nice to sea! whats next ageing the water! lol

Muck I didnt know that you liked leapsters games that much,,,

lmao

awesome Tony, so if it took almost two years to get water in it. How long before live rock/livestock ? :lol:

You'll eat those words John. He's got my old rock and there are some sexified pieces in there.

Rock is scattered amongst various containers in the basement, some of it is wet in rubbermaids with a Seio and a heater, some of it in a 20g, and some of it dry. I am very anxious to get on with setting the rock in and starting aquascaping.

The fish are also in pretty dire need of coming out of the cube these days. It wasn't supposed to take this long. :redface:

I'm also succumbing to weakness and thinking I want to go with a little bit of sand in there. I'm not digging the styrofoam underneath too much. I thought all this time "no sand, no sand no sand no sand" but ... I dunno. I think I want some sand after all. Good for the wrasses and .. just overall looking good. Hey John do you vacuum your sand at all? 'Cuz it sure looks good. I'm going to blame you for me wanting the sandbed after all. Is that gonna be cool at all? :)

So here we are tonight after 24 hours:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1568-0.jpg

... which is interesting because I figure (72*30*8.5)/231 = 79ish gallons minus maybe say 5ish for the overflow and we get 75gpd. And it's a 75gpd RO/DI! Never thought to measure out the volume per day before. I'm pleased to learn it is what it says it is. That is with an input pressure of about 96psi (I bypassed the house's pressure regulator to get that, when I first moved in I noticed the household pressure was around 60psi and I only noticed it because my RO/DI production went wayyyyy down). Anyhow, interesting lesson learned, RO/DI likes input pressure, if you can't get good pressure invest in a good feed pump or try bypassing the regulator and seeing what you get.

Just for something different:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1529-0.jpg

I really can't wait to take the two cubes down. They both have their own set of issues, overcrowding for one, out of control caulerpa in the other (I just spent the better part of an hour pruning it out as best I can .. a weekly exercise in futility - it just comes back.) God I hate caulerpa, not only is it pervasive and invasive but it's just .. I dunno, it's nasty stuff overall, it kills corals, and it's impossible to eradicate if you don't have someone who'll eat it. Luckily I do but just in the wrong tank. Another reason I hope the transfer is not too far into the future.

Dam, I knew you guys were in kahoots. maybe the build is already done, fully stocked, just slowly adding pictures.

Also as a completely irrelevant tangential aside, but because I'm compelled to share the story now that I reminded myself of it .. bypassing the household regulator was in fact my SECOND idea. The first idea I had was just to open the adjustment screw all the way. It was only the next day after when I was in the shower when I learned why my house was set to 60psi. The shower valve is just a on/off type thing that you can adjust the temperature but not the flow. Full on 96psi out of a shower head sends out these little ultrasonic speed streams of water that hurt like heck. "Ow ow ow ow ow! WTF is wrong with this shower? Ow ow ow ow ow! .... ohhhhhhh."

If you are going open aquascaping then get some sand for sure.

if you doing a wall style, like the old berlin tanks. then maybe not sand.

I have a horseshoe crab, 6 nass snails, and a sandsfiter star, at night you can see them burrowing around, like bugs bunny in the retro cartoons.

I do help them abit at the ends of the tank. Its really worth it though.

Not sure why but I actually get faster than 75 gpd out of mine. It is reading 0 tds so I don't question it.

Get a few powerheads in the tank so you can mix salt already!

Might not be quite a zen-ish as yours but I am thinking islands. Have a slightly different vision in mind but we'll see if I can translate concept into reality, I'm not very artistic.

A horseshoe crab?! Wow. I always thought they were something of a no-no but now that I think of it, I have no idea why. Maybe for fear they'll knock things over? I don't really know much about their captive care.

Ever thought about tiger tail cukes? I had some for a while but it occurs to me it's been a lonnggg time since I seen any, maybe they kicked off some time ago and I just never noticed. They did a pretty good job of pooping out clean sand though.

That's not a bad idea ... hmmmm. Tomorrow!

Maybe your RO/DI is 100gpd membrane? Or you have higher inlet pressure? You're right, with a TDS of zero .., just run with it and be happy. :) I'm getting zero right now but it's all new prefilters and new DI. The RO is outputting steady at around 7. Not the best membrane I ever owned, the one before this one had a much better rejection rate or whatever the term is, it was almost always zero except for the first half hour or so. My DI lasted much longer on that membrane .. until the membrane went that is.

ok, if your doing island or bommies then go for the sand.

I am using the aragamax select. its not too big and not too small.

the horseshoe crab do get large, 24in large, but i think that it will take sometime to get that big, I have had him since the start of the tank and i barely see him. I wish for one of those donkey cucumbers, i think he would do a great job. Didnt see any around though for along time.

I use the Dow Filmtec 75 gpd. And yeah used to get me 0 - 1 TDS out of the membrane only but these days 5-6 for 5g fills...can drop lower if I'm running it longer.

Wow have I missed alot lately ! Its really great to see how much you have accomplished. Everything is looking awesome. I remember that skimmer of Johnathon's, she is a beast but worked well. Have you seen or heard from him lately ? On the sand topic I'm glad you decided to add some. With a large tank I think it looks so much better and allows you to go with a much more open arrangement (like Johns). Keep up the good work.

Looks great Tony, I really admire your attention to detail!

If it is a good and properly labled membrain ie. a Dow filmtec TW30-1812-75 it is 75GPD @ 50 PSI. at 90 PSI it should give you about 130 GPD. the max operating PSI is 300PSI on the dows and I think you can get about 170GPD out of that one @ 100 PSI

these numbers are for 75 degree water temp, so you won't get that much as I doubt your tap water is 75 degrees. for example the 75gpd membrain only puts out 50gpd at 60 degree water.

Steve

It's Alive, It is ALIVE!!!

Yipeee, glad to see things moving along now...

I've got lots of cukes because the donkey dungs seem to be able to reproduce in my system. Sadly, I'm too far away to help you.

:sad:

"Donkey dung" = "tiger tail" cuke? If so doesn't J&L pretty much have them more or less all the time, or at least on a regular basis? I bought my last few from them, just emailed them and they had some. If you're OK with waiting a few weeks John we could pool an order maybe?

Thanks for the comments all. Tonight the tank is 2/3 full. I thought I had until maybe Thursday morning before it will start spilling over into the sump but I'm thinking it will be about this time tomorrow now. I better vacuum out the sump. Also tomorrow night if all goes well I should have a new skimmer to plumb in too. W00t w00t!!

Pm'd

Bittersweet update tonight in the most literal sense of the word I can think of.

First, the good news. Tonight, special delivery via BC (thanks once again Chin :cool: you can't imagine how happy I am with this new toy!!):

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1571-0.jpg


Unfortunately that's not all that's happened today. At the 11th hour, ie.:

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1572-0.jpg

This:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1574-0.jpg

So with water not 2 inches from the overflow point.. I decided before it starting spilling into the sump that it would be a good idea to pull the sump out and silicone around the stand to contain floods to the tank room in the eventuality water gets onto the floor. Ya know it's gonna happen sooner or later. The bonus for this would be that it would be easier to clean the sump outside of the stand.

So, siliconed the stand around the edges, cleaned the sump, maneuvered it back into place, and .... pop. The arrows and the dotted line show the extent of it, it goes from the top, down 2/3 of the way into the first baffle space, does a 90 degree bend and then back into the first chamber down to the bottom. Stellar maneuvering there of the sump Tony. :(

It had been a few weeks since I had a good swearing session over a tank build development ... trust me the streak is over. And the RO/DI shut off. In the words of Kevin Kline in "A Fish Called Wanda" - "I'm just a little *disappointed*."

Thought about patching it but .. I dunno. My old 75g had a sump that I cracked too, and I lived with a patch. It looked so ghetto. I'm going to price out an entire panel tomorrow and a patch piece and decide from there. I may just elect to replace the whole thing. Other than the silicone on the seams and baffles it would be a straightforward thing to do, it just means I have to wait though some more before I can test my return pump plumbing. ARGH!

ahh thats brutal man, sooo close.

hurry up and replace it, so you can get on with this, haha.

Yeah, boy am I annoyed at myself. Although I was SORT OF trying to be careful with the nudging it back into place, so maybe it was gonna happen no matter what.

"D'OH!"

ya know i was thinking about moving my sump as well, I wanted to re arrange the equipment, but after seeing that. I think i am going to stay put.

I have some pieces of glass here if you were thinking of patching it.

Might take you up on that, thanks man - I'll make some calls in the morning and see what I'm up against. It might be better to pull it out and replace the panel anyhow just on account then I can replace the styrofoam it's sitting on too, it's gotten a bit cracked and squished in places. On a totally unrelated note you should see what happens to styrofoam and a concrete floor paint if you happen to spill almost an entire PVC primer can. But we'll see. If it's gonna take a long time to procure a new panel or if it's too spendy then a-patchin' I will go.

Tony if I recall that sump tank is very large and ALSO made of very thin glass right? Shoot that sucks. I had to stare at the pic a few moments before I clued into what had happened. Brutal man but I'd replace the panel to be safe.

yeah Brett;s right, its probably safer to replace it.

and if you waited this long, another week or two isnt so bad.

that sucks Tony!.....didnt realize you were getting soooo close to getting this bad boy going.....

:sad:

oh man! that sucks so bad!.....but maybe, juuuuust maybe...all this hassle before will mean things go a tad easier in the long run. I hope. Cruddy deal there Tony.

I'm cleaning out our basement and organizing everything fish related this weekend. What size glass do you need? I might just have a piece you can help take off my hands.

http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.c...impson-doh.gif


Sorry to hear that, that really sucks :sad:

On the bright side at least it's not a complete showstopper. While it does mean I have to stop filling for the moment, at least in the meantime I can get to work on powerhead placement, wavebox placement, and flow tuning ... as well as work on getting the electrical plugs all sort of tidied up and so on. Plenty things to work on it seems!

I can also take the opportunity to redo the overflow plumbing to account for a gravity feed for the skimmer. The only thing that I wonder about this is if I run a frag tank, as is the plan, then water entering the frag tank drains into the sump completely bypassing the skimmer. Water would have to re-enter the display tank, work its way through there and only then drain into the skimmer. So it's as if to make the display tank skimmed really effectively/efficiently, I have to make the frag tank skimmed really ineffectively/inefficiently. The flip side to this is that frag tank is only 40g and presumably only houses corals or some small fish and the display tank is going to have the heavy poopers, so maybe this is a negligible concern.

Two alternatives that I can see at this point are:

1) "T" the drain pipes from the frag tank and the main display together, and then route into the skimmer.
Pros: Both tanks get skimmed the same, cheap use of an available resource (gravity)
Cons: The skimmer has a 1" input. I have doubts that at only 5' of head pressure or thereabouts that this is enough "push" through the restriction to get enough gph through the skimmer. Also if the two drains are connected together then there is a risk that the frag tank, which sits lower than the main display, is at risk by sitting in the "flood plain" should anything cause a blockage in the skimmer, or even just a backpressure buildup, and water goes downhill and so could easily end up in the frag tank and overflow. There is an emergency overflow on the frag tank (it will be a Herbie overflow as well) but in that case it's only 1" and I think a 280g draining is too much for a 1" pipe. Hmmm I might have just convinced myself this option is a no-go.

2) Use a pump feed in the sump.
Pros: Easy and quick solution. No pipe rework. Both tanks have "equal-ish" access to the same level of skimming. No worries of one tank causing a flood in the other.
Cons: More up front cost (purchase a pump), more electrical cost

However ... "Corollary pro": The sump is already drilled for a pump. I have a Mak4 pump that has a good impeller but a shot bearing, Stircrazy has a Mak4 pump with a good bearing but a shot impeller. Perhaps the writing is on the wall here, I just have to convince myself that I'm ok with the costs and move on with things.

As for the glass, I've started looking around. So far the best option for purchase is Bow Valley. You could hear their disapproval in their voice about the size and thickness of glass, and I suppose I could take the opportunity to bump up the thickness now, but it seems to me just wasted money if I'm not replacing all 3 sides of the sump. That said, maybe I should see what it would cost to go to 8mm, leave it at that, if ever another side breaks then I bump that panel up to 8mm and so on and so on. The best part about BVA though besides being the flat-out most economical vendor, they'll do it while I wait. Everyone else I've talked to so far is all "it could take up to a week".

@Michika - thanks - if you wanted to check your basement or something, what I need is 60"x18". What's on there now is 6mm. So anything that thickness or larger. I'm kind of thinking it's a long shot you have anything like that, so no worries if you don't, but for sure, for now I'll hold off visiting BVA until I hear back from you.

I am fall-over-tired but a couple footnotes to end the week..

1) HUGE shout out of thanks to reefcanada/Jay for getting me some replacement glass for the sump. I'll try to take pictures of the fiasco/debauchery tomorrow as I try to replace the broken panel. In the end I went with Jay because he could also set me up with a panel so I can make an overflow for the 40g breeder I'm going to use as a temporary home for my carpets and clowns.

2) Gonna go for a pump feed for the skimmer for now. Easiest path forward with hopefully more benefits than pitfalls. I can always change things around down the road.

3) Got the Tunzes going in the main tank. Have two 6100's on Wavysea's sweeping back and forth and a wavebox. The wave is insane, almost 2". I'm worried that this is too much for my overflow so I'm anxious to get the sump repaired so I can try a proper flow test. Hopefully once the tank is aquascaped the wave will be less dramatic but in a worst case scenario I'm going to have to consider replacing the overflow with a shorter equivalent (or opting to do without a wavebox I suppose would be another option. That one doesn't appeal to me very much though.) Hopefully it will work out and I'm worrying for nothing haha. Time will tell on that.

I'll try to get some pictures and/or videos of the flow as it stands right now. I absolutely hated the effect at first when I had the 6100's on pulsing mode, but when they're just on full-bore all the time, it's actually a pretty keen effect. Guess I didn't need that multicontroller then (although I guess it's still handy to have the feed mode button if nothing else).

Although it's a good start, I'm not convinced it's enough for the long term however. I admit I'm looking at Coleus's Tunzes for sale thread and wondering how I can sneak a couple more Tunze's worth of balance onto my line of credit without getting a divorce haha. Those 3 ones from Pazil were gone so fast too. I looked at that this morning and but before I could even think in my head "I wonder if ....", they were gone. Haha someone's quick on the draw! :)

4) One of my Tunzes has these little impeller spasms when it's on feed mode. Every 10 to 20 seconds it does this quarter turn. I wonder if it's on purpose, ie., if it's to scare away fish who might be curious enough to poke their head into the now-not-spinning propeller housing. If that's the case then that's a good idea but what's weird is that only 1 of the pair do this. Does anyone know?

Am starting to feel full-on FML with things.

Removing the broken glass has been a fairly miserable experience. I ended up chipping a spot in the right hand wall in the process. It's above the waterline so I think a generous dollop of silicone will suffice to fix it but still, darn it all to that. I ended up pretty much having to smash the glass to smithereens in the end and even still I was at it for a couple hours. The 6mm glass is surprisingly resilient against hammer strikes.

I've been having problems with the Tunzes too. I bought one used a few years ago and then I bought one new but it was before the newer style 6105's were out, they are the old style 6100 outboards. They were in use on my cube tank for a couple years when that tank's sole purpose was a dedicated species tank for my H. magnifica anemone. When I sold the anemone I cleaned the Tunzes and put them into storage so that while the cube tank limped along as a holding tank for all my livestock that came out of my 75g when I shut it down, I just used some relatively inexpensive Sunsun powerheads (looks like a dual small new-style Tunze but doubled up).

Putting these Tunzes on a Wavysea is something I've been wanting to see in action for a long long time. Now that they are on (albeit in a partially, but mostly filled tank in just FW), they're having problems. They're perfectly clean but it seems that they jam. The newer one uses a 7420.27 driver and the older one uses a 7420.26 driver. Whichever pump is on the older 7420.26 will occasionally just stop spinning and then the jam alarm sounds. It scares the heck out of you when you're working downstairs alone at 1am and you're not expecting it. Switching the pump drivers and the problem seems to follow the driver and not the pump.

Unfortunately, Roger Vitko of Tunze USA had this to say about things:
I might as well start off by trying a replacement drive unit. At least the cost isn't terribly prohibitive and I suppose maybe I'm due for a change in fortune at some point so it's worth a try. If it works out it beats buying a whole new Tunze or a Vortech. If it doesn't work, well, at least it doesn't change the outlook. But if I am looking at a whole unit replacement then the tank startup is pushed back months. I don't think my fish in the 110 can wait that long so if it comes to that I may be faced with some decisions. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

Since I'm on the topic .. Just given the way things work out I am totally expecting to find out that the wavebox as well will not work out on this tank. BVA built the overflow so high up that there is only about 3/4" at the top of the overflow and I'm pretty sure this won't be enough to handle the wave action. On an empty tank I can produce a 2" wave. The effect is great to watch but the way things have been going on this tank, every bloody step of the way .... there's really no reason at this point to expect that this will just sort itself out happily.

On a brighter note, Jay is coming over tonight to help me finish rebuilding my sump. I appreciate the help dude, I'll be in your debt.

I understand your frustrations man that's a lot of kicks to the junk. Unfortunately Roger really knows his stuff so he might be right. I felt a similr worry when I had my BK sitting around for a year or whatever it was. Heck I never was able to turn on my Sfiligoi until I had enough money to buy bulbs which was months later. In your case so much more time has passed and it's such a burn. Hope things work out somehow for you. I can stop by and maybe paddle the water with my hands for a few hours while we shoot the reef talk if that helps :wink:

My god Tony, WTH. I hope things do start turning around for you. You did make me laugh though with this and the thought of you in the wee hours. Sorry to laugh at your expense :) .

You should be sorrier for not getting on a build thread of your own. I miss my baby. hang her from the ceiling and snap me a few pics man!