lmeyer

I've been too busy to document anything, but I can at least post a couple of pix. From inside the room From outside of the house looking in Still a lot of work to be done. The rock was thrown in, have yet to begin aquascaping. Got another 100 lbs of small rock in another tank waiting for the aquascaping. May paint the back of the tank, haven't decided yet. Contractors broke the pump for the water change, need to try to fix or replace. Haven't set up auto-top off yet. Haven't set up kalkstirrer or calcium reactor yet. Lights aren't set up yet, just running a pair of lumenarcs sitting on top, manually turning them on and off. Almost none of the livestock survived from the old house. We made it about 4 months with me out of the house, but at that point the contractor started destroying my equipment and things went downhill quickly. Over the next 4 months, we lost all but two fish and most of the coral. OM is jammed and I need to clean it out Current livestock: 2 pencil urchin 2 blue chromis pair ocelaris clown tomini tang assorted snails couple of frogspawn couple of candy cane corals couple of cup corals closed brain coral green star polyps (just try killing them) Capnella Fish stocking plan: Round 1: Foxface 6 additional Blue Chromis Yellow Jawfish Pistol Shrimp/Watchman Goby pair 6 Firefish Blackcap Gramma Round 2: Male and Female Banggai Cardinal Male and Female Flame Angel 5 Bartlett's Anthias 4 Lyretail Anthias Round 3: 3 Heniochus diphreutes Male and Female Mandarin goby Powder Blue Tang Purple Tang (maybe) Sixline Wrasse Lawnmower blennie (maybe) Copperband butterfly Melanurus wrasse

I only saw one knob for adjustment. There were two spots that looked like there could be knobs, but one was fixed. We did try to adjust the one that was adjustable.

I have a co-worker who just bought a HOT Turbo Floater 1000 Skimmer. He is not getting any bubbles to rise into the cone of the skimmer, but there are bubbles in the chamber. When we move the pump closer to the surface of his tank, we start to get some bubbles in the cone, but we can't seem to get consistent bubbles with the pump in a spot where it can be mounted.

See this thread: http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...on+heater\

Good idea, but not a good answer for this purpose IMO. Yes an UPS will keep the return pump working in an outage, but for how long? What if the power outage happens while you are on vacation? The UPS will power down eventually. What if the return pump fails? I wouldn't rely on the return pump as my means of avoiding flooding. Unfortunately, I've never run a RR tank, so I can't answer the original question.

Actually I do, just not necessarily for the traditional reason. I just set up my new tank. It is deeper then I want to deal with and I wanted to raise the floor. Using a plenum allowed me to raise the floor with less sand then I would otherwise have used. I've always had a plenum in my large tanks, never had a problem that I could blame on the plenum (nor success that I could attribute to it). No reason not to continue.

Sid, Look in the member section/Product Reviews. I gave my impressions of several magnets in a post entitled Floating algae magnets for acrylic tanks. The post is a little over 2 years old, but nothing has really changed. Larry

Last I heard, Dan had changed his business model and wasn't selling direct to hobbyists any longer. You will have to find a retailer who can order from him for you. I don't know if anyone is selling his equipment yet, but I would probably check with Blue Ribbon Koi. They might be able to order his equipment for you. As for his phone number, sorry, I can't help you. I sent him a PM around the same time. He hasn't been back on WAMAS since Oct. 30th. I'm sure he is busy with his new venture.

I wouldn't have an LFS test my water, I prefer to be able to do it myself, can do it at anytime that is convenient. I only take it to an LFS if I have a reason to doubt my test and want to verify the results. That being said, I test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate during initial set up/cycle. After that I wouldn't bother unless I have an event that might kick off a new cycle. I would still always keep the kits on hand as a sanity check. Just remember to replace them if they get past their shelf life. If you know that your nitrates run high, then you will need to test for that regularly. I don't tend to have a nitrate problem. If you are keeping coral, then I would have pH, alkalinity, and calcium test kits. There are those who recommend testing for magnesium as well. I've never tested for magnesium (perhaps I should). If you dose with copper in any system, you will need the appropriate copper test kit. Anything else you are dosing in your system, you would be well advised to have a test kit to know if you are getting the correct dosage.

Update and current question - Closed loop is complete and running (turned on Saturday morning). There is a good bit of cloudiness. We'll see if it settles down. Sump has been drilled, baffles installed, and moved under the stand. When I filled the sump with water (before moving it under the stand), the baffles started to bow. The acrylic obviously wasn't thick enough. I installed some pvc between the baffles to reinforce the acrylic. It won't win any beauty contests, but nobody needs to see it except me. When I got the sump under the stand (resting on a sheet of plywood and some styrofoam), the top of the sump is within 1 1/2" from the bottom of the stand supports. I can't get the drain pipe directly into the sump as planned. I'm going to have to re-do the drain pipes to go under the stand and then turn up to go over the top of the sump. I hope to have that done and get the sump and protein skimmer complete by the end of the week. On Saturday, I picked up 166 lbs of live rock from Marine Scene. This was rock that they got in on Thursday and put in their system until I picked it up. It is currently in the tank, where I plan to cure it, then add my rock from my old tank. The odd thing is that I am expecting the tank to cycle based on my adding this rock. I tested for ammonia this morning and got a reading of 0 ammonia. The temp of the water in my tank was way cold on Saturday (about 68 degrees) since we still haven't hooked up the HVAC in the house. I was running space heaters in the house and threw some heaters in the water, and the tank is now 80 degrees. The specific gravity is 1.022. Is it possible to add that much live rock and not kick off a cycle? I know, I know, pictures. If I remember to bring a camera the next time I go to the house, I'll take some pictures and post them. It just hasn't been a priority in going to a mostly empty house.

IIRC, another issue with the Banggai is that they only school as juveniles. When they mature, you will have a male and female pair off and then kill the remaining fish.

Decided against cutting down the old tank for the sump. Have purchased a used 180 gallon AGA for the sump. Now I need to drill it and install baffles. I have a 5/8" drill bit on order, it should be here this week. Scott is going to come over and give me a hand drilling the holes. I went to Home Depot today, they have 3/32" thick glass. I think that isn't thick enough. Am I correct? What thickness do I need? They do have 1/4" acrylic. Will that work or am I better off with glass baffles?

As for ease of setup, the Tunze controllers are a piece of cake. A little more challenging is figuring out what they mean by the different patterns of flow and if one pattern is preferable to another. I just wrote to Roger at Tunze USA to discuss different flow options and chose based on his advice.

The closed loop equipment is on order, it should be in place in a week or so. We've moved on to planning the sump. We're looking at a custom sump along the size of 60 x 24 x 20. One remote possibility is to take my existing display tank and chop it down to work as a sump. The existing tank is 3/4" acrylic and is 72 x 24 x 30 (tall). Unfortunately, the stand is also 30" tall, so I can't get the tank under the stand. Would it be possible to drain the tank, cut the top 10 or so inches off, attach baffles, and then reattach the eurobracing at the top? How would you go about doing it and does it make sense?

I don't think this means changing the flow restrictor every time you replace the membrane. I just ordered a new restrictor, but only because I am changing from a 24 GPD membrane to a 48 GPD membrane. The restrictor has to match the output of the membrane.

The tank is in the basement, in a dedicated fish room. The fish room is approximately 100 sq ft and it is the only room where they are recommending using DensArmor. There will be between 750 - 1000 gallons of water in the fish room at any given time. There will be a supply and return vent to the central A/C in the fish room. There will also be a bathroom fan connected to a humidstat to vent moist air when the humidity exceeds a certain level (exact level yet to be determined). You can see the 540 beginning thread to get an idea of the installation. Thanks

My builder asked if I want to use DensArmor instead or Green Board. I've never heard of it before and haven't seen anything about it on any aquarist forums. http://www.gp.com/build/product.aspx?pid=4659

Dave, Thanks for posting this, I had been worried about the intake being so close to the sand and hadn't gotten around to discussing it with Andrew yet. We'll definitely look at this more. As for the Southdown, I've been planning on doing this for a very long time, I've been acquiring bags of Southdown whenever I see them for at least 3 years.

I decided that I don't have the knowledge, time, or skills to design and build this tank by myself and get the end result that I am looking for. Rather then make a hash of it, I chose to work with Scales to get the project done right. I can already tell that this is the smartest decision I've made in a long time. Andrew has a clearer idea of how to do this and practical knowledge that I just can't touch. Andrew and I decided to remove all of the old plumbing and start over, getting exactly what we want and need and having total confidence in all of the equipment. I've cleaned the tank and removed the old plumbing. Andrew designed the flow with me and has built and installed the internal plumbing. We're using the 2" bulkheads for the sump and the 1" bulkheads immediately next to them as returns from the sump. The 1" bulkheads between the returns from the sump will feed the closed loop (they are teed and at different depths in the tank to draw water from all over). Along the bottom row of bulkheads, we have a feed to the closed loop in the center and 4 teed returns from the closed loop. Four of the returns remain on the back wall, and four have been brought forward to the middle of the tank. We will be using a Baracuda and an Oceans Motions four way to run the closed loop. Since the photo was taken, I've added eductors to all of the feeds from the closed loop and added the remainder of my sand to the tank. I was amazed, I used 720 pounds of Southdown and it probably averages out to only a 3" sandbed. The sand comes up to the bottom line of blue tape along the front! Next step is to plumb the closed loop.

We went to the Maria Mitchell Aquarium on Nantucket on our vacation. A nice little aquarium featuring local aquatic life. They have a touch tank, a round tank to look down into, and two rooms of different size aquariums lining the walls. In one of the rooms, they had a bow front aquarium, I would guess that it was about 170 gallons (about 6 ft long x 2 ft wide (at the sides) x 2 ft tall. It was sitting on a homemade stand that was 6 ft x 2 ft. The length of the bow front was unsupported, extending beyond the edge of the stand. They said it has been set up like this for a couple of years. It struck me as odd, but I've never had a bow front tank. Do you need to have the stand support the entire tank or will this work long term? Just curious!

I went into Scales last week and spoke with Andrew. He worked through a design that I think will work. Use the 2" bulkheads to feed the sump. Use two of the 1" bulkheads on the top as returns from the sump. I will either use my Iwaki MD100 to power the return, or replace it with two BlueLine HD40X pumps. Use a 2" pvc cross to join together feeds from the remaining two 1" bulkheads along the top and one of the 1" bulkheads on the bottom and feed the closed loop (using bushings to increase from 1" to 2" on entry to the cross). Use a Sequence 4800 to power the closed loop, fed through an Oceans Motions 4 way for the return to the remaining four 1" bulkheads. Will need to step down from 1 1/2" pvc to 1" after the Oceans Motions. Having just put it all down, I think that I will send that message to OM to get their thoughts.

I'm smiling just thinking about it. That was as funny as it gets.