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.