There’s a guy in Canada that changed his bulkheads with the aquarium filled. He used a special plumbers tool. It was super cool. It’s on YouTube.
Should Michael run a closed loop on his 210 gallon?
- Thread starter Darkxerox
- Start date
HankDean V
Supporting Member
I was going to mention getting two!
Running them off each other would be awesome!
finalphaze987
Supporting Member
After doing some quick research I'd probably go with this. Its DC, so noise is cut down. At 180 watts youd be able to power it using an ecoflow for a little while. Id consult @richiev on this..hes a wiz at calculating this stuff and can give you an honest answer.
Its cost effective enough that you can run two of them and get a substantial amount of flow. Vectras are nice, but when you consider why you are going thru all of the trouble to do the CL (avoid any and all additional pumps in the display) you wanna get the biggest bang for your buck.
Even an L2 will only get you ~2000 something after head pressure. That won't be enough to accomplish the goal of no additional pumps in the display unless you're just planning on housing softies.
I've never personally ran jebaos, but if I were on your position I'd give em a shot. My pockets ain't deep enough to plumb an abyzz nor power a reef flow 24/7.
@Patio is right tho, where the bulkhead and tank meet will always be a concern. I keep a paranoid eye on my external overflow when I see a trace of salt creep come from it. If it were at the bottom of my tank, I can't imagine how paranoid I'd get.
If you're going to go through with this, plan plan plan...do it right the first time, even if it cost more..there's no sense in going through all of this only to find out that you need two mp-60s, four gyres, and a couple tunze AFTER you went through the trouble of plumbing a CL.
Get quality fittings and don't go cheap on the ball valves, gate valves, and unions. You WILL have to maintenance the plumbing. If its easy to do you'll be more likely to do it.
Its cost effective enough that you can run two of them and get a substantial amount of flow. Vectras are nice, but when you consider why you are going thru all of the trouble to do the CL (avoid any and all additional pumps in the display) you wanna get the biggest bang for your buck.
Even an L2 will only get you ~2000 something after head pressure. That won't be enough to accomplish the goal of no additional pumps in the display unless you're just planning on housing softies.
I've never personally ran jebaos, but if I were on your position I'd give em a shot. My pockets ain't deep enough to plumb an abyzz nor power a reef flow 24/7.
@Patio is right tho, where the bulkhead and tank meet will always be a concern. I keep a paranoid eye on my external overflow when I see a trace of salt creep come from it. If it were at the bottom of my tank, I can't imagine how paranoid I'd get.
If you're going to go through with this, plan plan plan...do it right the first time, even if it cost more..there's no sense in going through all of this only to find out that you need two mp-60s, four gyres, and a couple tunze AFTER you went through the trouble of plumbing a CL.
Get quality fittings and don't go cheap on the ball valves, gate valves, and unions. You WILL have to maintenance the plumbing. If its easy to do you'll be more likely to do it.
This is the tank in orginal configuration
The black interal over flows were removed. So picuture 2 holes in the middle of each black overflow. One for a 3/4incb return and the other for a 1inch drain on each side.
The overflow I have for a better idea.
Image of one plumbed on another tank i found online. I kinda expect it would look something like this from the back.
It removes those two bulky internal overflows giving much more room inside the display.
Agree with this. DC pump like a Sicce, Vectra M2, or equivalent Jebao will be quiet and make sure to go with good ball valves not cheap ones that could end up seizing on you. One of the recent Reef Beef episodes talked about those if I recall.
RandyC
Supporting Member
If your goal was to reclaim space by removing the internal overflows, going closed loop will remove some of that benefit. Plus if you don't like the look of pipes in your display, you'll have to have a rock scape or other decorative features to hide the plumbing in the tank.
Check out the first 2 minutes of this Tidal Gardens video. He talks about why he wouldn't setup a manifold to run off of the return pump:
iani
Supporting Member
There is no head pressure with a closed loop.
iani
Supporting Member
I would also put the pump in or over the sump. This way there is no worry about catching the water after the ball valve when servicing.
I have special tools...
Coral reefer
Past President
I know I would,
But I’m not sure if he should? I would likely still have a couple mp40 a on the back wall even if I did though
But I’m not sure if he should? I would likely still have a couple mp40 a on the back wall even if I did though
RE jebaos: I run jebao stuff on all my tanks. Cheap, move water, pretty efficient, in my experience reliable. So cheap in fact that you can just buy two and have a backup in case something does go wrong.
The main reason IMO to buy something else is the jebao controllers are pretty basic and/or apps not best of breed. That being said, all the aquarium wifi apps stink, and the jeabo one isn't worse than how I feel about mobius. I've never tried to do varied programs though. Other reason is at least anecdotally people say the jebao pumps aren't as quiet as some of the top-end ones, but IMO I'm not confident that's true.
RE ecoflows and calc, all my pumps are backed by an ecoflow. Works just fine. Things go sideways if you run a super heavy wattage thing (eg a heater) on an ecoflow, but even that can be minimized by using the higher capacity ones. The math for a pump and a battery is straightforward:
Code:
battery in Wh / wattage of the pump = how long it'd run (in hours)Eg a delta pro 2 with a 1024Wh battery, can power a 100w pump for
Code:
1024/100 = 10.2 hoursRE which would I do: all that being said, @MichaelB this is all your call and I too love pontificating over tank setups, but don't you have like 50 tanks right now and have been working on getting the big one setup for a year? I would setup whatever is easiest and start consolidating as top priority. Even discussions about the cost of a closed loop or maintenance are certainly dwarfed by the cost of having 50 tanks running with independent lights, heaters, pumps, livestock, salt, ... A closed loop or a non-closed loop will both work. I would figure out if it's easier to just use the holes or plug the holes in a future undoable manner and do whichever is easier/safer/faster.
RandyC
Supporting Member
I've never understood the hate for Mobius. I do deeply dislike that it requires you to be close to your system (MXM solves this for newer products on Apex), but besides that, the software has never caused me issue and has worked quite well for me. Can it be better? Yes, but it's not awful by any means. Far better than what most aquarium vendors provide. What is it that bothers you so much?
And yes, Jebaos are louder and produce a specific hum that is grating to my ears. They're not loud by any means, but they are louder than Varios, Vectra, IM MightyJets, Red Dragons and Abyzz. Jebao is the one pump I can hear running in all my garage systems.
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- If you lose connectivity to your devices you can't edit anything
- Managing settings is very difficult, you can only have files you need to remember where to store
- The configuration of scenes is very unintuitive, feels like it was designed by an engineer trying to be fancy
- Lightning management is very touchy. Trying to create a schedule you can easily accidentally cause a drag event and crank up or down the %s
- Every time you switch out of the app and back in it resets
- Some config is under the device itself, but some under the devices tab, but some under the settings screen
- ...
I should also note I'm talking about the recent ones, particularly where they refer to "sine-wave engine" or whatever. In my experience what that really means is did they use a cheaper, louder motor controller chip (A4988 equivalent) or an optimized one (TMC2209 equivalent). I only know those chip references because I was playing with creating an alk tester, and learned how drastically different the noise can be between a $3 and $5 chip.
My jebao DCW whatever on my display isn't completely silent, but I don't notice it versus my reefwave gyre and not sure it's that much worse than my MP40.
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
I hate manifolds!
Agreed, just use a crappy pump for any media reactors. Shouldn't need UV anyways if you QT right.
divewsharks
Supporting Member
the key to Jebao's >> never clean them! then they will work forever. J/K -partly. each time i cleaned one, never worked the same again.
I have a pair Sicce's on my new tank, my first DC pumps from them; both have worked very well and the app is easy and i can access from anywhere. While i don't hate Mobius, it is very low on the list - only app i disliked more was the Kessil app to manage my AP900's. Any power outage or issue and had to reprogram it - every time without fail.
Another thing with Jebao's is to buy mulitple at one time since they cycle through models/versions so fast when you go back to replace exact like for like, odds are they have discontinued it (my experience anyway).
-rob
I have a pair Sicce's on my new tank, my first DC pumps from them; both have worked very well and the app is easy and i can access from anywhere. While i don't hate Mobius, it is very low on the list - only app i disliked more was the Kessil app to manage my AP900's. Any power outage or issue and had to reprogram it - every time without fail.
Another thing with Jebao's is to buy mulitple at one time since they cycle through models/versions so fast when you go back to replace exact like for like, odds are they have discontinued it (my experience anyway).
-rob
I run high flow through mine. When I shut it off for maintenance and forget to turn it on the glass gets greener much faster.
SupraSaltyReefer
Supporting Member
Stick with what you know. Plug up the holes and fill that b!tch up already!!!