Brian Ward

Tap water is out. Saltwater is in! I've picked up some rock and just stacked it in the tank for now. I'll try to do some arrangement this weekend and hopefully put the sand in as well.

Cool. I'm just adding rock and sand today hopefully so less concerned about specific elements. I'll be sure to check them before I actually add corals.

+1 on air water ice/h2o guru typhoon series.

But that won't cause any issues? I just throw away the precipitate?

I have a bucket of IO that is a solid block. It's been opened but doesn't seem much if any has been used out of it. If I chisel off pieces and drop it in water to dissolve, is that OK? Or has it absorbed too much bad stuff and I should just toss it?

So quick update here. I replumbed to do a version of the Bean Animal overflow configuration. Everything is much quieter. I now have a gentle noise of running water that results from the water running down the inside of the overflow. But the air sucking sound is gone. Hooray! New Overflow: So what i have is at the bottom is the return line which I split to connect to either side of the overflow. I then have a 1" line with a strainer on the top for the excess flow and underneath everything is the siphon run (approx 10" down in the box). I also completed framing up the hood to hold my light: I still have to figure out how I'm going to cover the stand and finish out the hood but I think I'm just going to paint what I have. I'll probably also add a little router detail around the bottom edge of the hood. So I'm done with the plumbing at this point and about ready to start making water! Going to need some sand and rock soon

The tank is 30"x30" cube and 18" deep. It's acrylic (my first acrylic tank). So Bean Animal is obviously the favorite. I do understand from this write-up (http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx) why this will be silent and no other one will. So according to the site, you actually need 3 pipes to do this though the 3rd sounds like extra-super-emergency overflow and can be omitted? I still don't know if I can make this work with the plumbing I've already done. I only have 2 pipes that go through the floor and then immediately go into a 15-foot horizontal run. I up-sized the drain from 1" to 1.5" after it goes through floor. I'll probably try some of the stockman variations to see if any are acceptable before I have to spend another full weekend re-plumbing the whole system. I think I can see how I can make it work though I'll have to re-do most of what I spent my week off work doing. I do appreciate all the info though. Last time I set up it seemed that everyone used a Durso and that's what I had. I didn't really notice any issues but now that everything is in the basement any additional noise seems to be noticeable.

20,000 hours is the number I usually see for longevity of LEDs. If I look at the Cree XP-G information (http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/LED%20Components%20and%20Modules/XLamp/XLamp%20Application%20Notes/LM80_Results.pdf), they have done tests and project that the LEDs at 1500mA will be over 72,000 hours. That's 16 years at 12 hrs/day. If you read the protocol for projecting this, they do some sampling up to about 6,000-8,000 hours to see what the dropoff is and then do a extrapolation to see where the 80% and 70% dropoff will be. So this isn't based on actual observations.

I have about a 15' horizontal run after the pipe drops through the floor. This is on an external wall and runs between the concrete wall and the 1st floor of the house. No space for a valve and this will one day be completely closed in anyway. I increase the size of the pipe from 1" to 1.5" once it goes through the floor. Let me look at the siphon some more.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've played with the air tube on the Maggie's Muffler and while it is considerably quieter it's not quiet enough yet. I don't want to use 2 lines for return (not the least of whih is because everything is plumbed to the basement the other way) but I'll look into it if I can't get this quieter. Has anyone looked at the Hofer Gurgle Buster (http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/HGB_construction.html)? It's a variation on the Stockton. I'm thinking of trying to swap my standpipe for one of these and see if it's better.

I do have an issue with the noise in the overflow that came with this tank. I had durso's previously and don't quite recognize this setup:

After getting out of the hobby for a while due to the birth of my son and moving houses, I'm jumping back in. We took my son to the National Aquarium in Baltimore and he loved it. So I'm setting my own back up - all for him of course! I picked up a tank from another member and build a 2x4 and 3/4" plywood stand for it. I still need to skin out the stand to make it look good in the house: Here it is once I got it in the house: I picked up an old sump tank and built the baffles for it (still 1 more to add for the bubble trap in this picture): I'm actually plumbing the sump into my basement. I'm using a Reeflo Marlin pump as the head pressure is somewhat significant: Here it is once the plumbing is complete (skimmer is in wrong section, I put it there just for testing): That's where I am right now. The water you see in the tank is all tap water. I put in tap to test everything out and ensure there were no leaks in my plumbing or other issues to address. I'll share more in the coming weeks once I've made a little more progress.

I actually collected on my owners title policy when I sold my last house. My dad has collected on them several times. Sometimes it's a waste of money but definitely saved me thousands in legal fees a few months ago.

I built cabinet fronts and raised-panel doors for my last one. I'll probably do shaker panels or raised panel for the one I'm working on right now.

Just confirmed. Click the arrow next to your name and choose manage subscription. There it will say if you have an auto-renewing subscription and you can cancel it if you wish.

They are recurring only if you signed up for the subscription in paypal. Otherwise, it's a 1-time charge. If you signed up for a subscription, I believe you can manage it from your profile page.

Yes, less 2-part. I haven't seen a setup that uses both a kalk stirrer and 2-part so I'm not sure how you would balance the additives. Typically you would just add 2-part in equal proportions to keep things balanced in the tank. Someone with more knowledge of the chemistry would need to chime in - but you should probably open a new thread on this topic

I switched to IO and used a kalk stirrer and calc reactor but 2-part would work as well. You can monitor levels and dose as needed instead of taking whatever comes with RC or another salt mix. If you already have the dosing pumps, those are a sunk cost and this becomes an easier decision IMO. Go to IO and save the money there. Then only add what you need in 2-part.

Out of curiosity, what do you do to treat your tap water? What county are you in? City or well?

I rinse equipment in tap water. I figure it's better than anything else that's easily available for rinsing. But filling, water changes, and topoff are all RO/DI. I figure the contaminants in the few drops of tap water are easily diluted away in the tank. Tap water can be dechlorinated but you'll find trace amounts of copper (esp if you have copper pipes in your house), lead, etc. that the RO filter pulls out. I'm not sure if dechlorinators are able to pull out chloramines or only the chlorine portion. If only the chlorine portion then you're leaving ammonia in the water. These things are generally considered bad for corals. I'm not really sure I understand this? If you're introducing tap water in large quantities for water changes, why not just top off with it and do away with your RO/DI system entirely? I'm not sure if there's much to be gained.

He'll have to raise the capital to start from scratch or try for an LBO of the LA business from PetCo. Either way, he'll be saddled with a ton of debt and have a hard time reaching the scale they have today. He does have the relationships so it's not that starting from scratch isn't possible, but it's a hard road.

The not going anywhere comment is odd. Given they've been there for 31 years I give them 5 years to retirement. This looks like cashing out the business to me. I'm sure it will run well for a couple years but when Petco needs to squeeze an extra 50 or 100 basis points of profit out that will be the beginning of the end.

This can't be good for Live Aquaria. Every time a big company buys a smaller company, they aim to cut costs and it results in a sharp decrease in quality (see every time P&G buys a private dog food label). Information is going to be pretty sparse until the deal actually closes but at this point but anyone have any inside details? http://reefbuilders.com/2014/11/19/breaking-petco-planning-buy-drs-foster-smith-including-liveaquaria/ http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/local/2014/11/19/petco-acquire-drs-foster-smith-rhinelander/19295027/

I have a couple gallons in the basement of you still want to pick up more.

Be careful not to move the pipes from side to side. It is very unlikely that you will crack the glass tightening the bulkhead. It is much more likely that you will break it connecting the plumbing if you're going to break it. The chip isn't a problem. Every drill out has those. Be sure the glass is still smooth where the gasket fits. If there are any shards sticking out you'll want to get rid of those as they could pierce the gasket. Be sure the gasket is wet when you assemble it and the gasket goes on the side with the water. In my experience simply finger tight won't quite be enough to seal it but you don't want to crank down on it with a pipe wrench either (I've done this on very thick glass where the bulkheads are leaking). So just tighten a bit past finger tight - 1/4 turn or maybe a little more depending on how tight your finger tight is should do it.