Water Movement
(TLDNR –Water Blaster main system pumps, Sicce Voyager for in tank flow, and electric ball valve actuated surge.)
As for water movement, I plan on a 3 pronged approach. 3 prongs as in a trident, you know, the symbol of Poseiden, mythical god of the ocean? Also as in the Poseiden Adventure that Gene Hackman played in. Gene was in The Royal Tannenbaums with Luke Wilson. And finally Luke was in My Dog Skip with Kevin Bacon. So, from the god Posieden to Kevin Bacon we have Bacon number of 4. Bet you didn't see that coming did you?
But I digress. Water movement....
In my last tank I wanted to try and create gyre movement but I never really did get it pulled off. I never got all the components in place the way I wanted them. So, I'm giving it a go again. It won't be an exacting gyre as described in the article on Advanced Aquarist (sorry, won't be linking this one, you'll have to Google it) but I'm hopeful it will produce the desired effect of getting the entire water mass moving and letting the aquascape create the random flow. Of course the aquascape design is being planned to aid in the free movement of water so it doesn't slow it down from one end of the tank to the next.
Basically I'm going to have flow alternate about every 6 hours from the back right side of the tank to the back left. I will use two main system pumps in conjunction with Sicce Voyager HP pumps to accomplish this. Without pictures I know this might be hard to visualize and I'll definitely post pictures once I get that far but basically I'll have an effluent pipe from the main system pump on the back right side and a Voyager HP pump there too. They will push water across the 5 foot length of the tank for 6 hours and then the flow will switch to the left side with the same configuration for 6 hours. This will, in effect, create alternate laminar currents that will be similar to tidal flows, I hope. At the same time I will have a surge discharge in the middle of the back of the tank that will fire every time the surge tank gets high enough. Between the aquascape and the surge, I'm hopeful this will provide enough randomization of current for the inhabitants. I admit that this is untested so I may very well have to modify my design once I see how it really works out.
So a note on Sicce. You might be asking, why not Tunze or Vortech? Simple answer, price. I have looked very, very closely at both Tunze and Vortech. They're awesome at what they do, but I don't believe I need what they offer. Because I'm trying to create a gyre type flow, I don't need the in tank flow to ramp up and down over a few seconds. All I need is simple off and on. But I still need the most flow I can get in an on/off stream type pump and the Sicce Voyager HP can do that at minimal cost.
For the main system pumps I'm looking at the Water Blaster 10000. I'm planning for 3x sump turnover so some of this flow is going to be used for other items (calcium reactor, ATS, surge tank, etc). Only one pump will be on at a time and having two gives me some redundancy should one fail.
Finally, a little bit about the surge. I had experimented with a surge tank on the 150g. I used a modified Borneman design and it worked very well. I had minimized the bubbles and I didn't get a flushing noise sometimes associated with this type of surge tank. Ultimately I did take it offline though because there was some noise (a thud) when the plunger closed and even though the bubbles were minimal, there were still some, which meant salt spray. It just got to the point where I didn't want to deal with it anymore. Unfortunately, I never did feel like I had as good of flow in the tank after that. I really believe the surge provided excellent flow that just can't be achieved any other way. I also think it was instrumental in helping keep my sand bed cleaner than it was without it.
At any rate, the only way I've found to completely eliminate bubbles and noise issues is to use an actuated ball valve to open and close the surge pipe. They can be a bit pricy but honestly you can spend more on a Vortech so that's basically how I'm justifying the cost. If it wasn't an actuated ball valve, it would be a Tunze or Vortech. The ball valve will be controlled by top off sensors in the surge tank. The surge will end up being between 20-25 gals. I wish I had the space for a bit larger surge but it's really about what my sump will accommodate if the power went out and everything drained to that point. It should be high enough to get some good flow going though, so a smaller surge just means it will fire more often.
Whew, well if anyone actually made it through all of this without having pictures to look at then I think you deserve an honorary doctorate or something. Maybe all you insomniacs just needed something to help you fall asleep. Glad I could be of service!
At any rate, more pictures will definitely be forthcoming, the next major post should see some progress on the stand so I'll be sure to show that off. Thanks for reading!