Anyone up for badminton or Karaoke? :mrgreen::mrgreen:

playing online poker :)

This it, Mike? http://www.korallen-zucht.de/en/serv...-just-14-days/

It sounds pretty neat but man adding fish at day 10 without checking things like nitrite beforehand seems kinda brave ... I suppose there's no harm in checking nitrite and adjusting the schedule accordingly if the reading is non-zero.

Tony I used the 14 day cycle for my system, and even had the slimers in after that. I think at the start of my thread you can see the alage outbreak, but then that was it.
I dunno, now a days there are many different ways to run a tank. just sayin.


I thought that all this was behind us, E.T. ouch :sad:

mwaaaaahahahahahahaha

I've done the 14 day start when I ran zeo briefly....liked it. Then got lazy. We're starting a good old fashioned cycle on the tank today with a hunk of scallop.

Well John was going to be one of my references about it but beat me to it. Saved me some typing :) I'm thinking it's the method that will be used when I start a tank from scratch.

So ... whilst waiting for silicone to cure ..

1) Clam spawn mess on Sunday night. Did an emergency water change Sunday night and another on Monday, changed out the carbon filter skimmer etc etc etc. Bit of a rough night but everyone did OK. Also I finally finished my old carbon so to get new carbon on the tank I cracked open the Rox0.8 carbon. Holy CRAP is that stuff awesome! I have not seen such water clarity since I was running Zeo on the tank.

2) Didn't put my skimmer back together tightly enough, had some skimmate spill yesterday. Ew.

3) Back to Sunday. After the water change I couldn't get one of the powerheads to start. Took them ("them" plural - it's a dual so has two propellers on the same pump head) apart and discovered the shafts were all rusted out. Trying to DIY a fix using bike spokes (helps to have a friend with a bike store - he just gave me a handful of spokes to work with - stainless steel, should work well.) Having a bit of trouble getting the rusty ones out though. Odds are not bad I'm going to end up wrecking the whole impeller.

4) Carpet tank skimmer (BM150) stopped working. Took it apart discovered the impeller had totally shattered. Oho! I have me a spare impeller. Clever me. Replaced the impeller, still doesn't go. Took it apart, discovered this one is broken now. Oh right .. this happened to me before and I forgot that I had fixed the one impeller using Weldon. Guess it didn't hold. Am now in a hunt for a new impeller for an Altman 2500. I've msg'd Progressive Reef and hoping for the best.

5) Did at least get part of the plumbing redone. Sump return is back together. I haven't finished the skimmer feed as I don't really know how I want it. I'll dry fit it and then decide that I hate it. And so on.

Tomorrow night will be 7 days since the new silicone was applied. I can't wait to get the tank filled the rest of the way to see what next hurdle can present itself. :lol:

Better to spill than forcefully launch into your wall.
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/5243/p1140014m.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9430/p1140013.jpg

I'm going to blame the disproportionately strong right hand on that move :razz:. Can't wait to see the 280g full Tony, you still have that beautiful Red Sea Sailfin tang?

I remember that. Wow man, that was ... epic. :lol:

I do. He's a total camera hog too, I should try getting some pictures. I meant to last night but the camera battery was toast, I plugged it in and promptly forgot about it. I should go take some pick-choors.

How in the hell did you do that?

My Hydor 700 skimmer likes to be difficult at times, I was trying to get the skimmer head off to clean it and some how managed to throw the puppy half way across the room :lol:.

That tang is going to LOVE the 280g Tony, what a nice little upgrade for the feller.

Well, at least you didn't throw it all over your wife. :redface:

HAHAHAAaaa!!! Lance reading that story actually made me shoot milk out my nose, I didn't believe it was actually possible until it happened to me.

Skimmate makes for some good times :lol:.

I run a hydor also, do what I do, take out the inner ring on the skimmer (where the neck of the skimmer cup goes)... I have run it this way since the beginning and it works great. Then you don't have to fight with putting it on or throwing it around.

Oh Yeah, Yuck!!! What a mess.

Some pictures out of boredom. Seeing these really drives home to me I should consider Lasik or something.

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0003-1.jpg

The rabbit is now the second-largest fish in the tank.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0001-2.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC_0002.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0009-1.jpg

When the trigger doesn't think I'm looking, she is a more emerald green colour. I have no idea the significance of the blue. Her way of asking for food maybe???
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0006-1.jpg

Here you can see the significant bleaching to my purple carpet. :( Been about 3 months now, maybe more. Still eating at least, I am hoping it will recover over time and after transfer to the new tank.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0021-1.jpg

Ok! Back on track. Maybe! Hopefully! Geez, I really hope so anyhow.

Sump is slid back in place, and replumbed.

Sump return:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1579-0.jpg

What I did was take the chop saw to the original bulkhead and then chipped off the bulkhead off the elbow piece so I wouldn't have to buy new 2" ball valve pieces. I had enough of the bulkhead left to re-use it, so I did. :lol: It's just a low-profile bulkhead now. The threads are just long enough to clear through the 10mm glass and have about 2mm poking out under the thread nut.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1581-0.jpg

And the skimmer is hooked up and plumbed:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1583-0.jpg

Pardon the mess of wires .. I've not been worrying about the wiring until I was reasonably happy with the placement of "stuff" (skimmer, pumps, etc.) Cleaning up the wiring will be a job in itself, but for a later day.

Good Karma on ya Tony.

looks like your making some action, keep it up eh

Oh sweet your skimmer outlet feeds into a sock. Trap them micro bubbles nicely.

heeeeck yeessss!

glad to see things back on track Tony. and +1 to the outlet of the skimmer into a sock!

Looking good Tony. I think we already discussed this earlier: The skimmer emptying into a filter sock is a great idea, but you're going to get ****y having to change the sock every day or two. In hind sight I would have set mine up with a way bigger sock than the 4" one. I"m lucky to get two days before changing. :cry:

That is one monster skimmer, would love to see that in operation.

Looking good of course.

It's looking good Tony. Did the holes line up for the bulk heads, or did you have to redo some of your plumbing? When do we get to see water in that bad boy?

Filling as we speak. :) Need to get me some sand and start working on the rock now I suppose.

The sump return hole worked out perfect. The skimmer feed hole was something I had to scratch my head on for a bit but I think what I've done will work out. There are two 90's on the suction side, but it's 1.5" pipe for a 3/4" input so hopefully the pump will not notice a perceivable restriction. Gonna find out tonight how well it works once the sump is full enough to do a wet test of the plumbing!!

you squealed like a little school girl. Admit it. We know it's true.

You mean more so than usual?

Oh .. and .. first leak found. Well ... not "found" exactly, but has made its presence felt. Grrrrrr. I can't tell where it's coming from. It actually looks like it's coming out the side of the union valve that was meant to be the shutoff point for the skimmer feed. The valve itself is shut. Going to go lie on the floor and stare at it some and see what's up with this..

oh leaks...
the guys at the shop got a kick out of me just staring at plumbing for minutes on end....or laying on the floor half under the tank and just my legs out on the floor. Some people just dont get it ha ha

Argh, the one bulkhead leaks too. Of course it's the one where the threaded end is on the inside of the tank. I've gotten my pipe wrench in there and reefed on it but it doesn't seem to stop. The gasket is squishing out from under the thread nut so I guess I can't be running the bulkhead this way (I don't really like to run bulkheads this way anyhow) but I only did so on account that I have a really right clearance, if the skimmer sits any further away from the sump the output pipe is not going to reach back over to the sump.

YAY! Guess I'm emptying the sump to fix this. Hope I have enough buckets and empty tanks to hold the RO/DI cuz it would suck to have to dump it and produce it all over again. I should though, .. sometimes being a packrat has its advantages.

Okaydoke. Here is today's valuable learning experience:

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1586-0.jpg

Don't use a valve like this in the 1.5" size (I've used similar half-union'd valves on 1", 3/4" and 1/2" without issue on a few calcium reactors I tried making back in the early days).

The 3 little sticks are these little holder things that keep in place the white plastic ring that in turn holds the ball in place. The ball just sits in the fluid and it's insane how loose it all is (it just falls out when you take the clip out). There's no way this thing could hold back pressure of any kind ... and, well, it didn't. 10" of water and the thing was leaking right through the join. In fact I can blow into the pipe and the air escapes out - not through the ball - ie., water wouldn't flow through the pipe at least, but the housing isn't watertight in the least.

I can't imagine ANY scenario that a valve like this would be useful. What the heck???

Off to find me a true-union 1.5" valve tomorrow. Man I hope Red Coral has one in their boxes-o-plumbing heaven .. to order something like this from BRS is do-able but darn it all if that isn't another 2 weeks or whatever. I suppose I could just use a standard PVC valve from HD and a union and get the same effect but that will end up being huuuuuuuge and cumbersome and I'd just rather not.

Bah!

Guess it's still better to find these things out now and not after there's rock and sand and livestock in there.

weird, I've never seen ball valves like that before. Where'd you get em? A little off topic, but remember how I said I couldn't find unions anywhere...went to home depot yesterday to pick up a new dremel...unions galore.

:mad:

Rona has unions stocked fairly regularly nowadays which is kinda nice. Home Depot I find still about 50/50. Sometimes I'm surprised by what they have, other times I'm surprised by what they don't.

This kind of valve is called a single-union ball valve and should be a fairly standard sort of thing. It's the kind of union'd valve that Western Pump happens to sell. We don't seem to be overly blessed with too many PVC warehouses in Calgary, probably on account that around here it's mainly used for garden irrigation and pools. This particular one seems defective in the housing that's intended to allow for servicing. I should probably return it but I doubt I'd get anywhere on it since it's all cemented in and stuff now. For the $15 or whatever it was it's probably worth going back in and showing them but on the other hand the time it will take me to pack up the kids and drive on over there and blah blah blah blah.

Hopefully Red Coral has the true-union style for 1.5" in stock. I *could* order from BRS, I need a 1" gate valve anyhow that nobody in town seems to have in stock at the moment, so I have to do an order anyhow at some point... but it would be nicer if I could just get this part locally. The 1" gate valve isn't quite as mission critical as it will be for the frag tank, but I kind of do need a block valve.

There was a tiny piece of silicone goo that I missed under the bulkhead gasket so at least that explains that leak. So in the meantime I can get the bulkhead reinstalled and put in a PVC plug into the bulkhead for the time being while I remake the skimmer feed line.

Yeah, you should be able to find them at any good plumbing store. We even have them here in little Powell River. :biggrin:

Never mind.

Yeah, I'm usually pretty jealous at the plumbing supply stores I see and how well stocked they are when I come out to the coast. It's weird what you find yourself noticing after a few years in this hobby. "Aw man, this place has GATE VALVES? What the HE** !!!" I have found myself uttering these words sooooo many times when on vacation.

Around here though, not so much. I think it's because irrigated agriculture is much bigger out your way than it is here (which also doesn't make sense. Where does it usually rain? Where does is usually NOT rain? Summer 2010 notwithstanding.)

Anyhow I don't pretend to understand anything anymore. It is what it is. Until someone tells me the secret place that sells PVC bits galore around here, it's a combo of Red Coral, Western Pump, and Home Depot/Rona. Each place sells about 90% of what you need at any one moment. So you have to hope that the overlap of each 90% on top of each other covers closer to 98%-100% of what you need, you just accept that you have to hit up each one of them until you have everything you need, or enough for a suitable workaround.

hey tony is this what your looking for,
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/002-7.jpg

Yes - you wanna sell it?? :lol: Please and thank you? (Is that 1.5" ? Kinda looks like 1.5" anyhow..)

ya its a 1.5", who dosent have 1 of these floating around in the basement lol,
but ya its just sitting around so make me a fair offer and its yours, but ofcours i live on the other side of the city from you also

Plumbing is such a frustrating thing. Not even talking about DOING the plumbing it's acquiring all the dang parts. Even BRS didn't stock strainers for bulkheads when I did an order once. Got EVERYTHING else yet still had to make a second trip around the city in search.

Gob of silicone...you use silicone on your bulkheads man?

Ideally no. It depends on the fit of the bulkhead in the hole. The previous panel's hole was slightly larger than it needed to be so I put a tiny bead in the hole to fill the gap between the threads and the glass. (You're not supposed to put silicone under the overlap or the gasket though.). Anyhow that piece broke so there were a few tiny bits still stuck to the threads. I brushed it off as best I could but I guess I missed one tiny speck of it.

Ironically, the hole I had for 2" before was perfect and the hole for 1.5" slightly too large, this time around the hole for 1.5" is perfect and the 2" hole was slightly too large and required a tiny bit of silicone to prevent the bulkhead from shifting around in the hole.

I hear ya. When I plumbed the 225 I picked up what I could from the local plumbing store and then had to order from J&L, BRS and O/A.