Well, I finally did some real actual work on this thing. We've got a club auction coming up on March 7th, so I'm trying desperately to have it cycled by then.


When I was growing up, I was the youngest of 3 boys, and we ALL played with Legos. By the time I came along, we had multiple big popcorn tins filled with Legos. Basically, any part you could even want for anything you could ever want to build.

I tried to apply that approach to this.

At Chevron, a lot of my work was building micro units, so plumbing is kind of second nature to me. With each unit I built, I tried to hone my skills to create not only a functional workspace, but also something pleasing to the eye....I'm still working on that last part.










The blank slate:

 

I suppose I left one part out. You can see the drain line and refill lines coming out of the wall. I installed those a couple of weeks ago and forgot to say anything about it. 1/4" refill line, that's running through a Granulated Activated Charcoal filter to remove Chlorine. At 10% water changes per day, that should eliminate all my risks of not using Prime.



Finished product:

If you reference my plumbing diagram in the post below, everything should be pretty clear. The Eheims aren't in yet(obviously) but they'll go on the left.You can see the barbs they'll attach to in the next picture. The green irrigation valve is my refill solenoid. The Danner 7 is there in the very center. Hopefully that helps you orient.


Left Side:

I made a mistake here. I had purchased two 1" FPT ball valves to connect to the bulkheads so that I could unscrew them if I ever needed to remove the bulkheads(for whatever reason). I ordered them months ago, and I forgot why I ordered them, so I forgot to use them. The two ball valves there are slip and glued in. Means I'll have to cut them out of I ever have to take off the bulkheads.

Center:

Right Side:

Obviously I could have built the thing with a few less 90 elbows, but I was building for form and function. I was trying to maximize my left over space in the stand.

And, for the record, I still had to make 1 more trip to Home Depot, and 2 more trips to Ace for more parts.


Now I wait for it to dry.

Mario Brothers, Here I Come

I suppose it's about time to do some real work. I've been thinking about the design of the plumbing pretty much since I decided to set up a big tank like this. As I've stated before, I want pretty much all equipment to be inline. That includes inline pH probe, co2 injection, heaters, and co2 injection.


Originally I had planned on three filters: 2 Eheim Pro II 2128 Thermofilters and a Magnum 350 for water polishing. However, I decided to drop the "Thermofilter" part and go with 2 Eheim Pro II 2028's. I've had several Thermofilters and I've basically come down to the conclusion that they should be avoided. A standard filter plus a Hydor inline is a better alternative. The reason is that the cost of the standard Pro II and Hydor combined is a little less than the cost of the Thermofilter, and if he heater portion of your filtration fails, it's a lot cheaper to replace the Hydor than the internals of the Thermofilter. I also decided to drop out the Magnum 350. Instead I'm putting in a Mag Drive 7 pump powering a co2 reactor. If I need water polishing I have a  diatom filter or I can put the Magnum 350 back in some day.

After a lot of discussion between different members of different forums, discussion with my wife(the engineer), and some deep thought on my part, this is what I've landed on: