water sitting in pipes... bad?

[PrettyBoy]

As some of you know I orginally built my 180 with a closed loop consisting of two 1.5" inlets and four 1" outlets. The four outlets are down low in the tank and were going to run my spray bar setup. This was also all built when I planned on staying BB. Anyway I shut the closed loop off a few months ago few a few reasons and ended up going with a sand bed. Therfore my inlets/outlets are still full of water. The other day I removed a pump and a peice of tubing from my sump that hasnt been in use for awhile. The tubing absolutely stunk from sitting with stagnant water for some time. So this made me think and brought me to my main question. Could this same thing be going on with my CLS not being used? I can easily cap off the two inlets but the outlets I cant, only way would be to remove all of my rock work or drain the whole tank and cut the pipes from behind and cap them. Im more looking at the long run. I have been asking around and some people think the water sitting the pipes could be very harmful sooner or later and others think it should be no problem. If its going to be a problem then i will either be doing a few things I can either A) remove this tank and upgrade to a 215gal or drain the entire tank and then cap off everything inside and out... Also draining the tank and a new tank will be great because then I can move the tank over a bit so I can finally fit vortecs. Im trying to catch this now and do whatever has to be done since the tank really only has frags in it than down the line when I have all SPS colonies and end up having a tank crash or having to tear the tank down later from now...
Sorry if this is a bunch of mumbo jumbo but I think you can get the point of concern...

 

[Hawkeye]

no experience with closed loops but I think the stagnant water could be an issue. Can something crawl into one of the tubes and die down there?

 

[PrettyBoy]

no experience with closed loops but I think the stagnant water could be an issue. Can something crawl into one of the tubes and die down there?

I deffinately see it being an issue but still some dont... They inlets have strainers on them but they strainers arent fine strainers so I am sure food, small snails could make it down there..

 

[reeferwanabe]

I have the same issue. was thinking of caping it off and pulling the pipe out

 

[PrettyBoy]

I have the same issue. was thinking of caping it off and pulling the pipe out

See its not that easy for me... to remove the spray bars a good part if not all of my rock work needs to be moved, caping them off is the easy part...

 

[Hawkeye]

crazy idea - but could you pour sugar grade sand into the tubes-effectively blocking them out and making a kind of super long deep sand bed? Yes detrius may build up over time - but as long as you don't touch it - it should be fine.

 

[PrettyBoy]

phil great idea, but still doesnt help for my spray bars as they are buried under the rock...I think basically it is a given that I need to get these pipes capped off... i guess now the big thing is since I need to empty a almost all of the water, move a lot of rock, livestock/corals is it worth upgrading to a 215?

 

[Hawkeye]

Sounds like a plan - this way you'll be able to incorporate those vortechs you want.

But backing up - i remember when you first posted your tank thread and was talking about the "CLS" (which I had no idea at the time what that stood for) :...

what prompted you to move away from the CLS?

 

[PrettyBoy]

I orginally wanted to have a CLS to be used as a wavemaker, but being that I didnt want to drill 10 holes in a Mass produced RR tank I decided just to have a spray bar setup to blow all detritus out from behind/underneath the LR. This worked great, but being new in the hobby at the time and not using RO water to fill the tank I had some serious algae problems and high phos so my starboard bottom turned disgusting brown and just made the tank look hideous. So I ended up going with a sand bed for asthetic(sp) reasons and also to help keep my readings in check I couldnt use the CLS anymore because I would be blowing the sand everywhere. If I were to have a custom tank I deffinately would have had the entire tank ran off of 1 or 2 CLS systems, including and OM 4 way for a wavemaker, but like I said I didnt want to jeporadize the integrity of the tank by drilling so many holes in it.

Now I am just really not looking forward to draining/storing all of this water and putting all of the livestock and corals into a holding for a few hours so I can cut out and cap all this plumbing plus moving the tank. But I am really looking forward to vortechs and bye bye korallias....

ideally i should probably stick with my 180, but I am always looking for an excuse to go bigger

 

[Hawkeye]

good for you! From a non-scientific point of view - I am guessing there should be quite a few choice frags available for sale if the members continue to produce as much as they have!