New tank design with ATS in mind

[worley]

Turns out that the company is really quiet at the moment for orders and they happen to be coming down our way next week (was expecting 1 month )
They're based in Scotland and we're as far away as you can get in the south of England, so it's a long way in UK terms :lol:
They can't make it for some time after that, so I need to finalise the design for the sump ASAP.
There's one more issue, there's only 21" of height inside the cabinet, and it's really expensive to increase the height.
Any fast, bright ideas, would be hugely welcome!

[worley]

I would go acrylic if I could, but it's really tough to get hold of in the UK, and it's really expensive, on a tight budget here, so want to go glass if I can.
There is however, the same space in the cabinet on the left too (26" long, 21" high, 22" front to back)

[worley]

Stats of the tank for calculation purposes:
Tank size: 72"x24"x24"
Tank Capacity (filled up to 22" without liverock or sand):
Litres: 623
US Gal: 164.6
UK Gal: 137.1

2x ATS screens: 10" wide by 12" long
Total area: 240 square inches, lit from both sides

Pump: Aqua Medic Ocean Runnner OR3500, 3500 l/hour at 0 head. (942 us gal/hour)
Roughly 3000l/hour at 1.5m head (792 us gal/hour)
Total length of screens: 20", estimated flow per inch: 150l/hour (40 us gal/hour)

Hopefully that would make the right flow (35 gal/hour) over the screens and oversized on square inches of screen.

[SantaMonica]

Well it could be made out of glass, or plastic. Or it could be made and shipped to you.

I just measured mine, and I can get my screen out with only 12" from top-of-sump to bottom-of-obstruction (for me, fan.)

Once you decide to go into the left cabinet, that changes everything.

[worley]

Any ideas with the left cabinet?
I was hoping not to have another pump, just using the overflow from the tank to have it as efficient as possible and purpose built for the ATS.

[SantaMonica]

Just elevate a shallow tank on the left side. You can do 35 gph per inch, and thus make the screens wider but not as tall. Strive for wide but not tall. Separate overflows for each screen, with a valve to shut one or the other off, so you can work on the other. (each overflow should handle all the flow by itself). Then this shallow tank drains into sump.

If you custom-make this shallow tank, you can shape it around the screens, and thus put the two outside lights on the outside of the tank. Only the middle light would go inside the tank. Or, use two separate tanks, with a light in the middle, and the other two lights on the outsides.

[worley]

Think I'm following you, don't suppose you could draw a quick diagram of what you mean?
Thanks.

[worley]

Something like this?
The issues I can see with this design are:
You have to move the support under the glass boxes that contain the scrubber, then move the glass boxes down to reveal the mesh.
Each of the glass boxes need to be connected to a drain pipe that would then go back into the sump on the right, meaning that there would need to be two big holes and tank connectors/bulkheads on the bottom of each of the glass boxes, then those would have to be disconnected when cleaning the screen. That makes for a fair bit of plumbing to make sure doesn't leak each time you clean the screens.
Lastly, it'll be tough to drill 2 inch holes in the glass close to the edges

[worley]

Can anyone give me an idea on what sized pipes can handle what flow from gravity feed, e.g. would a 1" pipe cope with say 2000l / hour (500 us gal/hour) just from a gentle slope with a small amount of back-pressure from the water at the bottom of the ATS?
How about max capacity gravity fed for 1.5" and 3/4" pipes?
I can't seem to find this data anywhere on the net! I'm sure someone has done some tests somewhere.

[cyberseer]

1" pipe will give 600g/h pressureized and straight down. on your design, with all those bends, and gravity feed, it should get about 200 or so, give or take some. 1.5" at full will handle 1000 g/h, so you might get about 400 g/h.