AlanM July 23, 2013 Author Share July 23, 2013 Correction, they are 1.25 inches under the surface. I just measured. Think that is close enough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 July 23, 2013 Share July 23, 2013 Not sure, but 3/4" would be better... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 23, 2013 Author Share July 23, 2013 OK. They're 3/4 now. Good thing I put flexpvc up at the transition from horizontal to vertical so I could just bend them out of the sump to cut them. Still no joy, but maybe it's quieter a bit? Basically doing a durso with a little flow from the full siphon. I know you did 1" instead of 1.5" and you even told me I should do 1", but I didn't listen. I may switch to 1". One question for the crowd. Run skimmer during the initial cycle of the tank with dry rock and basically nothing else? I got a couple of small and nice looking pieces from Congressional today. Aquarium One was bizarrely out of rock. They should help with initially seeding bacteria and I'm dumping in 4 capfuls of MicroBacter 7 each morning which is what the directions say to do. I'll put a pinch of fish food in each day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 24, 2013 Author Share July 24, 2013 Woot! I dont know what happened, but I basically just barely cracked open my full siphon gate valve, let it run as a noisy durso for an hour and eventually it got the air out of the siphon and is dead silent now. I ended up needing to increase the flow just a bit to get it to stabilize and be silent. I opened up those drains under the box, which will drain half the tank if the power goes out. Guess I do have to figure out a siphon break for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheyCallMeMr.703 July 24, 2013 Share July 24, 2013 Woot! I dont know what happened, but I basically just barely cracked open my full siphon gate valve, let it run as a noisy durso for an hour and eventually it got the air out of the siphon and is dead silent now. I ended up needing to increase the flow just a bit to get it to stabilize and be silent. I opened up those drains under the box, which will drain half the tank if the power goes out. Guess I do have to figure out a siphon break for them. The fun never stops, Looks Amzing, Allot of work is going intot his tank, That's a Dedicated Tank.lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 July 24, 2013 Share July 24, 2013 You could make the lower two holes a closed loop perhaps? I would be nervous having returns that far below the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 24, 2013 Author Share July 24, 2013 I am too. I really thought the two upper returns would break the siphon, but it just keeps gurgling and draining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 24, 2013 Author Share July 24, 2013 Blissful silence! I asked Mike to come over to give suggestions for how to get the drains working quietly, and the darn things were totlly silent the entire time he was here. Thanks for coming, Mike! I will call you if they get loud again and maybe you driving over will fix them again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 24, 2013 Author Share July 24, 2013 Now nothing to tinker with at the moment. Hmm... The water is crazy cloudy. I can't see the back wall at all from the front. Does anyone doing a cycle of a new tank with dry totally dead rock and dry bagged sand try to get the water less cloudy with carbon or something else? I currently plan to just kind of let it run for a few weeks and get funky unless it starts smelling bad enough that the wife complains. But if I'm going to have to fight later to get extra organic junk out, I might as well start that now. I'm running the skimmer to break it in, but letting the cup empty back into the sump because it keeps pushing out piles of very wet white foam and filling up the Davy Jones in minutes. I'm not running any reactors or anything else. I'm dumping in 3 capfuls of MB7 and a pinch of dry fish food each morning. I got 3 pounds of cycled live rock from Congressional yesterday and put it in there. I might play with the test kits, but don't really plan to start testing to see how the cycle is going for a few weeks. According to the probe, which I calibrated last night, pH is 7.9, which sounds kind of low, but probably doesn't matter at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime July 24, 2013 Share July 24, 2013 Give it some time to settle. Did the bagged sand suggested rinsing before adding? I wouldn't waste money on running carbon right now. Skimmer just sounds like it's breaking in (not that I've ever had to break in a skimmer, so don't listen to me.) I think my PH is generally at 8... and I'm doing alright Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k July 24, 2013 Share July 24, 2013 don't worry about cloudy water, pH, running the skimmer, fish food, or MB7 right now. whatever you've added by now is fine. run the lights on regular cycle, turn off the skimmer and let the tank cycle for 3-6 months with only rock and sand- no added organisms. If you have the patience and can resist the barrage of emails that you'll get from listening to me, your tank will be able to be completely cycled with bacteria, algae, and whatever dominant life form that emerges from the rock. A tank cycled in this fashion will be so much nicer than the ones on these forums. It works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 24, 2013 Author Share July 24, 2013 don't worry about cloudy water, pH, running the skimmer, fish food, or MB7 right now. whatever you've added by now is fine. run the lights on regular cycle, turn off the skimmer and let the tank cycle for 3-6 months with only rock and sand- no added organisms. If you have the patience and can resist the barrage of emails that you'll get from listening to me, your tank will be able to be completely cycled with bacteria, algae, and whatever dominant life form that emerges from the rock. A tank cycled in this fashion will be so much nicer than the ones on these forums. It works. Rob, I'm basically trying to go fallow for 3 months. But add nothing else? No dead shrimp or pee? Lights on regular cycle? Do you think it will hurt anything to leave the skimmer going to break it in and let it empty into the sump? It was really a small quantity of live stuff I put in from Congressional without too much on it. I'm game to go low maintenance for a couple of months and spend the time working on other stuff, though, like testing operation in power outages and getting the drains more reliable. Guess I should have put that rock and sand in a trashcan for the last few months with a powerhead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 25, 2013 Author Share July 25, 2013 Three months of doing nothing will kill me!!! (It's already clearer now for some reason, /shrug Also the pH is going up. My guess is that the skimmer which drips back into the sump is driving out CO2). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 25, 2013 Author Share July 25, 2013 I want to dump in bags of crud from Algagen over the next few months! Pods and phytoplankton and rotifers and macroalgae! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef July 26, 2013 Share July 26, 2013 Ohh yeah! Def. while you have this down time add as much micro fauna and such to the tank...but really...3 months? I couldn't do it...it would have atleast fake fish living in there,lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 26, 2013 Author Share July 26, 2013 I am looking for a bubbling treasure chest and scuba diver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef July 26, 2013 Share July 26, 2013 Scuba Steve!!! Don't forget the pirate ship! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM August 1, 2013 Author Share August 1, 2013 Got some Dr Tims and dumped in there. Can't resist urge to dump in goop. Cycle seems to be going in earnest making nitrites and nitrates. I did a 30 gallon water change tonight because nitrites and nitrates were up to 20 and ammonia continues to be high even though I only put 3.5 lbs of "live" rock in there. I wonder if I'm measuring chloramines or something. Do the saltwater test kits work with RO/DI water? I have the seachem ones for ammonia which are like little orange discs that you put in after putting in a drop of "total ammonia" reagents that go from orange to blue on the surface. It's possible there was crud inside this dry rock I used even though I did a muratic acid bath, then a bleach bath, then lots of rinses and dry since last fall. I'm burning through this salt, but having fun so far. http://www.aquaticlog.com/aquariums/alanm/1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM August 2, 2013 Author Share August 2, 2013 Big thanks to Richard from ERC for coming out today to look at the rock arrangement and make some great changes (and add more nice room for his product, heh). Cant wait to fill it up with glowing little polyps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef August 3, 2013 Share August 3, 2013 How's that 3 month fallow thing going?lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM August 3, 2013 Author Share August 3, 2013 Good so far. I didn't buy anything. Just really want to. I had him look at it and point at stuff and hold one big wet drippy rock while I moved some others around. We made some nice shade for new corals and some nice large flat parts for lots of little glowing things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM August 3, 2013 Author Share August 3, 2013 (edited) I was getting a little too much "disco" from the LED's I built, so I took off the clear acrylic sheet and stuck some translucent contact paper to it. I used the stuff described here: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/296282-great-diffusion-material-tested-only-5-light-loss-through-water/ It seems to have worked great. I still get shimmer, but the colors blend really well. I'm really happy with how it looks. It's hard to get a picture of because the LED's even on 10% blow out the camera's sensor. If anyone else has an LED build with too much disco or wants to try it on their D120 I have lots of extra you can have. It peels right off, so it's possible to try and remove if you don't like it. Also, here's the new rock arrangement Richard helped me with. He put my large flat ledge rock on the right side of the tank so the flat part is actually flat and made some shadow under it for new corals. Edited August 3, 2013 by AlanM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef August 3, 2013 Share August 3, 2013 Looks good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkiboy August 3, 2013 Share August 3, 2013 nice job alan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boomer August 3, 2013 Share August 3, 2013 Really like the rock work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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