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samster

Senior Member
Location
brooklyn
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never had a tank thread for my 75, but now im goin to upgrade and want some advice and ways to plumb and flow my tank. The display is 225g and the sump will be a 40g. The skimmer is a beckett, and im not sure if i should go with 1400gph return pump and about 1000gph closedloop
the tank dimensions are 72"x24"30 Kris (nanoreefer) *for the ones who dunno* suggested i just use my 6000gph pump* lols and my 1400gph for the closeloop? i have a ghetto MS paintdrawin of how i might do the closeloop and i know its ghetto cause it aint CAD lols. Kris also suggested i should do bigger piping on returns and closeloops, but i think that the flow would be weaker from thicker piping over thinner? can someone share some thoughts or facts bout this? i assumed wider pipe means harder for pump to fill up slower to come out? kris believes that wider pipe means less back pressure meaning stronger flow? insights guys?
let me insert these stupid MS paint pics so u guys have an idea but its basically the same set-up as most people just not sure bout the flow rate so the guys with the 180's plus tanks input is really appreicated and mabe some pic and discriptions of ur tank!!! thanks in advance guys

i would let to get it up soon!!!

closeloop_143951.bmp

setupplan.bmp
 

House of Laughter

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Ossining, NY
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Samster,

Kris is right on the flow aspect (GO Kris) the wider the pipes, the greater the flow - make sure your pump can handle the wide pipe - meaning make sure you get a pump rated to push the volume the pipes can hold. as for narrowing the pipe, you should only do that at the end of a particular pipe you want a penductor to go on - THAT backpressure is warranted when using this for flow.

Looking forward to seeing this bad boy all set up and running.

Good luck,

House
 
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Howell, NJ
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Looking good. Although, there doesn't seem like much support on the tank stand....

please rethink that stand.. im no expert but it doesnt seem like there it that much support... when that thing is fully stocked and full of water its gonna be really really really heavy... just my .02c (cause id rather not see a thread = holy crap my tank just crashed cause my stand gave out) ;)
 

samster

Senior Member
Location
brooklyn
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standside1.JPG


here guys the right side cabinet will be mounted into the stand and i was just going to side a piece of plywood from side of stand covering tank to canopy to make it look flushed with only front view, but now i decided to have the side show because no point of closing it off for i orginally wanted only front view but nows plan changed so im just going to side another piece of plywood on the left side (inside the tank stand) to beef it up
still think it needs more support? i mean im still abit paranoid but wood is pretty strong just dont want it to collapse in 5-10 years along the line

thanks for the input guys i want the stand to look pretty but i aint retarded -=P lols
 
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DEEPWATER

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Im not expert either ,but fromi see you only have plywood to support the sides of the tank ,and one pc of 2x4 in front and 2 pcs of 2x4 in the back.

what do you have supporting the bottom of the tank ?

again im no expert ,but over 2000lbs
 
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DEEPWATER

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try pming herman or jhale ,i know some of the other guys can help

worse case ask Kris (nano) to help you out ,he builds one hell of a stand

other wise ,looks great

Why didnt you get rid of the 75 gal and get a 300gal in stead ,lol jking
 

samster

Senior Member
Location
brooklyn
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2x4 not really needed they use 2x6 to hold up a whole house lols people just preffer over built for safety i guess. i built my 75's stand with 2x4 and that i didnt like how i built that stand its over built and i dont have enought clearance inside for large sump etc and i've seen palmtree's 180 rocking the same type of stand work and the 240 or 250 by tim is just all plywood the support of the tank should be all around the edge i think only the 6 points on the bottom mid front, mid back, and the 4 corners is where the weight is shifted on just like a glass tank with the bottom plastic the tanks allaround edge is the only part sitting on the tank. if they can hold up the water pressure of 250 gallons glass tank with silicone then i think wood,screws, and nails should out hold that silicone IMO. I'm not ignorant thats what i think but opinions and support is greatly appreciated if somone told me they built a stand like this and it held for 15 years i would guess its safe if somone told me they had a stand like this and it collapsed in 2 days i would just cut 2x4's inplace even if its over built lols -=) more opinion guys thanks for the advice but any stand builders or wood workers can give me some specsbout streght of wood? -=) im still worried regardless that things gonna be dumb heavy thats why i choosed acrylic over glass silicone bond on a 150 up kinda scares me
 

tosiek

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The stand looks pretty good but you might want some extra support for that tank, you don't need 2x4's to do it either. Putting a horizontal brace under the front of the tank and let the middle brace support that brace would help relieve the tank from some stress. That ply bends on the sides of the center brace. I would also add some more supports to the corners of the tank. Having the side ply just attached to the top piece of plyisn;t giving you any corner support. Ply is great but its gonna bend once you add all the weight of the water and the LR and live sand. just my IMO. Thats alot of weight beeing transfered to the supports. Last thing you want is the tank cracking or the stand breaking on you after you throw in all the money to set it up plus whatever damage it does to your apartment/house so do it right =0). Its a big tank and gonna be an expensive setup, Spend as much time on the cabinet as you are with the tank setup.

Jhale or someone could probably give a little better advice on the cabinetry since they do it alot more than me and have built a few tank stands. i do contracting/carpentry when i am not in school and have been doing it since i was 14, I am 25 now but alot of it has been overseeing projects and supervising.

The silicone is more of a water seal between the pieces of glass if you get technical with water pressure in a tank. The bulk of the stress is on the centers of the glass/acrylic panels, the miniscule bend of the glass + the stetch of the silicone help diminish that force by alot by the time it hits the actual contact strength of the silicone to glass. And silicone holds alot better to glass than you think (you would have an easier time ripping a screw out of wood than you would tearing off well adhered silicone off a glass panel).

Anyways its looking great. Hope everything goes well with it =0)
 
Last edited:

wxl14

Wexel
Location
Fairfield NJ
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this calculates pressure of water on the tanks glass.


There are a couple of different possible quantities of interest here. There is the total force exerted on the walls of the tank. Then there is the pressure (the force exerted per unit area) exerted on the walls, which varies with depth in the tank.
For a reference, what I have handy is the fifth edition of "Fundamentals of Physics," by Halliday, Resnick and Walker. The same information can, however, be found in essentially any introductory physics text, usually in a chapter on fluids.
Rather than pounds, I will use metric units, in which force is measured in Newtons, and pressure in Pascals (1 Pascal = 1 Newton per square meter). As you may realize, pressure increases with depth in a fluid. The rate of increase is given by P = P<SUB>ext</SUB>+r*g*h. P<SUB> ext</SUB> is the external pressure, above the surface of the liquid, r is the density of the liquid. The term g is the acceleration of gravity, and h is the depth into the fluid (the letter d would be more obvious, but we prefer not to use it because of confusion when calculus gets involved). For water, P<SUB>ext</SUB> is the pressure of the air at the surface (about 10<SUP>5</SUB> Pascals at sea level), r is about 1000 kg/m<SUP>3</SUP> (kilograms per cubic meter), and the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s<SUP>2</SUP> (meters per second per second). Any physics text can give you more accurate numbers, as well as the conversions between Newtons and pounds.
You may perhaps know of the concerns faced by scuba divers after they dive to depths that may not seem so far to us (200 feet is a pretty deep dive). The pressure at a given depth in a fluid, however, varies directly with the density of that fluid. The density of air is only about 1.2 kg/m<SUP>3 </SUP>, and the pressure change from a 200 foot ocean dive is equivalent to that from an altitude change in air of almost 170,000 feet! Much thicker than the dense region of Earth's atmosphere.
The maximum pressure in your fish tank will therefore occur at the bottom of the tank, and will be given by the equation above, using the height of the tank for h.
To get the total force exerted on the walls of the tank, you'll need to do a simple integral. If you already know basic calculus, this won't be a problem. If not, then imagine dividing the walls of the tank into horizontal strips. Make the vertical height of the strips so small that the pressure doesn't change noticeably from top to bottom. The total force exerted outward by the water on that strip is then P(h)*L*dh. By P(h) I am indicating that P varies with depth, h (we read this as, "P is a function of h"). The term L is the horizontal length of the strip (the width of the face of the tank), while dh is its vertical extent (we use dh to indicate a really tiny change in h). The total force is then just the sum of the force on each strip.
As dh becomes smaller and smaller, the sum turns into an integral (an integral is really just a fancy way of doing a sum). I can't represent it easily in html, but it looks like
F=Integral[P(h)*L*dh]
where F is the total force, and the limits of h for the integral are at 0 (top of the tank) and H (the total depth of the tank). P(h) is given from the first equation above, and so
F=Integral[(P<SUB>ext</SUB>+r*g*h)*L*dh]
The pressure is a sum of two terms, one that is a constant, and one that increases with depth into the tank. The sum means that we can write this as two integrals like this:
F=Integral[P<SUB>ext</SUB>*L*dh]+Integral[r *g*h*L*dh].
Without going into too much detail, the first integral gives the simple result (because nothing is changing with h) of P<SUB>ext</SUB>*L*H. This is just the pressure that would be exerted by air on the inside of the tank. Because the term in the second integral is increasing with h, it gives the slightly more complicated result of 0.5*r*g*L*H<SUP>2</SUP>. The total force exerted is then just the sum of the two terms:
F= P<SUB>ext</SUB>*L*H + 0.5*r*g*L*H<SUP>2</SUP>. The next question is whether you want the total pressure exerted by the water, or the net pressure. Remember that the air outside is also pressing inwards. The inward pressure is just P<SUB>ext</SUB>*L*H (because air has such a low density, we can treat the air pressure as constant over a vertical distance equal to the height of the tank, and so the total force is just this constant pressure times the area of the wall of the tank). This cancels the first term above, leaving the net force as
F<SUB>net</SUB>=0.5*r*g*L*H<SUP>2</SUP>. <!--END-->
</SUP>
 

samster

Senior Member
Location
brooklyn
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well wxl14 even if found out the total divided weight i dunno how much wood is suppose to hold that weight? lols and toseki i know exactly what ur implyin on its jsut that i figgured without the front bracing i could work on the sump and everything underneath easier. i mean i have seen tank stands from petshops for 180 gallons made with compressed ply =T lols and way less wood used then i have im sure its oging to hold the weight just i wanna beef it up for sake of security i have never had a stand fail once in previous setups but i have plenty of glass tank that freakin blew up, palmtree has a 180 custom stand he bought of a member of RC and his tank stand is basically close or the same to the one i have in progress 1'1/2 on the sides 3/4 ply rear 3/4 T brace in middle front full 3/4 ply across the top of stand his is good for a 180 so wha more supports you guys think i need to add for the 225? i understand its going to weight alot but i really dont think i need to build it with 2x6's now do i? kinda looks hidious when you open up the doors and takes alot of space away from my sump,equipment etc =T thanks
 

tosiek

Senior Member
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the T brace is fine. its the side that isn't Double ply (side next to your other fishtank) thats just a verticle ply screwed onto the top piece of ply that worry's me. Might be fine but was just pointing it out =0) It runs into the what if category. Thats all.

And your right, when i was looking into cabinetry for my 55g some of the stuff scared me the way it was put together. Goes to show you how mass manufacturing + cutting corners to help increase profit in mass producing does to products.
 

scarf_ace1981

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San Juan, PR
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sam best of luck buddy.

i, like everyone else, am worried about the stand for the 225. that is definately not enough support for your tank. we are just trying to look out for you. please reconsider the stand
 

jcurry

Member
Location
NW New Jersey
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I don't mean to be the croaker of doom but that stand will fail.
True houses are are built with 2x4's. But they are placed @ 16" on center to reduce the load each individual 2x4 has to carry. And believe it or not the 2x4's in a house are carrying less load than a fish tank stand. Also plywood is meant to provide lateral stability (side to side) not vertical support. You definitely need a horizontal support in the front to support the tank over the openings. Otherwise the weight of the tank will force that lone support right up through the bottom of the tank.

Also you have to remember that a glass tank is supported differently than an acrylic tank. Most glass tanks have the bottom pane raised up, so the tank sits on the ends of the vertical panes. An acrylic tank sits entirely on the bottom sheet therefore the bottom has to completely supported equally at all points. That's why most acylic tank mfgr's require them to set on foam.

You may want to you send that picture to the tank manufactuer to see what they say. I would certainly be interested in their response.
 

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