the sump and a funny red thing came shooting out into the sump. I reached in and grabbed it only to find out it was a large red spider, and still very much alive. I have a deep fear of spiders, so now i'm scared whats going to happen when I engage the whole system!

 

[Zaffy]

Glad you guys are enjoying it, it's been a 'project' hehe.

Wanted to mention I did something a bit experimental. Because I am using the sump as both a sump, and a water change resevoir (I will pump out all the water in the sump straight to a drain in the laundry room and refill it with the black tank on top) I needed to be able to drain the entire sump. I decided I needed baffles so what I did is drilled two 1/2 inch holes in the lower baffle and plugged the holes with rubber corks. When I do a water change, I simply remove the corks and turn the pump on. We'll see how that works, hoping for the best!.

Oh one other crazy thing. Turned the main pump on for the first time to test the sump and a funny red thing came shooting out into the sump. I reached in and grabbed it only to find out it was a large red spider, and still very much alive. I have a deep fear of spiders, so now i'm scared whats going to happen when I engage the whole system!

Thousands of baby spiders will shoot out all over your whole house. I'll laugh.

 

[lanimret]

So bad news today.

The tests did not go well. I am getting very little flow through the return and it is nowhere near cutting it. I called Reeflo and talked to them about the setup and it seems as if I am restricting the pump to much and need to switch the 1" pipes to 1.5", which isn't a huge deal, but a pain in the butt for sure. They are also looking if they can sell me a new impeller to further increase the flow. Hopefully that will solve that issue and I won't need to buy a new pump.

Also the Oceans Motions device was leaking AND not rotating. I took it apart and noticed that the motor of the unit was not tightly screwed down and the magnets inside had come loose. This was nearly impossible to fix (the magnets kept slapping back together) but I called them this morning and they gave me a walkthrough on how to re-assemble it properly. I'll give that a try and hopefully it will work.

Other than that, none of the major plumbing leaked (i haven't tested the drains yet) so that's good news. Will need to do some work this next week reworking the plumbing for the returns though.

 

[bigwave]

Sorry to hear things didn't go quite right with the plumbging. I just got my setup flowing a couple months ago, and it did take quite a bit of tweaking once I set everything up till I was leak free. The nice thing is I haven't spilled a drop of water since I got it all ironed out.

I run the Reeflow Snapper on my tanks, and it is great, with WAY too much flow, so I actually did have to restrict it. I however am using 1.5 inch pipe and just put a valve after the pump (per their instructions) to restrict flow a little. I don't know how high you are pushing water though, I am only lifting it about 6'. Also I am running the 1.5 inch into a T, then after that T restricting things down to 2 1" pipes for my return lines. I didn't have any problems with that setup.

Anyway don't get discouraged, we all have to tweak quite a bit on the initial setup. I am still looking forward to the final pictures once you are all done!

 

[lanimret]

Congratz bigwave.

Yah, it was a bit of a bummer, but it could have been a lot worse. I already 'fixed' the oceans motions device (I think). Just need to reinstall and test it again.

Another thing that totally surprised me was that reeflo said I was losing pressure by not having the second tank turned on. That seems counter to logic, but apparently I really need to get both tanks running at the same time so I am going to adjust for that. I simply need to buy a matching pump and wave device for that tank and it's pretty much ready to go anyway. I won't be able to put stock in it (because it won't have lighting just yet) but at least it will be basically ready to go.

Also decided I am going to get a Neptune Apex Lite to run the system I think, so that's on my list to buy as well.

 

[lanimret]

So one tank almost ready for water. Need to let some of the cement dry a bit more and will obviously be adding a bunch of dry rock to cover the pipes and so forth, but the base rock is in, the wall is up, and we are finally getting there.

 

[lanimret]

Tank 1 is cycling now. Got my turf scrubber going, and main pump is working fine now (trying to lessen the hum though...).

Will post some pics when the sand clears out.

 

[lanimret]

Tank 1 fully functional and cycling. Chased small leaks and issues for weeks, it is now 100%

And a pic of the plumbing (bit of a mess...)

 

[bigwave]

Looks pretty good!

 

[lanimret]

So I made the decision to can the solar tube idea sadly. Because of the type of roof we have and the distance from the roof it just became cost prohibitive. I am instead going to do a full LED setup for both tanks though, and I ordered all the parts for that this weekend (DIY setup). I also ordered the rest of the rock and got the faux wall done for the other tank. I'll take some pics of that after it dries. I'll try and get some good pics of the equipment cabinet too.