Alan's Rimless 75 build

[AlanM]

Honestly though, I'd keep what you have now.  Just remove the piece sitting by itself in front of the left reef structure.  

 

That's an old calcium covered snail shell.  My son put it there when he discovered my bucket of stuff wasn't all rock.  There are little old shells throughout the rock parts. 

 

I'll drop it somewhere in the tank

 

Thanks.  I think this is a keeper too.  Should give lots of room to grow stuff and maybe a couple of nooks for a monkiboy anemone foot at some point in the future.  I'll sneak into his house and abscond with that multicolored one he posted a while ago.

[monkiboy]

  Should give lots of room to grow stuff and maybe a couple of nooks for a monkiboy anemone foot at some point in the future.  I'll sneak into his house and abscond with that multicolored one he posted a while ago.

now i know this is all a rouse to make sure i'm following your thread and reply, right?  i've got a few new ones coming in that i'll be splitting and will have a looker for sure for you when you're ready!

[YHSublime]

I like what you've done with the scape. It's my favorite part of putting a tank together. I just feel like I suck at it.

 

Are you going to add a piece of LR, or are you going to do a Dr. Tims or something of the sort.... OR are you going to do the old fashioned shrimp or ghost feeding and let er' ride?

[AlanM]

I have some MB7 that I bought from QR in February.  It's been sitting at room temperature since then, but I assume it's still good.  I'll dump that in according to the directions.  I'll also stop by Aquarium One and pick up a couple small pieces of rock to get some more bacteria going.  I didn't expect QR to have all that frozen food there or I would have brought a cooler and started doing the ghost feeding.  So probably the answer is a little of everything.  Or maybe I'll take a trip to Long Island and get a tupperware full of muck from Paul B's tank.

 

I won't pee in it because I don't eat healthy enough. 

 

I have a bunch more questions like

 

- do I run lights during the initial cycle to grow algae on purpose

- should I run the skimmer while it's cycling or would that defeat the purpose by taking bacteria out, and

- should I turn on the biopellet reactor to add carbon to get some bacteria blooms started to kickstart it. 

 

I'm sure those have been covered a lot, and I just need to google for lots of advice on them, though.

[roni]

You could do a couple things, as you've said.  One easy option is to get a little rock/sand from an established tank and let that start seeding your rock.

 

In terms of other questions:

 

 

- do I run lights during the initial cycle to grow algae on purpose

You can, just with reduced photoperiod.  It will help the corraline take hold as well.  

 

- should I run the skimmer while it's cycling or would that defeat the purpose by taking bacteria out, and

Run your skimmer.  

- should I turn on the biopellet reactor to add carbon to get some bacteria blooms started to kickstart it. 

 

 

Not sure but again, I'd imagine you'd want to run things as if the tank were up and going.  

 

In general, I get my tanks up and running and then start with small amount of food and slowly increase nutrient input to slowly increase the bacterial and small invertebrate populations going.   The only difference is I don't usually dose or change water during the cycle.  However, it's been a while since I've cycled a tank and I've never started from all dry/dead rock so other people may have better suggestions. 

[AlanM]

Great.  I'm ready to get it salty, as far as I can tell.  I'll stack the stuff in there, put in some sand, start the water coming in and start adding salt to the sump.  I'm just mixing it in place instead of pre-mixing for this first batch.

[Coral Hind]

Make sure to rinse the sand and rocks first. I didn't do that and it took a long time for the cloudiness to clear up. I also just mixed the salt into the tank the first time.

[AlanM]

 

 

And I'm out of water.  Heh.

[YHSublime]

Oooooh, I like that! Looking good!

[brad908]

Looking good

[AlanM]

I discovered that my genius idea of putting returns under the box is not a good one.  I didn't put in a siphon break because it's tied in to the upper two drains and I figured they would suck in enough air to break the siphon.  On the back it's kind of a crucifix shape, if you know what I mean, with a 4-way angled Tee on the back.  Return coming up in 1.5 inch PVC, then split three ways with the outer two going to the upper returns and the middle going to the ones under the box.  Turns out it will siphon all the way down to there if I open those.  Hmm. 

 

I have a valve on it, so I can always just leave them closed so a power outage doesn't drain half the water out of my tank.  Or I could drill a little hole or something.  Any suggestions?

[AlanM]

Full of salty water! 

 

 

I'm really liking the lights, which is a good thing considering the trouble I went through to build them.  The 420nm and 405nm violets make things fluoresce like crazy. 

 

Now I just have to tune the BeanAnimal drains which were not built to his specs since they include an 8 foot nearly horizontal section. 

 

It's doing the flush and fill thing at the moment, heh.  Super duper loud.  It almost woke the baby. 

[monkiboy]

legit...

[YHSublime]

Alan.... this is superb. For lack of better words.

[AlanM]

But now I have to start worrying about parameters and learning how to use the test kits.  I think I'm getting good at the refractometer.

 

This is what I started it up with:

 

http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/h2ocean-natural-reef-salt

 

I won't be buying more of it, so I decided to use the bucket I got from a guy many months ago as my water for the cycle since it will involve many changes, probably.  For those that run it, it's kind of expensive salt to cycle with, but oh well.

[AlanM]

Also, my Tunze 6095's are about 8 inches below the water line and at 100% they keep pulling a vortex down.  They're beasts.  I'm playing with apex profiles to try to get a resonant wave going.

[smallreef]

Looking good!

Love the lights!

[YHSublime]

But now I have to start worrying about parameters and learning how to use the test kits.  I think I'm getting good at the refractometer.

 

This is what I started it up with:

 

http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/h2ocean-natural-reef-salt

 

I won't be buying more of it, so I decided to use the bucket I got from a guy many months ago as my water for the cycle since it will involve many changes, probably.  For those that run it, it's kind of expensive salt to cycle with, but oh well.

 

You can get your apex working like a charm and you've designed your own LED's, and you're worried about parameters and using testing kits?! I've never seen that salt, when i started, somebody suggested Reef Crystals, and I've just stuck with it since. I've got a bucket of salt that looks similar that I got in a trade, it's just sitting there. I should have donated it to frag fest.

[lnevo]

Sweet. Tank looks great!! I guess you finally finished your LED build

[AlanM]

You can get your apex working like a charm and you've designed your own LED's, and you're worried about parameters and using testing kits?! I've never seen that salt, when i started, somebody suggested Reef Crystals, and I've just stuck with it since. I've got a bucket of salt that looks similar that I got in a trade, it's just sitting there. I should have donated it to frag fest.

 

Hah, thanks, but it's not totally working yet.  I still have powerhead programming to play with, but I suspect as I get stuff in there that I'll want to move them around and tweak settings for a while.  If I ever get to your place to pick up frags I can help you get the external networking working so that you get emails out and can access it from your phone when away from home and stuff.  It ended up not being too big of a deal to get working.

[AlanM]

Sweet. Tank looks great!! I guess you finally finished your LED build

 

Yes.  I did finish it.  I was playing with the light colors last night.  I'm getting a weird effect that when I turn the fans on the red channel flickers just a bit even when the VarSpd port is set to off.  The folks at RC suggest inductive kickback from the fans, so I'm trying to trace it down and put in a snubber or something to get rid of it.  It doesn't happen when the fans are spinning fast, just when they're going slow.

[surf&turf]

Sweet looking tank and scape!!

[BowieReefer84]

Where does the full siphon drain exit and where in the line is the gatevalve?  The siphon pipe should be less than an inch below the water surface in the sump, and the valve should be within a foot of the sump.

 

Close it almost completely to get water coming out of the secondary drain, then open it a little at a time (giving a few minutes between adjustments) until just a trickle comes out of the secondary drain.

[AlanM]

Where does the full siphon drain exit and where in the line is the gatevalve?  The siphon pipe should be less than an inch below the water surface in the sump, and the valve should be within a foot of the sump.

 

Close it almost completely to get water coming out of the secondary drain, then open it a little at a time (giving a few minutes between adjustments) until just a trickle comes out of the secondary drain.

Yep. Itis about 3/4 inch below the water level. Gate valve is about 5 inches above the pipe exit.

 

I will give it a try like you said. I wish the gate valve or pipe ends were clear so I could see what was coming out of what.

[monkiboy]

I will give it a try like you said. I wish the gate valve or pipe ends were clear so I could see what was coming out of what.

if you really want, you can buy clear PVC fittings. but in my experience they accumulate algae rather quickly and aren't so clear anymore. i guess it would depend where they were in your system though. pretty fun to see water moving while it lasts, though!