Sikryd July 2, 2008 Share July 2, 2008 Wow Dave, looks pretty nice. Love the Crocea...among other things I got my first cup of skimmate for the first time ever tonight. Pretty sweet smellin' brew. Its going to be fun to see that thing grow. I am still waiting on my brother to email me pics of his 300. The time and work into getting one of those going! Not to mention expense. Cool to see pics on how its coming along.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connor July 2, 2008 Share July 2, 2008 nice pics, I really like the regal. -Connor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbartco July 2, 2008 Share July 2, 2008 want a full frontal shot (of the tank) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 3, 2008 Author Share July 3, 2008 want a full frontal shot (of the tank) All you'd get right now is lots of algae patches! The magnet didn't come in, but as soon as it does I'm going to give my arms a workout and then take a picture. On another note, there's about 1/2" of skimmate in the new skimmer cup. I'll take a picture and add in something so that you can see the size of this puppy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbittner July 6, 2008 Share July 6, 2008 MAN! That is an awesome update! Thanks Dave! That photo shoot kind of makes me feel bad that I don't post more pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 7, 2008 Author Share July 7, 2008 Emptied the skimmer cup last night for the first time, it was halfway full and passed the "gag" test. I almost threw up in the laundry tub in the tank room, especially when it splashed in my face... Now, looking at it versus the ASM, this one seems to keep a much cleaner neck and maintains a better head on it. I did run the ASM a bit drier, but it still got mucked up once it got to about 1" in the skimmer cup. This one had about 2-3" in it and it was still skimming well. Next cup I'll take a picture of, this first one was the "break-in" cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 July 7, 2008 Share July 7, 2008 Emptied the skimmer cup last night for the first time, it was halfway full and passed the "gag" test. I almost threw up in the laundry tub in the tank room, especially when it splashed in my face... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 12, 2008 Author Share July 12, 2008 Full tank shot, as requested... You can see that the magnet I got works wonders, although I've got to go back and scrub away the coralline. It took about an hour, but it stripped off all of the algae that had grown. I think the pad is worn out, so I need to replace that and work on the coralline next. If you look at the top, just to the right of the middle, you can see a fantastic table I bought at the Aquarium Company today. It's yellow with some pink branches and the polyps are multicolored. Awesome piece, need to mount it towards the middle left side, closer to the bottom to the left of the large clam. I tried to do it today but ran out of time to hold it in place while the glue set. I'll try again tomorrow when I have more time. I also have a picture update coming up, it was fun to snap pictures of a clean tank! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 12, 2008 Author Share July 12, 2008 Here's some more shots. Some of the colors came out strange and washed out, but you get the picture (no pun intended!). The first 4 are what I tried to stitch together for a better panoramic, but was unsuccessful (tried to pan across rather than use a tripod and move it along). Had to remount the combo colony as it fell in the sand, but now I can see the trachyphyllia again. Here's the yellow table acro I got today from Sean. It's sweet! When I move it I'll get better pictures. Pokerstar and another frag from Doug. Pokerstar monti next to a new one from Doug (amongst others). You can see the color returning to this one. Sifting away... Close up of my squamosa clam's incurrent siphon. One of the rainbow montis I bought from Bob/lanman. I'm having the same problem as him with the coloration. It basically stays brown base with orange polyps. I may move this one up higher to get more intense light. Here's the other one. It has a bluish tint to the base at the edge, but it doesn't really come out in these pictures. You can also see the M. danae I got from the Aquarium Company. The tips are turning lime green from the brown it was before. The skimmer cup is filling up again, rather quickly due to the fact that I scraped all of the algae off the front pane. Another shot of glorious skimmate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 6, 2008 Author Share August 6, 2008 Did some major maintenance last night and finally understood the benefits of coarser media for my calcium reactor. A bubble formed in my fine grain media and the media half of itself up in the column so there was solid media, a gap filled with water, and then more media that was filled with bubbles but solidly packed together. When I knocked on the reactor to get the media to release and fall back down, it slowly did but also slowly slid upwards. Unlike the time before that it did this, it hit the top of the reactor and the media was sucked into the pump, jamming the whole thing up. So, last night I finally got around to changing over to the coarse media with the realization that it would not trap bubbles the same way that the fine grain did. It might build up, but it certainly would not be able to carry the entire column of media up the column. I also adjusted my reactor level down a bit so that the pH is running at around 6.5. I also cleaned out the kalk reactor and so that should be running smoothly again, although I think my kalk is shot and needs to be tossed. An update on livestock. I had to frag up the yellow table I got as it started to RTN from the center/base. I have 2 large chunks and some random smaller chunks in the tank, hoping that they recover and don't RTN as well. I also lost my male anthias as he decided that he didn't want to eat the prepared foods any longer and was back to eating only mysis. He slowly got skinnier than the females, all of whom were getting larger than him, and then he died off. Never showed any signs of disease or anything, I think he was simply not adjusted well enough to captivity and the changing feeding schedule when I went out of town. Other than that, I also lost a part of the multi-colony I got from Aquarium Company when it fell in the sand for a couple of days without me noticing. When I pulled it out, some of it had lost flesh and this spread very quickly, although there's now one tip (probalby jinxed that) that was still growing and hanging on as of last night. I still need to get my face wet and scrape the front of the glass a bit more as the coralline is taking off again now that I'm running properly and started adding some magnesium, but otherwise things look good in there! I'll post some pictures for the picture hounds when I get the coralline off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak August 7, 2008 Share August 7, 2008 You and James with your Regals making me jealous. Sorry about the anthia your tank looks great though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 12, 2008 Author Share August 12, 2008 Well, I decided to finally chop up the old calcium reactor I bought that was leaky and covered with epoxy from the guy I bought it from. I salvaged the two 6" diameter acrylic tubes by cutting out the breaks and garbage parts with a neighbor's band saw. I didn't make the cuts very straight, but that didn't matter for what I was doing. I then purchased some 1" fittings and some 6" gasket caps that fit nicely around the acrylic tube. In the top of each I drilled 2 holes and put a female and male threaded fitting into each with an O ring and some teflon tape on the threads. I then extended a 1" pipe down into the body of the reactor so that it reaches almost to the bottom. I also glued in some acrylic pieces to hold up some egg crating on which I have some foam filter pad to prevent anything from leaving the reactor. I made two of these reactors and put one to use tonight with carbon. I have been running carbon in an Aquaclear HOB filter in a bag and I think this will make it much more efficient. This first shot is of the reactor that is not plumbed in yet. The top and bottom are the gasket caps so they slide on and off with a little effort and are leak proof (not that it matters as I'm running them in sump). Each of them are around 2' tall. I wasn't exact with how I put these together so they are slightly different heights. I used the small acrylic cubes around the outside to keep the reactor balanced, otherwise the imperfect cuts on the band saw could result in the reactor leaning to a side and then tipping over. Here's the bottom of the reactor. The black pipe runs down to the bottom (this one is not quite there because the top is not pushed on yet) and that's the feed for the reactor. The water basically churns up the media by flowing onto the bottom. I may increase flow by reducing the size of the pipe, but I may also simply increase flow when I replace the main tank return pump. Here's the foam to prevent the media from returning to the tank. In the one that's running, I don't think this will be a problem. The carbon in it is fluidized, but it simply churns without being lifted into the water column. Here's the one that's running. There's a true union ball valve on it to control flow into the reactor. The return to the system is another male and female threaded connection combination, just without any pipe to extend it down, it simply sits in the cap above the foam so that water can flow out. Here's a pretty bad shot of the bottom of the reactor. This one has about 2 cups or so of carbon in it and it's turning over and fluidized. There's not a whole lot of flow through the reactor, but I figure I could up the amount of media and increase the flow and not have a problem with the media getting to the foam filter. Once I replumb I will fluidize the bed more, but I currently can't sacrifice any more flow. Overall, these reactors were easy to make, but I do think that they are severely oversized. I figure I could run a whole container of carbon in one of these without any problems. The second one will be for phosphate remover, although with how little I will probably run in the system, the oversizing will be magnified 10 fold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 20, 2008 Author Share August 20, 2008 The first regal is doing really well in the tank and the second one is eating a bit more regularly now. It eats the clam and the mysis I add, but not with enough conviction to let me know that it'll do really well with competition. The blue belly, however, is now much fatter than he was in isolation and even came out to hang out in the tank tonight. I'll try and get a good shot of it next time it hangs out, it has lost all fear! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dschflier August 20, 2008 Share August 20, 2008 Very nice seeing your tank coming along. Those reactors looked pretty nice. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 28, 2008 Author Share August 28, 2008 Did some work tonight on replacing plumbing. I cut out the Dolpin Ampmaster 3000 and replumbed the return with another Sequence Barracuda. I took the existing plumbing and stuck it on another 3 way split. The plumbing is fairly crazy and a bit on the cluttered side, but it will do for what I want to accomplish. Now, keep in mind that the Ampmaster 3000 is supposed to pump 3000 gph but is reputed to do less than that (plus, I had it dialed back a bit based on the pipe diameter going through the UV sterilizer and also the loc line on the tank return). So anyway, I plugged it in, dialed back the new return and the old return as well as the one for the frag racks, turned the rest off, and let it rip. I immediately had splashing in the frag trays and had to dial all of them back again. I then watched to make sure the overflow could keep up and didn't notice that the sump was overflowing! I quickly turned the pumps almost completely off and then slowly adjusted it back to where it was optimal flow. Now here's what I can't figure out... The overflow has a 1" submerged overflow (the "Homer" I believe). It also has a 2" emergency overflow. Sump 1 flows into sump 2 through 2" pipe and is pretty much a straight shot until it enters the other sump. If the emergency overflow can handle the flow with ease, then why can't the sump 1 to sump 2 overflow pipe handle it? Are a 2" and 1" pipe that much better at returning volume water? On another note, I added on the 2nd fluidized reactor for the phosBgone. Once I clear out the sump that they're in (it's still full of school fish and rock) I'll rearrange them so that they are not as messy as they are right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 30, 2008 Author Share August 30, 2008 OK, I gave up on the portable AC for the time being due to the unit itself. I bought one that was supposed to be a dual AC/dehumidifier, but it did one or the other, not both. Also, the unit was on clearance at Target and despite reassurances that it was new, it certainly was not. The air filter was covered with mold which I cleaned off and the heat sink was damaged from whoever had it before cleaning it off roughly to return it so it looked new. Also, it cooled only intermittently and when it wasn't blowing cold air it was blowing hot air, so obviously the person before used it to death and then returned it for a refund. Plus, the temperature in the room did not decrease, and instead, the area that was heated up increased instead. I'm going to switch over to the duct booster instead and see if that brings the temperature down better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL August 30, 2008 Share August 30, 2008 looks great!! can't wait to see it when the corals grow out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbittner August 30, 2008 Share August 30, 2008 I've always wondered about those in-room air conditioners. I have a window air conditioner in the basement and it keeps all 1,100 gallons at 79. It varies in a 24 hour period from 78.5 to 79.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 30, 2008 Author Share August 30, 2008 I've always wondered about those in-room air conditioners. I have a window air conditioner in the basement and it keeps all 1,100 gallons at 79. It varies in a 24 hour period from 78.5 to 79.2 I think that they can be effective, but this one was simply a dud, totally used and abused. I let Target know how much I appreciated them selling me something that was used and moldy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 September 2, 2008 Share September 2, 2008 The overflow has a 1" submerged overflow (the "Homer" I believe). It also has a 2" emergency overflow. Sump 1 flows into sump 2 through 2" pipe and is pretty much a straight shot until it enters the other sump. If the emergency overflow can handle the flow with ease, then why can't the sump 1 to sump 2 overflow pipe handle it? Are a 2" and 1" pipe that much better at returning volume water? Herbie overflow not Homer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 September 2, 2008 Author Share September 2, 2008 Herbie overflow not Homer.... BART! Homer sounds so much better! I can picture it now... "Mmmmm... skimmate..." Now that I have a couple of thermometers in there, I have noted that the temperature actually goes up to 100 degrees in the hottest area of the room and is about 85 in the middle, sometimes a bit more. It's definitely a dry heat, though, as I don't really sweat unless I'm doing some manual labor in there. I guess that the AC unit did a bit, but the fact that it would kick on and off and pump out hot air when it wasn't pumping out cold air says to me that it was not worth the money. I am going to try and invest in another one and possibly a stronger fan for the room to evacuate the heat. Should be a great thing to have in the winter when I can pump that heat into the basement instead of where I have it going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bk_market September 7, 2008 Share September 7, 2008 I saw the 4 pics u tried to put together so I figure I will help you out :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 September 7, 2008 Author Share September 7, 2008 Thanks! That looks a lot better than my attempts! It's funny seeing it now versus then... I can barely see through the front due to coralline growth and really need to remove the top panel of plywood to get in there and scrape! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefmontalvo September 7, 2008 Share September 7, 2008 Very nice tank. How on earth are you going to scrape the coraline off with out major damage to the acrylic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 September 7, 2008 Author Share September 7, 2008 Very nice tank. How on earth are you going to scrape the coraline off with out major damage to the acrylic? Plastic scraper. It's won't harm the acrylic as long as I keep it clean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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