Grow Out System

For most of the this year I have been working with a partner who was doing the grow out for me, unfortunatly he has got him self a full time job in another city and is moving.
This means moving many hundreds of fish back to my house into the new system.
The system has ended up slightly different to the designs below due to some practical issues such as tank and space avaliability and budget choices.
 
Tanks in total are
8 x 3' L x 1' W x 1.5' H
2 x 4' L x 1' W x 1' H
2 x 2' L x 1' W x 1.5' H
2 x 1.5' L x 1.5' W x 1.5' H
1 x 2' L x 2' W x 1.5' H
 
plus sump and skimmer trough.
 
Total system capacity is about 2,100L (525 US Gal)
 
Front

 
Back

 
Filtration is via a combination of the following

• Live Rock, 80Kg
• Bio Balls, 4 x 1' x 1' x 1' cubes 108L
• Skimmer
• UV system
• Carbon
• 100um Filter Socks

 
Each tank has 1, 2 or 3 sponge filters depending on size.
 
A 12,000L/hr pump is providing about 8-10,000L/hr (4-5 times turnover).
 
On item I really like, is that each tank is removeable for cleaning.
Stand pipes drain into oversized drain lines (50mm drain line with 25mm stand pipes).  I have then made some caps to clip over the junction to keep the noise down, reduce splashing and salt creep. 
I have made two varieties of these caps, one that has the 25mm pipe centered the other has it offset.

Sketchup images of caps

 
 
Object on Thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34932
Hopefully Ill get the system finished by this weekend (8 tanks are operational now, top row of 7 still to do).  then Ill put up some photos.

So, the caps open up to slip over the pipe? What a great idea!

The first thing I thought when I saw the first design photo was it would be hard to clean. I had to smile as I read on to see you designed it so each tank can be removed. You will love how convenient that is.

http://www.suzysreef.com/

Those caps are cool.

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

Yup im really happy with them, it took me 2-3 designs to get it just right, as I started out making the top and the sides seperate so they could be rotated for adjustment.  The sides were a "C" shape and the top as the same as the image above.  Overall about 3 hours of design work.
 
I use a 3D printer to make then, so its easy to do a bit of trial and error, should there be a problem.  So far I have make 8 of them in three versions
eg. The last tank on one rack has a piece of 50mm pipe rather than a T as this is the lowest point on the drain.  All I had to do, was to shrink the outer part of the cap and reprint and it fits snug.
 
I like them so much, I have started printing another 21 of them to go over other overflows on other tanks.  They reduce so much noise, its excellent.  The only downside is that it takes the printer about 45-50 minutes to make each one. 

That cap is pretty sweet!  I saw it on thingiverse.com this afternoon and thought it was a *really* good idea.
 
You using the Sailfish acceleration-enabled firmware for your Thing-o-matic yet? I use it on my Cupcake and it ROCKS.  I've run it up to 125mm/sec, which is amazing given I was at a maximum of 35mm/sec using Makerbot's firmware.

3D printing!.The future is here
Though I don´t find you need those caps at all.But since you like them...

FYI I gave your cap a nice plug in my Advanced Aquarist blog post this morning:
http://www.advancedaquari...printing-for-aquariums

I made a parametric version in OpenSCAD if you'd like to attach it to your Thing on Thingiverse.com.  Grab overflow-cap.scad from my Dropbox and attach it here if you like:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/.570820/overflow-cap.scad
This will allow people to specify their own pipe diameters.