Kathy's new growout system build.

Andy, are you happy with the return plumbing (double hump gravity flow) you tried?  I may try to figure out how I can do that with a two level system.

Heck, yes. Never any problems other than snails getting stuck in the ball valves. Much easier than my other plumbing that I still have to adjust all the time.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Gotta link to your plumbing Andy?
 

Composite materials might also work nicely for damp areas. Not sure if the load properties are the same though.

One more thought about paint: I have plywood on top of the surfaces for the water reservoirs.  I am using the plywood leftover from the old system.  It survived 6 years of several tank overflows, no mildew, no swelling of the wood.  I'm giving it an un-needed coat of paint just to reinforce the water repellence.
 
I love porch paint.
 

Great thread, can't wait to see how this turns out.

It's taken me longer to draw it than it would have taken to build it.
Here is the plan for the returns. I am going to try Andy's hump style header pipe, and hope that there is enough umph to my Quiet One 3000 to fill both levels of 3/4 inch pipe.

 

Here's the other side:

Gresh: Sorry that I missed your request. I can't find my good closeup picture, but here's one that shows it:
 

 
The idea is, as long as you get water coming down the drain side of your pipe, you'll always have constant pressure to each of the spigots. Essentially, just a quick-and-dirty header tank, but under pressure.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Very nice drawing Kathy.  Do you think there will be any issues with suction on the vertical piping shown on the right of the picture?  If it gives you trouble, you could do a T at the top or something open to the air?

Thanks Scott, that's a great idea. I hadn't thought of that.

Spent a few hours drilling tanks today.  No broken ones, yay!
Gotta love a drill press, putty, and a diamond bit.  Perhaps diamonds really are a woman's best friend...
 
I drove them to my friend's house for the drilling: Seven 20-gallon tanks fit stably in the Prius.  Love that car.
 
The five tanks on the bottom row have bulkheads on the back side. This allows me to place the bottom row slightly lower than the top of the sump, and ensures that I'll have enough room between rows to service them, and  I'll still be tall enough to peer over the top of the top row of tanks without a step stool.
 
The five tanks on the top row will have bulkheads in the bottom of the tank, because it is the cheapest way to do it.  No extra fittings to carry the water to the drain.  Just set the drain under the bulkhead.

sounds awesome!

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

OK, now the rack and the sump are positioned in the basement, and I've started putting dry tanks on it.  Everything fits the way I thought it would, but now I'm getting a little nervous.  The tanks are all 30 inches long, glass, and are only supported on the 12 inch width. I am laboring under the notion that only the corners need support, but looking down the 30 inch length of unsupported glass, is making me nervous. 
 
Is it really true that only the corners of glass tanks need to be supported?  I can't find confirmation of this on the web.

I think it would put to much stress on the middle of the tank. If it was something 20" or so I can see it, but 2.5ft is a lot of distance with pressure pushing down.

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

Kathy I would put it this way, I never hurts to over build but it does hurt to underbuild.  I would put a support in the middle somewhere just to be safe

How about a sheet of plywood for the tanks to sit on and spread out the weight?

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Plywood will flex.
 
There are a handful of anecdotal references that say it's OK to do this, like this: http://www.monsterfishkee...under-the-corners-only but most references I can find insist that the tanks need to be supported all round the perimeter of the bottom.

I also placed styrofoam under mine.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

+1 to the styrofoam, it helps insulate, and spread out any point stresses.  I think it's really 'good' for the tank, if you have room.

How thick of a Styrofoam do you use?

 
I would definitely be nervous about 30" of unsupported length.  It is my understanding that a tank only needs to be supported along the two long edges (I haven't tried looking for any confirmation of this).  I've never heard of "just the corners" before.  I've had plenty of small tanks (20s, 15s, 10s) positioned over the years that are supported only along the two long panes, and even have the short ends hanging off of whatever they are set on which then none of the corners are supported.  My LFS recently renovated and has his tank racks are built very much like yours, except the tanks have the long pane forward of course, and are only supported along the two long panes.  His tanks are mainly 40 gallon breeders, but he has also has several 125(ish?) gallon tanks supported this way as well.
 
I don't use styrofoam under small tanks, but I do have 1/2" rigid styrofoam under my 40 gallon breeder tanks and my reef tanks.  This is used for insulating the exterior of basement walls for those of you trying to find it.
 
I am interested to see how the return plumbing works for you as I was considering the exact same design for my own growout whenever I build it (need some babies first lol).

I always read that the Styrofoam was mainly to help get rid of any inconsistencies in the level of the plywood. I can see it would be a good insulator too. I wish I had put some under my tanks. 

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

I am building a return line for my Broodstock tanks also. I am going to make the return line a loop to try and equalize water to both the upper and lower shelf.

 
Yeah, I forgot to mention all my sumps have 1" rigid styrofoam under them for insulation mainly because they are on a concrete floor.  Helps quite a bit.  All my broodstock tanks have silver bubble wrap insulation under them in the trim filling the space between the bottom pane and the plywood.  One day I will manage to get my butt in gear and wrap a layer around the back of the tanks too.  Insulation sure makes a big difference in heater work.

That was my plan as well, to stick silver bubble wrap on the bottoms of the tanks.
 
 I've decided, and started work, to just supplement the frame with 2x4s to support all the sides of each aquarium.  I'll also put some more dense insulation between the frame and the aquarium edge to even out the surface.

Well, I didn't do any of that.  Just putting the tanks on the 2x4s left lots of gaps under the plastic frame.  If i had started with the plan to frame each tank, I could have constructed it level.  I ended up using plywood, painted of course.  Finally the stand is completed, and I'm doing the plumbing now.
 
I built the drains today. 2 inch PVC pipe with a T for three tanks,  and elbows on the ends, and one T to direct the water to the end of the sump where the Kaldnes media will be.  Tomorrow I'll install the drains and build the plumbing for the return.  I can use some of the plumbing from the old return.  I've decided on a closed loop to equalize the pressure for all the tanks.  I'll also have  valves and unions to allow me to change the angle of the valves that run to the tanks, and also to clean/change things should I want to.  I'll put extra valves in so I can shut off flow to each level should I want to, and I'll have a pressure releif return to the sump.  This will be handy if I want to shut off a level, while still not overfiling the tanks still on the system.  Valves going to the tanks will be screw on, so I can replace them should they wear out or break.  I've not had that happen, yet, but I've only been doing this a few years.  Pictures later.
i was just re-reading this and it isn't clear what I did.  I did frame each tank with 2x4s by inserting boards between the beams.  Then I covered that with the painted plywood.  I've been looking at Fishboy 42's (Matt Carberry) thread on Rareclownfishes dot com and he doesn't put styrofoam or anything on the bottom, except for the 2x4 support for each tank, as a frame. 

My tanks have some gaps under them...I really should pull them all and put styrofoam under them.  Argh.  Did you use styrofoam?

I didn't use styrofoam.  I am concerned that the bottom rims of the tanks will cut into the styrofoam, compress it, and the uncompressed part of the sheet will press up on the glass bottom.  That could be disastrous.  
 
Since I used plywood, I feel that the air gap between and glass and the board, and the board itself, will insulate well enough.  Since heat rises, the tank is unlikely to lose heat through the bottom anyway.
 
I could be wrong about all this, but this is what I did. For what it's worth.

Today I hung the drains, and assembled, glued and screwed the return closed loop.  My hands hurt. All the return valves are screw in, as well as the insert fitting between the valve and the water.  There is no tool that works better than ones hands, and its not exactly easy.

Next: 

• clean pump
• make supports for returns
• support returns
• attach to pump assembly
• water test
• complete lighting
• complete airline setup
• install electrical outlets
• build kalends reactor
• attach top off
• build water change system

Complicating all this are the tanks in use on the stand, even now.  I have a pair in QT, two pots of eggs waiting to hatch, and one tank of larvae. I need to transfer some very young juveniles out of a BRT to a tank tomorrow or the next day. I may have 4 or 5 tanks in use before I finish the build….That's 50% occupied.
 
When I'm done, I can start on the rebuild for the smaller system. Eight 10 gallon tanks are planned...

 
The styrofoam is just as much to absorb inconsistencies in the contact between the frame and the plywood.  For a bank of tanks I use one big piece under all the tanks that hangs out at least 1/2" on all sides from the tanks.  I have a 90 gallon reef tank that is sitting on 1/2" styrofoam which is only 1/8" bigger than the frame on the tank and it has not noticeably compressed anywhere.
 
The styrofoam you should use is very dense, it is usually used to insulate the outside of a concrete foundation on a house or sometimes people use it in the walls (it's rather expensive for that though).  It is stiff and is either light pink, light blue, or purple (sometimes white).  It should have a uniform consistency, not like tiny foam balls half melted into eachother like the stuff they use for packing TVs.  Owen Corning is the usual brand around here with the product called Foamular or Celfort.  It comes in 8x2' sheets that will be 1/2" to 2" thick, some have rabbeted edges, but look for the square edges.  The sheets will be $12-18 for the 1/2" (up here anyway).  Google "Owen Corning rigid insulation" and you can see lots of pics.

Thanks for the info!

I got most of the things on that list done except for the water change tub, and the Kaldnes build.  I started filling with water today.  I am using my filtered water for the water test, and although there is seepage water on the floor from the rain we've been having lately, the plumbing is dry on the outside.  Seven tanks filling makes a scary splashing noise, though.  I checked all the joints multiple times, and not a leak could be found.  I am wondering if my Quiet One 3000 is up to the task of keeping flow in 10 tanks.  I am only filling 7 at the moment, and its pretty thin, what's coming out of the return valves.  I'll have to see what happens when I can really run it.  If the pump is inadequate, though, it should be fairly simple to change it out with a 4000.  I like the Quiet One pumps, and have used them on all my systems with success, but I've never built such a large system, 200+ gallons.

Ah, but give a little water pressure, as I finally had the 235 gallons collected, and every screw-in connection leaked. Only one glue-in connection leaked, but I needed to replace that section anyway.  I had used a section of PVC scavenged from another project, and perhaps it was bound to fail.  Two more trips to Home Depot, and I should have it… heh.

I have a Quiet One 4000 on my broodstock system.  The tanks are all eye level though so the highest point of the plumbing is about 7 feet.  My system is about 100 gallons with 6 tanks online right now.  I wouldn't want any less flow, but I'm a reefer, so I like flow.  LOL
 
I hear you on the threaded connections...I have no luck with those.

Kathy-
Hey!
Ok #1...pictures of it all ?
And #2 - Cool ... can't wait to hear you on Under the Sea Radio Show
Should be great! Looking forward to it

Michelle  
 

Oh, I hope you aren't expecting too much on # 2, LOL.
I have pix, but not right now.

What is the show and when? Please share a link.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."