Thanks Steve. I just calibrated the ph controller, and the RO wasn't constant. That makes sense now. It's been reading about 6. I guess I'll wait to heat and salt the water then worry about the ph. Thanks for the help.

Well, I've been checking the ph of my closed loop intake "fake" rock. It's ready to go into the tank. I cut up some eggcrate and pressure fitted it into the abs fitting. Here are some pictures.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247439227

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247439256

My tank is now 90% full, but I can't run it with the sump until I get probably about 50 more gallons of water out of my RO unit. I put the rock in the tank and this is how it looks.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247439346

And just for fun I started up the wavemaker to get the water moving and here are some pictures for an idea of how high the wave is. Just look at the angle of the water.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247442848

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247442873

As soon as I started up the wavemaker, particulate matter from the sand became suspended. So I guess it's working.

I also added a heater in the main display with the water motion so that at least the tank is not ice cold when I start salting the tank.

I turned on the OM 4way with the dart on full blast for a while and put my hand near the intake of my fake rock and I can barely feel any suction at all. I think I did pretty well in trying to spread the intake flow out over a larger area, this was my goal in the first place in making my fake rock.

Awesome job on the intake! It'll take a sharp eye to find it. Nice work.

Thanks so much. Hopefully I'll be able to conceal it a bit more once I start aquascaping and "covering" the holes from the viewable sides.

Lots to update on. First of all last night I plumbed in my frag tank. My tank is 80% full of RODI water now. Man, a few days to fill a tank. Gotta have a lot of patience. Here are pictures of the plumbing

This is the spray nozzle that I always had on my frag tank

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247549769

Here is the drain line T'd into my emergency overflow
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247549821

That was last night. Tonight was much more exciting. This morning I saw there was enough water so I turned the system on and let her run. I've been heating the water for some time now. So tonight after the kidlets went to bed I salted the tank.

I dug up a BRAND NEW bucket of salt from 6 YEARS AGO. I opened up the invoice stuck to the side of the pail and it was dated 8/5/2003. I ordered it from J&L for 54.95. My system ended up using the ENTIRE pail of salt. I even ended up with a free Mini Jet pump in the salt. My salinity ended up being 1.023.... I'll probably slowly bring it up to 1.024 later when I get another pail of salt. Notice that this pail does not have the twist off lid?

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247550131

Anyway, I added my live rock that I've been storing in heated, salted, flowing water for the last 4 years. I know that I don't have any bad critters at least. This is what 4 year old cooked rock looks like with a few chunks of aragocrete:

Water is still a bit cloudy from fooling around in there and I gotta change that yellow light bulb. It's an xm 10K and I don't like it at all - got it from Saltynuts a few nights ago.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247550339

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247550367

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247550418

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1247550444

Pretty boring, but thanks for following this slow build. I managed to hide all the nozzles of the closed loop fairly well and also the intake of the pump while still allowing full flow with no blockage or things in the way.

Dez that looking really great. well done you must be stoked by now.

It looks great, nice aquascaping!!! What are you planning for fish?

We aren't quite sure what for fish yet, Here is what the kids/wife came up with though

Yellow Tang
Kole Tang
Mandarin Goby (probably a couple of years down the road when it's established)
If we can find an angel of some sort that won't touch sps (I know, good luck on that)
A pair of clowns (probably just oscellaris)
A trigger (maybe Niger or Bluethroat)
Regal Tang

That's about it so far. We are going to try to find most of our stuff "used" from people who are shutting down systems etc....the livestock seem to be much healthier that way. But our impatience might impede us on this idea.

Yea, looking good Dez. Rockwork is great. Good work on the closed loops.

10k does look bad. sorry man didn,t look to bad on my nano(20gal)
i have xm 10k bulbs on the big tank and they must go.
looking very good

There are some reef safe angelfish that are SPS friendly. I have one in my tank right now. Its going to Russ though unless you can convince him otherwise...there's a male version of my fish at Marine Aquaria right now too if you were wanting a possible pair......

Theres also a really nice pair of Sargassum Triggers there right now. Nice fish.

I can tell you're giddy as hell. Glad to see you get water in that beast!

I sure am! Even my neighbours accross the street e-mailed and commented at how they were sad when we closed the drapes cause they were absolutely loving the lights.

Now I can't wait for my cabinet work to get here!

Hi Dez
it was nice meeting you and thanks for the equipment!! The tank looks AWESOME!!!!
I now have to get a bigger tank!! Take care!!

water and rocks, looking great.

btw, well done on the CL intake.

I agree great job with the aquascaping. Your not concerned about ever having to clean the CL output nozzles? Looks as though that may prove to be difficult.

Thanks. No I'm not too concerned. They are full 1" outs. I don't foresee having to take them out ever. I can actually reach my hand in an touch them all which means I could always get a small brush in there. But with 3600 gph closed loop running 24/7 I don't think the outputs will need much for cleaning. The intake was more of a concern for me. That's why I went with eggcrate as a grate (Larger holes, hopefully won't clog. But they are fairly Accessible.

Ya, you wouldnt think stuff could grow with that much flow but, my vortech puts out that much flow and still needs to be cleaned....should be all-right if you can get in there though.

hey what about a pair of lammerick angels that are not sps nippers i have one in my tank and he is a bubble algae picker.

Do you have a picture of yours? Sounds cool.

there should be one in my thread on my 150 gal let me find one for you then

Not much to update except I was about to hook up my skimmer and noticed a small leak. I have to go get some weldon 40 sometime to fix it....boo. I have filled my frag tank with water and salted it (also with 6 year old salt :). Here are some updated tank shots that aren't cloudy. I took down my 5 gallon nano and added the rock to the tank to help with the cycle.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248070363
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248070383
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248070408
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248070434
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248070461

looks great buddy. hows the CL in around the rocks are they stable there with all the water movement.

So far so good. It's been running like this for a few days and I haven't had my hands in the tank at all. The sand however has moved a little bit on the edges because I moved the wavy sea closer to the end of the tank. I siliconed a piece of glass to use as the wavysea bracket, which raised the wavy sea a little bit. Here's a picture - I wanted the wavy as far left as possible, but as you can see it can't go any lower:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248092337

So I couldn't put a 90 degree fitting because it was just a tiny bit too high which drew bubbles from the water surface, so I ended up putting a 45" elbow on the end of the wavy sea which points it too far down toward the sand, so it gradually moved the sand a bit exposing some of the glass bottom. The solution to this is I've ordered an omni flex nozzle from Oceans Motions. It's sort of like a 2 section locline but in full 1", that way I can adjust it so that it's not facing down like the 45 elbow, or too close to the water's surface like the 90 elbow.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248092514

You could buy a coupler as well. This would allow you to put the 90 as low as you wanted it to go.

I picked up a pair of bellus angels a couple weeks ago, cousins of the lamarck angels. These swallowtail angels (Genicanthus species) really grow on you. Another one that is sometimes is available is watanabei (sp?) angels. Think there are around 6 swallowtail species (give or take). Check this page out: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/fi...s/genicanthus/

And oh yeah, doesn't need saying of course, but your tank is really looking great. :cool:

Way too low. I know I could cut it down but I'd rather the schedule 80 grey look and some flexibility. I am really happy with the omni flex nozzles on the closed loop returns.

Are the Wavysea's also a metric pipe size? I know I tried fitting a 1" coupler onto it and it wasn't a really good snug fit, had a slight wobble to it.

Thanks Tony,

I'll have to consider one of the angels. Looking forward to stocking, but gotta be patient.

I got my first 3 fish today - FREE from Blacknife (Thanks). These are sort of my test the water fish. I have about 5 - 10 lbs of seasoned nice rock in the tank already along with some really old cooked rock. The water tests shows everything at 0 so I'm assuming the tank doesn't have to "cycle".

I put the 3 domino damsels in my 40 gallon frag tank. They seem to be doing well. I'm just gonna leave it at these 3 fish for a while and maybe as I get algae (as I'm putting my tank on a 12 hour photoperiod off the bat), I will get a good clean up crew in there first before any major fish. I spent probably 1 1/2 hours acclimating these guys.

Here are a couple of shots.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248328696

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248329191

Sorry, deleted double post.

awe they are all hanging out together they must be confused :)

A little more space in there than in the bucket they spent the day in.

Thanks again John, They seem to have acclimated well for being so new to my tank. :)

Love the rockwork Dez... keep up the good work!

Can't wait to see this with corals. I'm in love with the living room side of the tank <3

Thanks for the comments BlueAbyss

I have a problem. One of the damsels died today (I haven't been home yet). My wife took the other 2 in rough shape to the store to rescue them so that we didn't kill the rest. Everything seems to have tested fine and I actually have a frag of colt coral that's in the main display for about a week already and it is fully open all the time.

I will test when I get home. But this is really baffling me cause it's been running for almost 2 weeks now without anything.

Could it be the 5 year old live rock leaching something? PH is at about 8.25 all the time. Temp at about 78.5 all the time even with this 30 degree heat wave (I attribute it to having so much water volume in the cool basement). Ammonia was at 0 last time I checked. I will check other parameters as soon as I get home.

I am just starting to get the brown algae forming on the rocks which is part of the nutrient cycle right? All the damsels were healthy....

So frustrating.....

Any ideas? Or people with experience?

Love those damsels.

I know I'm crazy but I totally love all the cheap, common damsels. I'd love a school of the 3 or 4 stripers but have no idea how bad they'd be.

They might have got stressed from being in the bucket. I checked the temp every hour or 2 and it stayed around 84 degrees. but that floating thermomoter might not be accurate. poor little guys

New update. The other 2 damsels are completely fine. My wife dropped them off at our local fish store today and I went there tonight and the other 2 damsels are completely fine in their quarantine tank. So something is seriously STRANGE going on in my fishtank.

I tested parameters tonight

Temp - 78
PH - 8.25
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5-10ppm
Calcium - 440
DKH - 17 (This was ridiculously high.....but would this cause fish death and should I do anything to lower it?)
Phosphate - 0 - 0.25

What is wrong? How could healthy damsels keel over and die overnight?

I bought some carbon tonight and I'll throw that in the tank.

My colt coral frag is doing really well with full polyp extension. It's only a 1" frag, but everyday for a couple of weeks it is fully extended.

I AM BAFFLED. ANY IDEAS?

Should I do anything about the DKH? It should be 7-9 right?

I have read that soda water or carbonated water will lower the DKH. As to whether it could harm your fish - I'm uncertain, not knowing very much about salt systems. However, I would assume that it's like any other water parameter and any high or low level can be bad...