After surviving a week in the care of my neighbor, my 1 and a half month old 65 gal took a devastating turn for the worse. I was demolishing a damaged floor in the adjoining room, and the banging caused a large picture on the wall behind my reef to fall off of it’s mounts. Luckily for the picture the fittings on the closed loop bulkheads caught it before it hit the floor. unfortunately this caused the glass to crack at all three bulkheads. I when straight into save the reef mode, and drained the water down below the cracks, and installed my emergency air pump to provide gas exchange. the fish and corals are saved but the tank is done. Now I need to rebuild the reef in a new tanks due to arrive wed. Anybody have a use for a damaged 65 gallon tank, only a month and a half old, but with bad history?
Man that stinks! Sorry to hear. One thing I wish I had with my main display tank is a closed loop, but I suppose it does come with a bit of danger having bulk heads hanging out the back. Guess you have to be careful what you hang near your tank. No way you could have guessed this would happen.
Hope all the animals do alright. Going to an LFS to pick up a new tank I suppose?
Speak up if you need any parts or something after the LFS close for the night. Suppose most everything will survive the for a bit with just a bubbler and heat if it was a healthy system.
Yes I am the L.F.S. guy From East coast Aquatics, and I love the closed loop, If you have ever considered doing one come by and we will talk you through it. I will rebuild this one. This time I am going to do a Refugium / protein skimmer sump. Just without the picture hanging behind it.
Sorry to hear it bro. Just sold our 65 we had in stock, today. (The fish bowl) or i would offer to let u take it and give me yours when it comes in… anything stupid/last minute comes up, feel free to call me or shoot a pm.
On the brighter side… u get a chance to build another one! Lol
Good luck
So I suppose even if the LFS are closed you can still go in and get parts, lol. I’ve built closed loops in the past and worked on many a system with them. Just didn’t set this one up as a closed loop when I built it. At this point I am going to wait until I can afford a larger tank and do it as part of the set up. Though, I will not set up another large display tank(above 50g) without one.
They are just for circulation right? Advantages/disadvantages v.s. powerheads? Aside from aesthetics? Perhaps keep a little extra heat out of the tank as well huh?
Heat reduction is so small it doesn’t really matter. Aesthetics is the big thing. You can put an extremely large amount of flow in the tank without massive power heads in the tank. If you add the use of SCWD to the plumbing you can slightly randomize the flow.
The worst thing about my full tank shots is my 3-4 power heads and for that matter my own enjoyment sitting back and enjoying the view. One of these days I might snap and just get it down.
Disadvantages/advantages in short. If you are no expert with drilling tanks and plumbing it isn’t really simple to do. If you’ve drilled a ton of tanks and have worked with enough PVC that your permanently high off the fumes, then it’s not such a big deal. It does come with some decisions. Not as easy to move a hole in your tank as it is to move a power head.
and now the resurrection, with pics of the closed loop returns. they are run with a 1300 gph external pump through a sqwd device. and once again life is good.
my ever changing 65 gallon tank (the mrs. has been such a good sport) now my 65 gallon tank has a 20 gallon display quality refugium, next to it, also drilled. It shares the water flow from the sump via the external pump, although it returns the water back to the sump at the same end as the return pump, so that the pods etc. don’t go through the filter sock and protein skimmer. the light over it is a marineland led. looks like the perfect color for a fuge, and uses so little electricity. Still early to say how well it is working but the outlook is good.
