Idea for a dual water change and wave function system

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#2
This couldn’t be more confusing.
Is the pvc setup suppose to be in the tank or sump?

I don’t see the purpose of the pink pvc.
 
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#3
Sorry about the confusing drawing. The arrangement is set inside the display tank—a Red Sea xl300. The set up consists of two loops of pvc pipes: the pink loop has perforations so that water is sucked out of the bottom of tank during water change and the yellow loop serves as wave pumps the rest of the time. The two loops are powered by a pump (such as a Vectra S1). The flow is switch between the two loops via solenoid valves and an added hand turn valve. The goal is to not have to be able to do water change without all the mess and carrying buckets throughout the house and to have flow without the need for vortex pumps
 
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#4
I think it would be a lot easier to just buy a automatic water change kit or run a apex DOS like a lot of people do.
 
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#5
Water changes with the DOS is inefficient. The purpose of this is for me to put my tank next to the window. When I do water changes I will just turn one valve and flip a switch and it will suck the water from the bottom out to the drain outside and when it is done pump in water from a salt water reservoir outside in
 

joseserrano

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#6
Water changes with the DOS is inefficient. The purpose of this is for me to put my tank next to the window. When I do water changes I will just turn one valve and flip a switch and it will suck the water from the bottom out to the drain outside and when it is done pump in water from a salt water reservoir outside in
Couldn’t you do this with hoses
 
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#7
I just use one hose going to garage. Siphon old water to driveway then Hook that hose up to my pump in my mixing station and fills my tank back up.
 
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#10
In all honesty I think your over thinking it the loop at the bottom is kind of useless. Just have the intake for the s1 lower then the lowest point of where the water till sit when draining the tank. Then make sure to put a screen cover on the inlet of vectra
-Also i highly suggest if you really want to do a close type wave setup then drill the back wall of the tank and do the closeloop properly.
-Also I don’t know of any solenoids that are 1/2”min can be under water.

I’m running a closeloop on my 150. I use a vectra m1 as the pump and love it. The back wall of my tank is drilled for a 1.5” bulkhead. Then 1.5” bulkhead is the inlet for the vectra

The water is drawled in through the bulkhead then through the vectra and T’ed off to feed 2 seaswirls in each corner

And as you can see in this pic I added a second T so if I wanted to add a 3rd seaswirl.
But if I added a few ball valves and another T I could possibly do what your trying to do with your diagram.

But personally I like to know how much water I’m taking out of my tank when doing a water change.
So when I do water changes I make 30g of SW a few days before in a food grade water barrel. Then I have a second 35g trash can that has wheels on the bottom. I’ve marked 30g off inside the trash can and I drain the tank till I’ve hit 30g in the trash can. I then dump that old SW in the gutter after filling the tank with the fresh SW.

Here’s one flaw I see with how your planning. What if you walk away for a second and drain more water from the tank then what you have to fill. At least if you fill a bucket or trash can you still have old SW you can use to fill if you didn’t make enough new SW
 
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#11
Nice!!! I like the loop system because I want to be able to suck the stuff from the bottom of the tank. I like to have some kind of a pump inside the tank to be use for its wave pumping function and I was hoping to avoid drilling a hole through the glass.
 

joseserrano

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#12
A loop will not create a wave unless you are running them in a on/off setting, or a very elaborate ramping mode (I believe the abyzz have this mode). Regarding sucking water from the bottom, don't see any benefit in this, if it's detritus you are trying to keep suspended, that could/should be achieved with circulation pumps. You have to drill the tank for the closed-loop function, it's what makes it a closed-loop, circulating water in a closed system. In a tank that size, I don't see the huge benefit in drilling the tank and creating more fail points, circulation pumps are cheap and effective.
 
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#13
A loop will not create a wave unless you are running them in a on/off setting, or a very elaborate ramping mode (I believe the abyzz have this mode). Regarding sucking water from the bottom, don't see any benefit in this, if it's detritus you are trying to keep suspended, that could/should be achieved with circulation pumps. You have to drill the tank for the closed-loop function, it's what makes it a closed-loop, circulating water in a closed system. In a tank that size, I don't see the huge benefit in drilling the tank and creating more fail points, circulation pumps are cheap and effective.
I don’t think he really mean a wave motion then more of just creating water movement. For damn sakes it’s the guy that wants to know how things taste.
But in all honesty I love how I did my close loop on my 150. At night I ramp all the other pumps down to as low as they can go. I leave to vectra at 80% reefcrest mode and the sps in my tank get mad polyp extension. Now granted I did put seaswirls on the outputs so it creates even more random flow in the tank. The only thing I’d do differently on a next build is have two 1.5”intakes for the closeloop. Cause I have had an anemone get sucked into the intake of the closeloop a while back.

Nice!!! I like the loop system because I want to be able to suck the stuff from the bottom of the tank. I like to have some kind of a pump inside the tank to be use for its wave pumping function and I was hoping to avoid drilling a hole through the glass.
Like Jose says that bottom loop that will draw water into the pump won’t work as efficient as you think. In actuality I see small rocks and grits of sand getting sucked into the impeller of the s1 and damaging the impeller. Now if it were me I definitely wouldn’t want things going through an expensive pump and I’d minimize the possibility as much as possible. Also by doing a closeloop your not going to get the effect of random flow patterns like you would have with other pumps on the market. The closeloop with a vectra with standard fixed returns will give you the effect of constant flow spots that will have some type of random flow pressure in those spot when using at vectra on reefcast mode. Unless you use seaswirls, ocean motion, or some type of mechanical flow alternating positioning device then your not going to get the effect of random flow in the tank like you would with wave type pumps. Now I personally love having the seaswirls at the returns of the close loop because I get the alternating flow from the pump and from the seaswirls. Also as a added benefit I have each seaswirl on its own outlet of my apex and run a program that turn the seaswirl motor off for 15 seconds randomly in an hour. So that even the seaswirls them self aren’t constantly running at the same time loops.
 

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