Idea (new tank concept)

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BrianC

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The amount of turnover in a marine aquarium is crucial to keeping the water clean and detrious free. Constant inovation in water pumping get made to address this issue.

Personally I think a powerhead looks tacky and is a little dangerous. More over if you have half a dozen they build up heat.

I notice that to get the required turnover alot of people up the current in their tank. So much that it makes clownfish look like trout swimming upstream. I've also seen damage done to coral because of this.

So, my thought process has been if you seperate out the intake tubes and returns you could do a great deal to alleviate the issues cause with too much current (like heat and too much current). My question is can you build a tank without an overflow box?
 
That's kind of why many folks use loc-line to move the return away from the drain.. I know some folks who don't use the return piping in their overflow boxes, but hang a return over the lip of the tank somewhere else.
 
Any benefit to that would be far outweighed by the lack of surface skimming without an overflow box. If you surface skimmed straight into an open pipe it would be noisy as heck also.

There are tons of other ways to deal with this like building a multi output manifold for your return, using a multi output closed loop. Getting high efficency powerheads (Like vortec's ot Tunze's ) so you only need 1 or 2 etc.
 
It would be a bit expensive, but possible (6" diameter to account for durso?. You'd have to make a jig to hold it while routing the teeth.
 
The oceanic corner tanks have a curved overflow so I wouldn't think it that difficult. Just a little extra cash as Ashlar says.

I would think you could get a 6" diameter acrylic tube, sand it up and paint it with black Krylon Fusion and have one for a somewhat reasonable amount.

You would just have to make sure the seal to the bottom of the tank was good. In an acrylic tank you could easily just use weld on and seal it to the bottom.
 
Have I mentioned how brilliant the members of this club are!

Can I throw another one into this...

So a deep sand bed is 4+ inches

From some literature from stronjay I think I remember reading something about a 250 watt metal halide would cover an area of 2' * 2' * 2'. If you've read his stuff, I'm obviously paraphrasing.

If the light shouldn't reach the sand bed and you wanted 2 250 metal halides the dimensions on this tank would be

30 inches tall, 48 inches long, 24 inches wide... Is that roughly 150 gallon aquarium?

Is there any flaws in this planning. If there isn't can someone suggest a custom acrylic tank builder?
 
Marc would easily be my first choice. But, after all the pains I put him through with the sump he built that accomadated the CPW concept, he might kill me.

Besides I thought he wasn't building aqariums?
 
I was actually contemplating scaling it down to an 80 gallon tall and going half the size. But, it puts the overflow in the middle of the the metal halide light... which screams bad idea.

As well as I was looking at the size of the sump and it's refugium would be non existant... which doesn't work at all

So, I think I'm looking at a 150 gallon tall 48 * 24 * 31.

But, the overflows (as it relates to the drains) are still kicking the tar out of me!!!

I'm going to do some drafting today or this week. I'm remember a drawing in The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by feener.

Where he aquascaped two opposite facing triangle... I'm thinking of doing two return pipes through those triangles and possibly putting the overflow/ drains center on the back glass???
 
Tis is a rough drawing.

The box on the back glass has two drains (durso)

The blue indicates the way the tank will be aquascaped

The circles in the center of the aquascaped live rock are where the returns come in.

The 8 yellow lines are the current... My though is use the SCWD on the return heads and then split the two outputs to create 4 total outputs per return line. Any thoughts?
 
Would this be viewable from multiple sides? I'd hope so, or you'd lose a lot of the uniqueness of an aquascaping like this. (I assume that the rock slopes from the rounded portion up to the returns..)
 
if you have a power outage where ever your end point of the return nozzle is, your tank will flow back to your sump...So if your return flow is up 3/4 up your tank if power outage happens 1/4 of your tank water will flow back into your sump...I had center return and overflow on my 60 cube...it was very hard to regulate the tank water level even with a ball valve on my overflow

if you going to have sps you will be eventually needing alot of flow...low flow will just slowly kill sps corals..also you need alot of flow in tanks so detritus gets suspended and sent down to your sump
 
Scott, I want it to be viewable all the way around. The problem I have is the overflow on the back glass. I'd love to brain storm an alternate idea???

As for the returns... I've been out of the hobby for a while... but, isn't there away to set a line for one way??? Like a one way valve that closes if the water begins going reverse?
 
You could do a central drain with a piece of 5-6" PVC painted black with Krylon fusion plastic paint as an overflow box. (Or just get a square box made.)

You can get check valves for the returns- but they gum up over time, some aren't saltwater safe, and others use brass, which isn't reef safe. Much easier to just put anti-siphon holes and size your sump accordingly.
 
there are center overflows you can get built into your tank They call them island tanks..gmax has his tank with center overflow with viewable on all four sides. you might want want to get additional hole built for wiring to be wired from your stand to your lights so you wont have wires hanging. fyi center holes are the worst places to place as they are where the glass is structually the weakest point on the tank. gmax had his tank crack in the middle...you might need to go with a thicker than normal glass or acrylic

you can see my 60 cube i tried hidden overflow tube and return....did not work to well.

http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=31359&highlight=cube+build
 
I'd do a DIY overflow tank, but, there isn't a way to keep the fish in, and let the pods go back and fourth :(

I'll ponder it for a few days and see what I can brain storm!
 
I mean a tank where an overflow isn't needed. Where the water flow over the rim of the glass into a drain at the base of the aquarium. Then, you could look at it from all sides, and not have the problem with an overflow box???
 
they have those aquariums it is an zeroedge tank

http://www.zeroedgeaquarium.com/
 
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