I guess....update on my temp tank. The only casualty has been my firefish which was fine for about two weeks but died this past weekend. All of my corals seem to be doing well. One acro browned out a little but has started to regain it's color. A couple of corals have actually shown some growth in the temp tank. Parameters are stable now. I've had to manually dose for the first week or so due to no time to set up my dosing pumps. Alk is 9.1, Ca+ 445, Mg 1345, Nitrate 0.75.
New floor is in the basement and it's time to get serious on the rebuild. Site where the 155 is going Planned site for the new tank build. The bar will be removed and a wall placed to create the mechanical/fish room.
Caulked the seams in the bottom of the 155 stand after the meeting Sat. and put first coat of polyurethane on the bottom of the stand tonight. Will try to put 2 more coats on in the next few days. Some of the things I kept for the rebuild. Frags....purple stylo from Silent Reefer, Pearl Berry from John (yep that's a fat finger frag of it in the middle), blue acro from John My plates are home....thanks to John for coral sitting for me. My Nemes Valida
Finished painting the bottom of the stand. It should be water proof now. Got some dry rock in today, including a huge piece of Tonga shelf rock from BRS. Playing around with possible ways to use this.
Hiya, Some nice pieces of rock. Love the shelf piece. It'll make a great statement in the tank. Kim/Benton, AR
The tank is in the house! My BIL came over this evening and helped my move it in the house. I made a run to Home Depot to get some shims so I could start the demanding task of leveling the tank. Went upstairs and retrieved my level and here's what I found. Length ways. I was flabbergasted! Every single way I could put the level on the tank it was perfectly level. Guess I'll start plumbing!
Got quite a bit done tonight! Plumbed the return and the Bean Animal drain. Got my Apex up an running using a Net Gear gaming adapter for internet access. Cord management and plumbing the mixing station thru the wall are going to be the big challenges for me. The manifold for my dosers
This looks very well done. Plumbing has always looked too complex for me to attempt myself. Can you explain why you plumbed this way? I understand a pipe for water in and a pipe for water out. This looks really different from my setup. Also I have no idea what a Bean Animal drain is.
Sure! I'll show you at the next meeting too. My overflow has 5 holes. Two 3/4" bulkheads on either end and three 1" bullkheads between. If you look at that first picture from left to right the first pipe and the 5th pipe are returns from my return pump. They are actually tied together if you look closely. #5 has a pipe with nothing attached and a red gate valve down low...this will go to the return pump. The blue valve controls flow to the two black push to fit fittings that feed my GFO and Carbon reactors. The 3 center pipes make up the Bean Animal (the name came from a picture of the guy who came up with this kind of drain setup.....in the picture he had on a T shirt that said Be An Animal. The letters were so close ....voila Bean Animal) . The Bean Animal consists of a full siphon drain, an open standpipe drain and a dry (true emergency)emergency drain. The full siphon has a gate valve on it (the middle pipe) that allows you to adjust it so about 95% of the flow from your return drains through it. Just a trickle goes down the open stand pipe. This results in a self adjusting DEAD quiet drain setup. It also has double redundancy. If the siphon is obstructed the water level rises a little in the overflow which purges the air out of the open standpipe and makes it a full siphon. If that were to also fail the dry emergency would prevent an overflow accident. There are some other permutations of the setup that inclue a Herbie (basically a Bean Animal minus the dry emergency drain). Most of the commonly sold after market overflows (Ghost, Reef Savvy, Glass Holes, etc.) are available with the appropriate number of holes.
Got a lot done this evening after church. Lights are installed and the controller is working properly. Apex installed with a Net Gear gaming adapter and it's operating normally. Skimmer and return pump in and cord management started. Apex, the gaming adapter is the little thing with the three green lights. Cord management...the dangling cords are from the lights. I have to get some velcro wraps to get those under control I know it doesn't look great but believe me, compared to what it was like before the move it's great. LOL
Dry rock and sand going in today. This is a preliminary scape. Still have some live rock that will come over from the temp tank.
Yeah! The tank is full, the heaters and skimmer are on and everything seems to be working well. One small glitch last night. I made new standpipes for the overflow and made them the exact same dimensions of the old ones. What I didn't take in to account was that I had threaded bulkheads before but this time went with slip in the overflow and threaded below the tank. This made the new standpipes too short and I had to redo them last night. Tank filled, water pretty clear for only 12 hours or so. Left end controllers for MP10, MP40 and the skimmer Controllers on the right side MP40, MP10 and Vectra return pump
Today was move day. All the corals except one zoa, most of the snails minus the conchs, fish, cleaner shrimp and starfish all in the tank. Could not find my tiny coral banded shrimp anywhere. I saw him last night so I know he's in there. I suspect he was on one of the rocks I moved yesterday. My Brittle Star on his way....5 gallon bucket, he can reach both sides. Right side Left side Zoa garden on top of the shelf rock Rock Flower nemes Fish purple polyp Duncan
