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CaptainRon's 200 Marineland Deep Dimension


CaptainRon

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I liked the original rock work. Looked nice. I agree with you about height. I have kept mine pretty low as well, hoping for coral growth room and swimming room for fish. Hoping it grows in fast!

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Thanks for the comments everyone. I liked it too Laura - but there was just something about it that I wanted to change. I think I like what I have now better though. We'll see if it grows on me :)

 

Here's my Dad filling the tank with some saltwater. That's about all the water I had so it'll be a little while before it's completely full.

I didn't take any pictures before I mixed everything up so the final scape is going to have to wait :)

 

 

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Have to? He better let me help!

 

Hahaha. I'm also going through the joys of having buckets of water being made all over my place, just came up about 5 gallons short! I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see the new scape, looks like you built it up a bit.

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I think its about the same height. I can't wait to see it at this point too because I've already forgotten what it looks like! :)

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I like it! And have to say water a good dad to help with your tank...does that mean when he upgrades,lol, that youll have to help him?

 

No plans to upgrade...although that's a thought...boy would that get me in big trouble...but I am planning to redo all the plumbing for my DT, frag tank, sump and all, then I'll put him work!!!

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And until my Dad puts me to work on his system, I'm slowly making progress on mine!

 

It's mostly filled up with saltwater, but I don't have the plumbing complete so the water isn't flowing yet - that's why I have the skimmer propped up on a coffee bucket :) I also need to figure out what I'm going to do with lights - I have a pair of evergrow IT2040 fixtures and a pair of D120 fixtures that I'm going to put on this tank. I'm just not sure how i'm going to get them over the tank yet. My first thought is to just build a frame out of aluminum angle and hang it above the tank.

 

I'm dosing Brightwells Microbacter 7 and put a 30 pound bag of that sand with the bacteria in it to get the cycle going. I also dumped in a big scoop of sand from my old tank that was sitting in a bucket for a couple days. I was thinking that'd give the new bacteria something to eat but I'm also feeding the tank with some flakes or pellets every couple days.

 

Here's a couple shots as the tank currently sits...

 

 

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Looking good! If this is anything as nice as your 90, I'm sure to be impressed!

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I turned it on initially because of the silt cloud I had in there the first day - the skimmer pulled out a LOT of junk just from the sand that I didn't think about rinsing until it was too late.For the last couple days, I've been blowing the rock off in the evening so have kept it running during the day but turning it off at night when I dose the Microbacter 7 stuff.

 

Thanks a lot Sublime! That's very nice of you to say :)

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you want to keep the skimmer off, filter socks removed, uv/ozone off for 48 hours after dosing any bacteria in a bottle product. otherwise you're really limiting your potential success with it.

 

keep the pics coming - i'm having fun following along!

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The microbacter bottle said three to four hours. But I left it off tonight since the tank is pretty clear.

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The microbacter bottle said three to four hours. But I left it off tonight since the tank is pretty clear.

i think you're doing yourself a favor. good call.
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Also FWIW regarding the skimmer, it wasn't collecting any skimmate, just overflowing right back into the tank. I don't know if the skimmer actually removes anything like that. But it seems to have stopped collecting silty stuff so I think I'll just leave it off until I get the sump running unless there's some compelling reason to turn it back on.

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Also FWIW regarding the skimmer, it wasn't collecting any skimmate, just overflowing right back into the tank. I don't know if the skimmer actually removes anything like that. But it seems to have stopped collecting silty stuff so I think I'll just leave it off until I get the sump running unless there's some compelling reason to turn it back on.

 

I don't think you need to worry about it till you add livestock, at least from my understanding. Waiting for pictures!

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As far as the skimmer is concerned...what dept is it in...looks like the water level is really high...?...which would explain it overflowing.

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ok Ron....After our phone call I understand the skimmer deal now...... lol

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I wanted to get some thoughts on my sump design. I'm going to use a 75 gallon tank I have for my sump and the sump will be on the other side of the wall that's directly behind the tank. All parts listed, besides the tank, will be made from acrylic by Adam at Artfully Acrylic.

 

Water from the tank will drain through part number 5 into a 5" x 12" box that has a 2" x 12" opening at the bottom for water to flow into the adjacent 12" x 12" area that will house the skimmer. My thinking here is that most bubbles should stay within the box - having the lid will help eliminate salt creep and keep noise down. Perhaps there should be some air release openings at the top above the water level? There should be 6" of air space in the box.

 

Once water flows into the 12" x 12" area, it can then flow through the baffles (part numbers 2 and 1). Should I have teeth cut into any of these baffles? Nothing should ever be in the sump in this area so I don't think so - but I wasn't sure if having teeth cut into the final and/or first baffles would help with anything. My initial thought is no baffles needed here.

 

Water will then flow into the middle section of the sump, hopefully bubble free and then back to the tank. The left hand side of the tank will be a refugium section. The refugium piece, part number 4, will have teeth cut into it.

 

I appreciate any thoughts anyone has.

 

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My initial thought is no baffles needed here.

 

 

baffles = teeth. This should have read "My initial thought is no teeth needed here."

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Something like that Haywood :)

 

So I guess my drawings were either horrible or the design was perfect! :laugh: I made a slight revision increasing the size of the drain box, but I'm basically going with my sump design as pictured.

 

On to overflows.... The tank has two overflows with 2 EA 1" holes in each overflow. The way I see it, I could have 1 durso and one return in each overflow or create a quasi-bean animal with the two overflows. My wife has her craft area in that same area as the sump so I'd like to control noise as much as possible.

 

With my sump design, i'm creating an enclosed box for the drain lines to enter the sump so I'd think I could control noise a lot with that. And a durso is such an easy setup to put in place, I'm thinking of just going that way.

 

But I can't help but think about doing a bean animal - I think I'd pace the emergency dry line and constant trickle lines in left overflow and the return and full siphon overflow in the right hand overflow. I guess the only real concern with this is the left side overflow being dead with such a small amount of flow through it. The only thing I've thought of so far to "fix" that would be to put a small powerhead in there and blow some water back out into the tank.

 

I guess I'll have to make that decision soon - I'm getting antsy about getting the tank filled up with my critters :)

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There's no room between the back wall of the tank and the wall that the tank is up against - everything is going to have to go through the four holes in the overflow.

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