Drilling Acrylic

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[Ed]

Hey Daniel,
     Here are some ideas of Closed Loops on Reef Fronteirs.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_members/search.php?searchid=582

[leigekiller]

Thanks Ed, thpose were helpful, to see,

a couple of people have offered to help drill this, Id like to take you up on it when you have time. I can do pizza and soda or offer to pick up a couple extra frags when I start stocking the tank for your time. Not sure how we generally do things in the club when trading time for something like this.


The pumps I am using are about 1200 GPH I have 2 if needed/desired for flow purposes. once the holes are drilled I can order the bulkheads and start on the plumbing part of things as I can get the tank off the floor and avoid wife causing my death.

Daniel

[Nate C.]

Ran into Brandon at the Homeowner's meeting last night.  He mentioned you are still looking for help.  Let me know, should be a pretty quick thing on an evening.  Tied up tomorrow night, but should be around Friday and next week.  Installing a car stereo for a friend this weekend, and doing some work on our tanks, so weekend is probalby out.  If you still have my number from when you came over after rock, give me a call to set something up if you want.

I still think a 150 with only the 1200gph pump is on the low flow side.  Sure hope you don't regret going bigger...but I know you had mentioned other flow methods as well, so would have to go through things with you to remember what exactly your set-up was going to be.

[leigekiller]

next week would be great, I would bbe free any night, wife arrives home from mississippi tomorrow so I am thinking making plans on friday is a no win situation   I can be reached online here as I dont have you mumber any longer.

so you are thinking that 2, 1200 GPH pumps is too low? 1 for the main return and 1 for the  closed loop?

Daniel

[Nate C.]

OK, works for me.  Tuesday is probably good.  Still have your number from the PM you had sent.  I'll give a call for directions as we get closer.  As for time, when is good for you?  Any time after 4:30 should work for me, and typically turn in to a pumpkin around 9.

As for the tank/flow issue.  1200gph for the return may be OK - is it doing anything other than moving water from tank to sump and back?  For instance, mine moves water to skimmer, UV, Fuge (elevated above tank), carbon rx, Phosban rx, chiller AND the tank.  Definitely need a bigger pump to do all that, if you only have it running to the tank, 1200gph is fine - that gives you more than enough turnover. 

Now, for the CL - I always think more is better, but... what are your plans?  Think you are going to stay with softies and LPS only?  If so, probalby plenty of flow if you are just wanting to use it to help keep away dead spots.  However, 1200gph won't create very much movement through the entire tank at 150gal tank size.  That combined with a few Koralia's, maybe, as you can use the Koralia's for flow in the open areas and set up the CL to move water behind/among the rockwork.

If it were me, I'd put in larger bulkheads and bush down for this pump so it isn't hard to upgrade if/when you decide necessary.  We can discuss more when I come over if you want, nothing says we have to drill that night, you could get different bulkheads after talking if you decide to do so and we can get together again.

[leigekiller]

tue would be great, anytime after that is good for me as well generally.

yes return pump is only doing that, the skiller has its own smaller pump, and no reactors so far havn't gotten the tank to a point where such was needed.

Daniel

[Nate C.]

If you THINK you might want to add them down the road, trust me, it's easier to set it up ahead of time than try to do it once the tank is running.  Having a couple ball valves put in place to allow water to be supplied to something in the future is low cost and easy to do now.

[leigekiller]

absolutely so 1.5 inch bulkheads all around just t0 make it simple and will size them down as you suggest.  Yeah I would like to do the plumbing right the first time on this.   If anyone else wants to come over and get some learning or practice in I am ok with that, maybe we can do a Mini workshop Ed?

Daniel

[Nate C.]

I'll 2nd the willingness to have others there. 

Also, Daniel, let's plan on discussing your plumbing a bit while we are together.  I want to get a better idea of what you want to do so we can drill accordingly.  1.5" bulkheads are perfect.  If we install those for your CL, you should be in good shape for whatever you decide you want to do.  I use 2 1.5" on the back of my tank for inlets and I have a single 2" for supply to pump for the CL.  But, I'm running an 8500gph pump.  So, 1.5" supply and return bulkheads should do great for you.  Threaded bulkheads for the tank-side and slip on the pipe side would be your best bet. 

Don't glue anything together until we get a chance to discuss.  There's a reason it took me 6 months to plumb our system - and only part of it was being lazy.  :p  Rick and I did a lot of planning and dry fitting before any glue went onto a single joint.