Dave's multi-floor South American adventure

[DaveB]

Sponger got me inspired so I went over to my old house and found my buffers. Then I picked up some 3M rubbing compound and new fluffy buffer pads at Pep Boys. I didn't see the PlastX, but the bottle of compound I got is enormous. Like a lifetime supply.

I briefly considered draining the 120 and just going to work on it, since I do need it done soon for the Discus, but it was easier to just move the projector and shelves off the 220 (it's serving a very important purpose right now) and go to work on it.

The first three pics show it before. It's not in awful shape, but the rear panel (which is on top) has some deeper nicks and scratches. It also has a few places that look like it got sandpapered with about 400 already. I put it front down and decided to do a test run on half of the front pane. It only had a few, which are visible in the pics, and I started with 2400. Useless. Backed off to 1200. Still there. They came out pretty easily with 400, though two weird marks kind of flustered me but I think I got them all. Then I went over it with 1000, 1500, and 2000. I think that handled everything except one spot, which was a very shallow scratch, but oddly didn't come out.

Then I buffed it with the 3M rubbing compound. That went quickly and easily, except for the cleanup. Not sure exactly what the best method is for that.

And the end result is basically the same as my old 110: It looks scratch free and OK at first, but shine the lamp right on it and it's all sorts of hazy.

I'm hoping this is something a polish will take care of. Failing that, perhaps it's my buffer... it only goes at 4800rpm. I'm not sure why slower would be better, but maybe it is.

As a test, I buffed a spot on the other half that had a bunch of nicks in it, kind of looked like 2-3 dozen fingernail marks... without any sanding, the buffing made no impact.

First 4 pics are before, last 2 after. Not too much to see, though you can see the obviously not so good condition of the rear pane.

On my way back up to the computer I walked past my two glass tanks, each of which were crystal clear and haze free, and that made me kind of mad. I really hope it's just that I need a coat of polish as a last step.

First four pics

 

[DaveB]

Oh look, I still have these...

I got discus a bit ahead of schedule and put them in the 120 even though I hadn't taken it apart. Luckily for me (ha), they got a disease so I had to bleach the tank... so today is finally going to be tank buffing day!

And, even though I still haven't gotten around to the wall paneling and carpeting in the downstairs room, I re-built the stand and set up the 220 to use as a holding tank. The stand, as presently constructed, is wobbly and untrustworthy. I do not intend to leave this set up for more than a day or two. It's very tall. Like 38", and without adequate cross bracing. It originally had three more vertical legs, but the design has some flaws, plus I'm sure I rushed it a bit.

Anyway, as long as the 120 is taken down I'm going to get started on the permanent plumbing. It turns out I don't have as much room as I thought I did in my little vent hole that I'll be using for access.

I do have two 5/8"-ish bulkheads though, but they require closer to two inches of clearance for access and tightening. I'm wondering if I should just skip them and drill 5/8" holes for the PEX instead and just run it right in directly. This would mean that the stand is NOT totally watertight, which wouldn't be any fun, but I could probably make it spill-proof for minor spills with a bit of putty or gaskets or silicone or something.

Still, that seems incomplete. Using bulkheads will let me use ball valves and make things nice and complete.

Here's the empty tank, all beat and scratched to hell. Amazing that I tolerated it this long (though obviously it's never that bad with water in it)

The two holes... considering adding a third with one of these bulkheads for future Herbie use. I don't feel like going to HD to get more PVC though to extend the tall pipe if I don't have some already.

Looking down on the register. I pushed the tank over about 2 inches from where it had been. In the original position there was precisely 2 inches from the edge of the inner stand to the brown line (not sure that's visible), which is the edge of the vent hole, but that didn't include the lip on the vent, which is about .5". That's the XM antenna wire that I threaded up through the cover. Need to relocate that.

Inside the stand. In this position there's enough room, but that takes up more of the vent than I intended. Not sure how I'll mod the metal in there.

The little bulkhead I have next to the Pex.

And just for fun, a couple shots of the 220 holding tank. I sanded and buffed the inside of the front pane and it's nowhere near perfect (and a bit cloudy when dry), but certainly good enough when filled with water. Now that I have learned a bit about buffing I am hoping to do a much better job on the 120. Gonna be a long day of sanding though...

One neat thing I discovered is that I have a full 2x4's worth of space between the foundation and the drywall in this room. So if I want to hack up some drywall and drill through some studs, I should have more than enough space for draining the 220 into the utility room and feeding it with an insulated drip line without worrying that it might freeze. So the dual drip setup fed by gravity from under the 120 may still happen.

 

[DaveB]

The pro buffing place that will do my tank can't see me til April 7, and I was tired of not having my fish in my family room, so I went at it one last time with sandpaper. As I had left it before, I did a test with just 220-320-400 sandpaper then Novus 2 and ended up with a nice clear shiny circle in the middle. There was a bit of distortion but it was as shiny as new.

What troubled me was that I could STILL see the thicker original scratches. #3 didn't do a thing to them, nor did sanding with 220! I don't get it.

But using that shiny spot as my guide I just went ahead and did the same on the rest of the front pane.

What I found was that stopping at 400 and buffing yields much less of the haze/fog of the finer grits in the end... at least with me. CPR_Mike never had that issue but I always have. But obviously, 400 grit is some intense scratching and by no means a final product.

BUT...

when filled with water, the tank looks damn near perfect. The shine is good, the view is good, and it takes very close examination to pick out the bigger scratches.

When it's empty though it looks like hell. As pictured.

Anyway, My hope is that I can set it up like this with a few new Discus and establish some brand new media in a sump, then April 7 break it down, get it buffed to 100% new, add a background, then drill the lower stand holes and plumb the drip setup.

In the meantime the hope is that I can get fairly well practiced with sump use. I've never had one before that I got to run at equilibrium. Last night I set it up as a single-pipe siphon (hadn't drilled for the emergency pipe so I didn't let it run all night or anything) and for the first time ever got a sump running without any issues with pressure or gurgling or anything else. All thanks to a gate valve. They sure are nicer than ball valves.

Of course, the Mag 9 has way too much flow for what I want with the Discus. I'm 90% convinced they prefer much more tranquil waters and would rather provide that to them. So I need to come up with a solution for that.

I also need to fine-tune what size and orientation of media I want in the sump, whether I'll also use an Eheim as backup, and test it out for a few weeks. My thinking is that rather than try to be 100% precise with the placement of the return, I'll just put a check valve in the bottom of that line. That way I can keep it below-water and quiet without worry.

So the plan is to have 2 1" Herbie inlets, a split off the main one into 2 14" filter socks, and then a nice full sump that accepts drip input, holds the heaters, overflows into the drain, and then returned to the tank via a 3/4" line that then splits into two nozzles inside the tank. Unless I use that return for an Eheim and make two spray bars... would that lower the power of the water returning?

Home Depot starting carrying PEX products, so I picked up what I understand to be super easy watertight joints for my stand bulkheads. I think I'm also going to pick up a spool of 1" PEX, cause it's only 55 bucks, and use that as the drain instead. Way more flow. That'd let me have a nice fast emergency drain too. The only issue is that I am not sure how I'll get the drip input line from up here to the downstairs tank... there is room only for the two bulkheads (1/2" inlet, 1/2 or 1" drain) and no more of any size. That's not all that helpful for this.

The plan I posted in this thread last month... Mods may include me using a big sump downstairs, me potentially getting a taller/deeper tank downstairs ( ), and the 1" drain line. If I get 100 feet of it I'll even have enough to pump-drain the African tank out front too. Won't be automated but sure will be faster...

 

[DaveB]

Rather than trying to build another one I think I might just go with this larger of the two I have kicking around. It's 22x13x16 (the smaller one is 24x9x15 and has one of those barriers I don't want) and already has things drilled and bulkheaded (I removed them for cleaning). It has a nice built in drip plate cover thingy but I will be using submersed socks instead to keep things quiet.

There shouldn't be a problem if I just fill the big chamber full of the white floss or scrubbies, have the inlets into socks on that far edge, and pull it out via the pump holes on the other side, right?

I am not sure why I need a 4th hole drilled up top, but I can just plug that, and use the other one for an emergency drain or something... though I was planning to use Egon's sump overflow idea with one of the lower holes. I like the ability to flush from the bottom of the sump.

Would doing it that way and just running a fairly high water level (pending the setup of the Herbie in the overflow) work without any major dead spots? I won't be running huge flow through this.

 

[RickyOutlaw]

WoW Amazing

 

[DaveB]

Not really sure what would count as amazing, but thanks.

Running the Mag 9.5, which is too much flow for what I want, I can kind of reach a nice silent equilibrium in the smaller sump. I can't use the larger one til my new bulkheads arrive, cause I took them out of the sump to use in the Herbie. I drilled a 2" hole, which is just barely small enough for a 1" bulkhead... I should've just bought a 1 3/4" hole saw. I need to get a 1 3/8" for the 3/4" bulkheads, because I was going to plumb two of those for an added canister as well.

With the size of this sump and the fact that I have the pump standing on end for now til I cut a new piece of 3/4" tubing, the sweet spot is VERY small, and even with the gate valve it's super sensitive. I either get too much flow, which can bring me close to overflowing the sump or losing siphon or I get the water level dropping down to where the pump starts to suck air. The spot where the emergency drain gets used should be above this point, but there's about a millimeter of difference. It'll be corrected when the pump can lay flat.

It's set up the proper way, with water flowing onto the drip plate then trickling down through the media. I could probably have packed it tighter with floss, but it's only temporary. As it is, I can hear the water trickling a bit, but not a lot, and with the door closed it goes away unless there is total dead silence in the room at night. Still, that's more than I want, so I need to figure out how I want this to work. I also plan to use filter socks, which will have a submerged intake, and so I might just do a higher water level with lots of scrubbies and not worry so much about the dry part of wet/dry. Who knows.

The weaker pump should arrive today so I'll tinker with that and hopefully have a setup I trust to run 24/7 unmonitored. I did unplug it last night just in case and I'm keeping an eye on it today. If I can get it trustworthy I'll put my wilds back up here and break down that 220 so I can put carpet in that room and build the real stand for it.

It's going to get really crowded inside that overflow if I drill two more holes. I cut the stand to match the shape of the overflow to accommodate the new 1" hole. Two more will cover just about all the available space. It's probably a terrible idea.

I also have space issues in the area in back of the stand where I want to put the bulkheads for the drip setup. There's really only room for two. The line going to take the drip to the 220 is an issue. Not sure if there's a way to plug a 1/4" line in there with a miniature bulkhead or something rubber you can just jam in there and seal. Ideally I'd just run 1/2" pex through there but there's not room. I did find 1" pex at HD so that'll make for a much nicer drain. I might set that up so that there's a ball valve-based emergency drain and a sani-T coming into it from the sump overflow as well. I might even end up with enough PEX now to do a drip on the African setup out front too. Now that'd be cool. Three tanks in three rooms on drips.

 

[DaveB]

The Mag 5 came today. The damn thing rattles like it has sand in it. That's unacceptable.

I'm running it now anyway to see what it's like. It's definitely tranquil. It's barely strong enough to push water through, and I'm not sure the drip plate is even distributing water evenly over the media right now.

Perhaps it has something to do with the rattling. This might actually be too low a flow.