Project 360 - 3 Years in the Making
It’s been about 3 years since I first started this project and it’s still in the making of course. It’s amazing how times flies. I’ll post some updated build pics soon as well as some shots of the tank and current residents!
Power Consumption Calculator
The purpose of this calculator is to determine how your existing and/or future aquarium will impact your energy bill. This calculator is designed to work for PG&E customers or anyone on a tiered plan similar to what PG&E uses. This will work for anyone on a fixed rate plan as well you’ll just have to cheat and enter some large number (1000 for example) for your daily baseline and your fixed rate as your baseline rate.
Disclaimer: This application is designed for novel use only. By using this application you and you alone assume full responsibility for the use of the data generated herein. Ok enjoy!
PG&E makes it incredibly complicated to understand your energy bill with their tiered rate system. A couple of things this calculator makes more clear are: 1) It’s not really possible to know how much your aquarium related energy use costs without taking into consideration your ‘other’ non-aquarium energy use. 2) the less ‘other’ energy you use around the house the less your tank costs to run.
Project 360 - New Bulbs
I finally got my second Aquamaxx 14k bulb… just in time for the first one to shift to purple 
I’ve only had the first bulb in use about 100 days before it changed from a nice blue spectrum to this purplish pink. It flickers sometimes and shifts back to blue~ish then back to purple again later. I’m frustrated and wish I hadn’t just purchased a second one of these bulbs, I’m hoping it was just a fluke. Here is a picture of the tank with the Aquamaxx bulbs on the ends and the Iwasaki in the center. You can’t really tell from this pic but the bulb closest to the camera is looking all violet right now. I’m talking to Marine Depot about the bulb and weighing my options…
Project 360 - A Safer Standpipe
Recapping…
This is more of an afterthought to my Herbie Overflow post than anything else. I’d like to recap a couple of points…
- Murphy’s law is always working against you. Eventually a snail, fish, or some algae is going to restrict or completely block your overflow standpipe.
- Having multiple standpipes reduces the chance of flooding due to a blocked pipe.
Use of standpipes is popular because they raise the water level in the overflow box and quiet down the waterfall effect. The higher the pipe the less waterfall. For many of us, myself included, this means that the air inlet on your standpipe (most designs utilize an air inlet) is above the rim of the aquarium. This is fine, however it eliminates an intrinsic safety mechanism of the standpipe.
Project 360 - Benefits of Air Exchange
Air Exchange Installation
I finally dragged myself back under the house to run the exhaust duct for the air exchange system. The crawl space is not a nice place to work in. Prior to running the exhaust duct I had been running the air exchange for about a week. I have some PVC pipe in the area of the fan as well as some other odds and ends from the project, all of this stuff was covered in condensation. I’m glad I decided to run the exhaust vent when I did! So I ran about 25 feet of flexible ducting to the nearest crawl space vent where the moisture laden air is vented out of the house. My tank temperature is steady at 77.5 degrees F with all lights and pumps running.
Project 360 - Skimmer Upgrades
I was among a few people in the US to be the first to receive one of the new Tunze Master DOC skimmers. Mine is a 9420. It took me about a year to actually unbox it, get it wet, and run it. Around that time a few other people had theirs up and running and had realized that there were some performance issues with the pump drawing less air than specified and the skimmate barely making it up and over the neck.
Tunze first released a new pump, designed and manufactured by them, the Hydrofoamer Silence pump. There are a couple of sizes available depending on which skimmer it is slated for, the 9420.040 or the 9410.040. Roger of Tunze USA was kind enough to upgrade my original pump to the new Silence pump since I had never run it. More recently Roger sent me a new needlewheel which is said to improve the air intake.
I just installed the new needlewheel today and have fired the skimmer back up. I haven’t measured anything yet so I don’t know if I’ll see an actual improvement or not, but I can’t imagine Tunze would redesign the impeller for no good reason. I snapped a few pictures in the process of replacing the impeller.
Project 360 - Lighting Installed!
Lighting Installed
It seemed like the day would never get here… but finally I have my lights running. Although I won’t use them until my air exchange system is completely running I do have pictures to prove their existence to all of my non-believer buddies! I would have liked to have these up and running about 4 months ago but a few design changes and minor set backs held me up.
Project 360 - Herbie Overflow
Herbie Overflow
Funny name for a nifty idea. A guy by the name of Herbie came up with this, not that it’s an earth shattering idea but he was the first to document it and become recognized for the idea. Today I completed the addition of a Herbie Overflow to Project 360. Before I get into the install, let’s review why we use standpipes and look at a few different standpipe/overflow designs.
Project 360 - Got Air?
Yes we do!
Anyone remember this fan from a post long ago?…
The air exchange is now hooked up under the house. I pulled the electrical run for it (good to have some cable in my conduit finally), wired up the fan, and connected it to the ducting going to the tank as well as the ducting to the foundation vent (don’t want all that warm moist air under the floor boards). We fired it up and it blows… in a good way of course. The duct noise is not too bad, sounds about like the A/C running in the house. The final tie-in to the canopy is yet to be done. On that note I should probably mention that I may scrap the canopy that I built! Wouldn’t you know it - another idea came to me in the shower recently. Stay tuned!
Project 360 - Plumbing Problem!
As I was explaining to my friends on Reef Central recently, I ran into my first technical problem with the plumbing. My divert valve is leaking at the seat. This means that most of the flow from my return pump is making it back to the tank, however a small trickle is being lost via the auto-water change drain line! I discovered this while working under the house to complete the air exchange system (more on that later). Since I had not tied in the auto-water change drain line to the house drain it was dripping to the ground. I noticed recently that I had been replacing more and more evap. water… which didn’t make sense due to the damp weather. Well now I know why, it wasn’t evaporation it was saltwater being lost!!
This is the valve that I have now, which has either gone bad or has been bad from the start. It’s a Chemtrol-Nibco model S51D2-E
