Man, when I get to this stage in my build imma have to ask you some pointers on the float switch's. I want to rig a few to cut the return pump in the event of a blockage. And the same in the ATO tank.

Everything's looking fantastic. I thank you for having such a detailed build thread. Theres a lot I can learn when my sump room build is under way. I will have 6 tanks total plumbed into the same system, much like yours.

No problem, whenever you're ready send me a PM

May I make a suggestion, no need for a heater in the ato as it adds small amounts of water to the system at various times. Cover up the ato resevoir and add an airstone to circulate/aerate/agitate the water. If you dose liquid supplements you can add magnesium and alk to the ato and it will act as a doser. To cover up the ato tank you can use plastic sign board, easy to work with, make cuts for tubes, plugs, hoses. I found a sheet of 4x8' at industrial plastics for cheap, you can also use it to cover parts of your sump. Since covering my sump I have lost 25% less water than when I didn't. My sump has a middle refuge which I used glass the rest was the sign board.

Nice progress btw, are you adding sand or is it BB?

Thanks for the suggestions
I have unplugged the heater and may use it in the winter months
I may add an airstone but for now am relying on a maxijet 600 for circulation
I haven't put any thought yet into covering the tanks
As for sand, I just added it tonight and am waiting for it to clear before I take any pics
I picked up some chaeto today and am hoping to add some coral soon so I can start feeding the tank :smile:, but I will wait until my nutrients are under control
Tomorrow is testing day

!!!
Nice can't way to see more progress on this beast :lol:
I myself finally painted the back of my tank lol... the wires finally started to
give me a headache! now its all black. (I think next time I will go blue):sad:

Picture time !!!

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01041.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01042.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01043.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01044.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01045.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01046.jpg

Nice! That looks boss

Thanks :mrgreen: My wife was a really big help with the rock

Looks like I get to go shopping soon;

79.9 - 80.3 F
pH 8.13
Silicates 0
Copper 0
NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 0
PO4 0
KH 9
Ca 460
Mg 1350
Sg 1.026

My temp will never go outside those #s barring an equipment failure. My Sg should stay nice and stable as the ATO is doing a great job keeping the sump level rock stable.
I know my KH and Ca are a bit out of whack with each other. I'll re-test them over the next few days and see what's up.

I still have a small list of things to do, but nothing pressing now :biggrin:

that aquascape looks awesome!! well done!:mrgreen:

Very nice indeed!

Love the aquascaping Gregg. Give your wife a big high five for us.

Rock work looks great Greg :) nice to see you're so close to adding some life to your system.

Its alive!!!!:biggrin:.....the scape does indeed look spiffy........

Aw shucks :redface: Thanks everybody
Anthony I'll let Donna know you like it

After bringing some critters home from J&L and testing their water, I've decided to drop my Sg from 1.026 to 1.024
I'll keep it there for now as I feel it will be easier to acclimate critters to a lower Sg as opposed to a higher level
So, with that said, and after over an hour of dripping ..... ( I trippled their bag water )

I added 2 Astrea snails and 1 Red Scarlet hermit tonight
I know, I didn't want hermits in the tank ( or all the shells ), but, well, we'll see ....

Before acclimating, one of the snails had a green shell.
When I put them in the tank, the green shell was clean :smile:
They separated after about 1/2 hour and are milling about nicely

The hermit immediately started in on some guck on his rock. He kept at it for over a 1/2 hour. I think he's full and now taking a break, but here he is busy at work

Pics suck as I don't have a super-duper camera and the main lights were off

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...RedScarlet.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...treaSnails.jpg

After some food I am going to add salt to the QT I just finished flow testing and will also add some to the NSW tank that is now up to temp

Tomorrow will be a 15% WC for the DT and maybe some new fishies into the QT after a trip to J&L :razz:
Plus, depending on the wife, we may end up with some corals too :wink:
Hell, we may even find some time tomorrow or Monday to hit OA as well :smile:

Very nice!

Thanks Shelley

Got tied up yesterday and did nothing

Just completed my first WC
I did 15% and now the skimmer is functioning normally again. I got a great tip from Kenny. It looks like either some leftover glueing guck, or the new sand, or both was/were the issue
I'm hoping my pH will come back up now as it dropped from 8.13 to 8.0 after I turned the skimmer off. I'm not worried about it right now, just making an observation

I split the chaeto into 2 balls - one on each side of the overflow and both are tumbling nicely

After this post I'm going to get the GFO running
I'll probably leave the carbon reactor empty for now

The QT is functioning nicely;
No leaks, stable Sg temp etc

I'm going to try to get the wife to J&L tomorrow to see what peaks her interest

I just brought home another 57lbs of LR :mrgreen:
When I'm ready it'll go in the sump. Whatever won't fit will go in the QT
I'm going to give it a quick RO dip and put it in a rubbermaid for a couple days to see where it's at

I'm not going to cure it, unless I get some heavy readings over the next days. It was in the seller's tubs long enough and now's the time to have a tank cycle anyway :wink:
Obviously I'm going to get a cycle with it, but I agree with everyone that I didn't have anywhere close to enough @ 15lbs

I'm waiting for the rubbermaid water to warm up, so .... more pics

The GFO is running. I moved both reactor outlet lines so they go through the socks and maybe some will even get into the skimmer. There's still all the room I need to easily change the socks too

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01056.jpg

Here's one of the kinds of sponge that survived the cooking - the white ball that looks like an urchin

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01055.jpg

And today I spotted some mushrooms that I thought were only coralline
They are purple in this pic. Looks like about 8 or so
Bad, bad picture

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01054.jpg

I'm really happy with the LR I bought from TaioneReefer. He let me pick through two different tubs and his smaller SW tank. Lots and lots of coralline, lots of Tonga, lots of nice shaped base pieces too and it's light, porous rock. Great guy. Thanks Kevin

If you're lookin' for LR, you'd best contact him soon. He still has a lot of great pieces left - some huge ones too

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=85705

I filled my rubbermaid and then had to 'scape the 20g QT too 'cause I bought way too much for one rubbermaid !!!
Looks like I can't buy any fish this week now until I get the rock out of the QT. But that's OK as now there may be some seeding going on in the AC50
Later, probably this coming weekend, I'll put as much as I can in the sump and decide what to risk in the QT

So far there are loads of micro brittles, and some asterinas, amphipods, tube worms/feather thingys, mushrooms, some sponges and also a bunch of some kind of polyps spread out
Also lots and lots of coralline

I gave everything a quick RO dip and managed to pull out what was left of some live Fireworms that he missed. No biggie - it's LR so it's expected
No crabs to be found and, unfortunately, no bristle worms. Ce La Vie

Great find - way more life than the LR I got from the LFS that someone traded in

I transfered a few micro brittles to the DT but I'll leave the Asterinas for now

So, as I stated earlier today, I'll watch the rubbermaid LR this week and if there's no spikes and no PO4, I'll load up the sump.
The wife already has her eye on a couple small pieces to add to the DT as well :wink:

And, 'cause Photobucket seems to be endless ...

The rock is not green, it's just my camera

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01058.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01057.jpg

Micro star ( like no one's seen them before :rolleyes: )

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01063.jpg

Mushrooms on Kevin's rock. There's lots more - probably over 1/2 dozen I can see

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01060.jpg

Are these tube worms the kind that grow in your sump and such when there's too many nutrients ???

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC01064.jpg

Nothing exciting here. Just trying my hand at a youtube thing
Here's the chaeto tank in action

http://youtu.be/B3B2yIX97-4

looking good Mang.

I could be wrong but if your using the chaeto fuge to grow pods as well, the flow might need to be a bit slower

I'm not overly worried about pods yet but that's a good point
It's funny you mention that as I'm still kinda fine tuning all the flows and while it may be a lot for the chaeto I'd still like to have it rolling some
Each time I turn it down I have to adjust the drain rate so it's a slow process

Things are lookin' up

Diatoms started a couple days ago, so the cycle isn't stalled. Nothing out of control to speak of, just some here and there. I wonder if all the snail poo has re-started the cycle - hmm ...
All DT params are great. Nothing to measure except a trace of NO3

Last night we started seeing copepods all over the glass and now they are visible daytime too. This makes me happy. They must have come from the chaeto

We now have 5 astreas, 12 margaritas and 4 red scarlet hermits. All are busy cleaning the rock and giving us something to watch.
I installed the red moonlights today, on a 1 hour timer, so we can watch stuff after the lights go out

Waiting to put the new LR in ... probably this weekend
I won't say the rock is ready by any means, but now is the time to mess the tank up
Today's readings, in 9g of water, are NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 1+ and PO4 1-2 ish

I don't want to wait another month or 3 curing the rock in a tub, so into the system it goes :lol:

And something funny to me ...
I turned my back on the DT for about 5 mins, after watching the hermits for awhile. I come back and one of the dudes has gone from the extreme left rock pile to the extreme right one. He's pickin' away at another hermit, they get quite close for a min or two, then he leaves. The other hermit carried on afterwards, so no harm.
He had gone down the tower of rock, across 3 feet of sand, up another tower of rock and straight to another hermit.
Only conclusion I come to is mating

I ended up having to keep the flow where I had it
The chaeto wouldn't tumble otherwise and I'm not overly concerned how it will affect the pods as it's just motion, not flushing :smile:
If the pods can't hang onto a ball that big, they deserve to end up in the DT :mrgreen:

my guess would be, attempted shell-jacking.....hermits are somewhat criminal:twised:

exciting times when those pods start taking off (or appearing at all). it's amazing how long you can sit and watch them when you're in that phase of a build.

i've got hawk eyes for seeing little things in my tank and i have not seen a pod in ages during lights on. the wrasses are masters of the hunt.

That's what I thought at first, and the attacker was quite a bit larger, but nothing came of it
There are lots of similar shells at the base of both rock piles
I guess when you want that particular one, you're gonna go for it

I know once we start adding hunters they'll disappear, but it's nice to know there's some food about

With any luck, Saturday will be "add more LR to the system" day

I can't add most of the new rock until the wife picks through it to put some pieces in the DT

I may start adding some to the sump as I know which ones I don't want in the DT, but I can't get too carried away yet

Hard to not just do it on my own :mrgreen: but I like her opinion

It's been said recently on someones else's build ....
Happy wife ... happy life

You're going to keep rock in your sump as well then? I used to but wow did it ever collect debris no matter how well I stirred the sump up with flow.

Ya, I know it's going to be a big problem, but thanks for the warning. I see myself having to clean out the drain section of the sump weekly for the next year or so ... whoooppeeee

Thing is, I couldn't find any LR worth buying back in Feb.
You'll recall when I found the aiptasia ... that was the rock I bought back then
I cured it for months and, by the time we were ready to fill the tank, all we had was 14# of LR and a bunch of base that we had already scaped. I didn't want to ruin the cured rock with more, uncured, so, well ....

I thought we could wait for the base rock to mature, but now I don't want to do that

I'm seeing I need a lot more LR than we started with and I don't want to ruin our original scape. Plus, I'm not going through the epoxy thing again. That crap messed everything up

So, I'm left with filling the sump for a year or so until the system matures

And, to add, I'm going to end up with a whole lot of algae problems now with the leaching from this newer rock

Your wife appears to have pretty good taste (at least with the scape . . . Which looks great). All of my guy's taste is in his mouth.

You're build, with spouse involvement, is going to turn out much better than mine. :lol:

Oh don't say that
I'm sure that, once you two make your minds up about your background, you will have an awesome 40 long :wink:

But thanks for the encouragement :mrgreen:

I only hope it goes well enough regarding the parameters :surprise:

Shelley made up her mind, trouble is hubby isn't going along with it -lol

Shelley, do you need a little help from us ????
We could always start some kind of riot or something :mrgreen:

Honestly, I wish we could show your hubby what it's like with weird backgrounds and such :hug:

The new LR is leaching too much NO3 and PO4 to go in the DT system now
Looks like I'll have to do some WCs and be patient while it cooks some more :sad:

On the plus side, the snails and herms are doing a nice job of keeping the DT fairly clean

I've been messing with the MP10 settings and placement and am happy so far with the detritus situation

I have decided that if he keeps working weekends (flooring contractor) that I am going to paint the tank when he's at work.

I think it a bit unwise that he leave us (our three-year-old and myself) to our own devices on a weekend.

I've purchased the paint already. He hasn't noticed it sitting there, yet.

Where did you place the MP10s? I'm very interested in their placement, as I'm undecided over using them. Your tank is 12 inches longer and 5 inches taller, so if they work for you they should work for us.