Disney's 75G Tank Journal
 

http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg

Salt Water Fish Tank

Tank: 75G
Sump: Aqueon Proflex Module 4
Skimmer:Reef Octopus 160 XS
Lighting: Aqua Medic
-54W Coral Light-New generation
-54W Coral Light-Superblue
-Fiji Purple
-54W Coral Light-Superblue
-54W Coral Light-Superblue
-54W Coral Light-New generation

Water Movement: 2-Koralia Hydor 4-1200 GPH



Now with the blue background
http://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/49...600x600Q85.jpg


The mess while plumbing the tank
http://inlinethumb42.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg


Dog not included
http://inlinethumb26.webshots.com/12...600x600Q85.jpg


Aqueon Sump
http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg


Powerheads
http://inlinethumb30.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg


Skimmer
http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg

looking good!

your not messing around, are you Girly?.....any progress on the plumbing?

No more progress so far. I'm trying to set this up between work and the gentleman who agreed to help me. Will keep you posted as soon as something changes. Chomping at the bit!

Congrats on becoming a reefer Girly! :biggrin:

Sucks to get only so far when it comes to us Girly's and plumbing. :wink:
Hopefully you will get it up and running soon. :smilecol:

Nice to see someone who totally understands where I'm coming from :lol: We're very lucky to have some great local reefers tho, who've taken the time to give me some advice and helped with it all.

can't wait to see more
looking good
Steve'o

Im excited for this one. Cant wait.

Let's geteeeer done!
 

Thanks to one of the many amazing forum members, the plumbing is now finished on the tank and is ready to accept water! I was having some troubles with the RO unit over the weekend and thought I would have to call someone in again, but ended up being able to get it working. I left it on, scared the crap out of myself this morning after forgetting I had it left turned on over night and voila!

Sorry for the quality of the photo. It was taken seconds after I got out of bed from my cell. Better photos to come later.
http://inlinethumb63.webshots.com/48...500x500Q85.jpg

I have someone going in later this afternoon to turn it on again for me, so that by the time I get home it should be 1/2-3/4 full. Hoping to have enough in there by tomorrow morning to add the salt, start up the power heads, get the skimmer going(still need to figure out how to make it work) and start adding live rock!

How much water do you guys recommend putting it? I still have to add sand and rock which will add to the volume. What's a safe amount of water to have(once the sump is full).

I would add the full amount. A lot easier/cheaper/cleaner to find leaks with fresh water instead of saltwater. As you add rock/sand you will have to take some water out, but it's shocking how little water the rocks actually displace, they soak up most of it.

Nice setup so far, should do very well. I love that sump, should make life easy.

Hey thank you, appreciate the compliment. I'm learning regardless how much reading you do, you never feel ready to start the big steps of putting the actual tank together. If it weren't for the help of a couple specific people, I wouldn't have made it to where I am today.

You make a good point to make sure everything is running before adding any salt. Keeping fingers crossed!

Updates
 

Here we are. Turned everything on in the tank for the first time yesterday morning July 1st! let it run to make sure we didn't have any leaks, and now the salt has been added and waiting for it to clear up. These photos are from last night, so the tank is a bit clearer now than it was.

When the tank water was turned and accepting water for the first time, when we started filling
http://inlinethumb28.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg

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Tank finally full enough to overflow into the corner of the tank, and into the sump
http://inlinethumb36.webshots.com/49...600x600Q85.jpg



Sump in full work for the first time
http://inlinethumb33.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg



Initial salt mixing
http://inlinethumb26.webshots.com/35...600x600Q85.jpg

15 mins later
http://inlinethumb36.webshots.com/47...600x600Q85.jpg




I no longer have mini dunes of sand, it's just cloudy now.

hey, good to see your almost there Girly.....have you got your rock yet?

Sump in full work for the first time
http://inlinethumb33.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg



Looking good:biggrin::, but do want to point out a couple little issues i see that you may run into in the future.


1) the output of the skimmer is really close to your return pump, not a 100% sure but i would bet you will have micro bubble issues in the display tank from this.

2) i didn't think the drains from the tank should be mounted that way, i almost think they should go in the black cylinder to the left of the filter socks. Here is my reasoning on this, the filter socks looks like they may be hard to take out and clean. From what i can see the drains should go in to the black cylinder, water fills up and than overflows into the socks. This will help in two area's, number one it should make the sump much quieter, number two there will be nothing in the way of pulling out the filter socks for cleaning.


thanks Dave

No rocks yet my darling! I have the sand to add in (HOPEFULLY) later this evening assuming my tank has cleared up. I'm in no rush to add it yet, tho I was told to add all the rock at once? instead of adding 20 lbs there, and 15 lbs there and so on. Thoughts?

One of the guys here on the forum has been absolutely amazing in guiding me and helping me set this tank up.



Removing the socks for cleaning is actually very easy. There is a great connection, which isn't visible in the picture that allows me to disconnect the PVC that connects to the socks.

Darling hummmm I'm the only one allowed to call him that :razz:

When you're first starting a tank it's better to add all the rock at once and have it all cycle at the same time instead of adding a bit at a time and have it cause new cycles as you go along. After the intial cycle is done and the tank has been running for awhile then it's better to slowly add more rock over prolonged periods of time if you want to, that way you adviod spikes in an established system.

The tank looks good, exciting to see water in it :biggrin:

You are kidding about the water. There have been a few bumps in the road, that have been really discouraging, so it is definitely very rewarding to be where we are now.

The tank after 36 hours of mixing:
http://inlinethumb22.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg


I added the 2 bags of sand-tho I am now really wondering if it's enough? I added 2-40 lbs bags. Is it enough? I think I would rather have a deeper bed? benefit or bad for this tank?
http://inlinethumb39.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg

no expert here.. but.. if you want the sand just for the look.. perhaps thats enough.. if you want a DSB for the benefits of a dsb.. than thats not enough.. if your going ot have a really high flow tank for some inane reason<fuzzy stick addiction> that might be more than enough

and if i was on family fude.. the number one answer would be?

"if the reefer likes it it leaves it the way it is.. if the reefer doesn't like it it changes something that might be perfectly fine! for the better/worse of its tanks inhabitants."
ok im done, let the knowledgeable take over.

if you use a tube and pour the sand down the inside of the tube your tank wont silt up as bad. just a little trick i learned

Update
 

So the tank is looking good. It's still very foggy inside as the sand starts settling, but you can very slowly see some clearing up every day. I am running into an issue however with the pump.

I don't know if it's this pump specifically, or if it's something going on with my set up-but it's LOUD. I have been around multiple tanks that were similar in size, and this pump very loud. Now I can take a video to try to give you an idea of what it sounds like, but it is definitely much louder than what I would have expected a pump to be. I've tried changing the volume of the water in pumps out, and it does get a little bit quieter if I open it up, but it is still quite loud(having it more open really changed the entire way the water cycles through the tank. Should I try to sit the pump on something to help reduce that vibration? no idea what to do with this one.

The other issue as well, is I filled my sump at the recommended amount for my skimmer, but wanted to know if there were any tips or tricks to try to lower the volume of the sound it makes when it spits the water back out. I've tried rotating it a bit closer to the side of the sump wall, to help the water hit that instead of spitting it it right out. I thought about adding(I think it's 1 inch PVC) where it spits out, to have it go right into the water-bad idea?

Tho the sounds of the skimmer I really don't mind.

As for the corner overflow, regarding how full it is, how much water should I have? the less water there is, the higher it has to go when dropping into the corner overflow, and the louder I am assuming it is going to be. Advice?

A thick peice of rubber that is not going to leach anything out of it placed underneath your pump should help with the noise. You can put a down spout on your skimmer, it wont hurt anything. If possible can you move the skimmer farther over to the left side of your sump? Adding live rock to your sump is also a good way to help with filtration.

Great advice, I'll go see if I can get some PVC for the skimmer and hunt down something that holds weight that I can put in the sump. The tank isn't anywhere ready to accept live rock yet, so its not yet an option, but ill go try this. Not comfortable enough with the rubber idea tho, not sure what i could use that would be safe for the tank.

I'd be adding that live rock as soon as you can to start it cycling so you can start adding all the cool stuff. You can also shorten your pcv pipe by an inch or so which will make it so your pump is not touching the bottom or side of your sump. That will stop the humming or rattling sound. Just make sure that the pcv is anchored or supported somehow so the weight of your pump is not putting any stress on your plumbing. But putting rubber on the bottom of your pump is just going to dampen the sound and really should'nt hurt your water parameters. Anything food safe will be good.

looks good, keep it up, its always so muc fun setting up brand new tanks and getting them going the the bitter sweet of taking care of it comes in, and never having enough money :lol:

I use the pink insulation stryofoam that most use use their tanks. I used a couple rubber bands and attached it to the base of my pump. You can also put some sand in a ziploc bag and put that under the pump.

You could also be noise sensative. Get an eheim 1250 or 1260/1262. They are dead silent and I too am noise sensitive. I can hear electronics buzz that most can't so my idea of quiet is very different from others. I ve seen a couple setups that people swear are silent that would keep my whole family up at night.

U should put ur rock in now to start the cycle. There's nothing wrong with ur tank that will improve if u wait longer. I would get dead rock from Eco-reefer or cacoareef and just seed it with 5lbs of really nice live stuff. A cup of sand from a trusted reefers tank will get ur sand going too. This will ensure ur tank remains pest free and reduces the chances of algae blooms.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I'll go see if I can find some over my break.

...and you're probably right with that as well. We have had tanks that had some sort of regular "noise", but nothing to this extent, but then again, we have never had a tank that size in our house either.

Alright we have 10 lbs of live rock and we have the pink insulation. Will put it in tonight, and let you know how that goes. Appreciate the advice!

+1.....if you've got water(salted) in the tank and are happy with how the return and drains are functioning (aside from the noise(that will just take some tweaking)).....then get your rock in there Girly!......the rock doesnt care how cloudy the water is:wink:......might as well get the cycle started:biggrin:......

I cant remember if your return lines are over the top or if they are drilled???....if they are drilled, then I wouldnt "suspend" the return pump.....the pump vibration coupled with the weight of the pump and plumbing hanging from it could over time cause the bulkhead hole to fail and crack....best and easiest to go with a piece of dampening foam or rubber under the pump imho....

btw......your man is a pretty funny guy:lol:

They are over the edge. The tank I bought only had a corner overflow. It was through one of the forum members, that the plumbing was all set, and we were able to have it go over the top. I'm going to give it a go with the foam tonight and the rest of the set up and see if it makes a difference.

Noise update
 

We added some rock to the sump last night, and it's made a big difference. I've also filled that corner overflow all the way near the top, so it's less noisy as well. I am still wanting to add an extension to the skimmer to try to take THAT noise down as well as the foam.

Will keep you posted, pictures to come.

So we added the rock to the sump, instantly took some noise down, but I also noticed something else which I thought was unusual. Now the rock we added is dry, dead as dead can be-rock, within 18 hours following the addition of the rock to the sump(and I dont know that this its actually possible-because this makes no sense to me), but the tank got much clearer, to the point where you couldn't see a thing before in the tank, and now you can suddenly see the power heads and a vague outlines of the sand.

Does the rock itself(even dead) affect the way the water now goes through the sump and allow for the water to get clearer? is this coming from the skimmer that's now working differently?

I know I have read online the skimmer can suddenly "break in", tho Im not sure how you would know that, but maybe that would explain the response to the tank?

I've started to move the sand more evenly in the tank so it's quite a big messy again. For those iphone users curious to see the tank live, I have air cam installed live and have the IP address and password for those who want to see the tank-just pm me. Still need to add foam to the pump to still continue to try to bring the sound down.

if your sump rock is like my sump rock was you'll find it does a great job of trapping a ton of detritus you don't want it to. I'm sure it's helping clear your water. i took my rock out and saw a positive difference in my display however.

Ok got the piping for the sump(hope it's the right size), and got some foam, and for FREE :mrgreen: I do have a question tho. This particular store said it's difficult to find that pink foam, and said they carry the blue version of that "same" foam. Now I'm not entirely convinced that it is the same thing, however took the piece because it was free. I will have to cut around there was glue, but it's a great piece otherwise.

Do you guys know if this would be safe to put in the sump vs the pink foam?
http://inlinethumb55.webshots.com/47...600x600Q85.jpg

It will be fine. What do you mean the water is cloudy? Did you not put your sand in a few days ago? It should be clear by now, like within a day and a half at the most. Are you sure it's not micro bubbles that you are seeing? Try turning your skimmer off for a few hours, that could causing the micro bubbles. Your powerheads might also be stirring up the sand. But really it should totally clear by now.

No it's far from clear. I put the sand in about a week ago now? I do have the power heads on, tho the first 2 days they were not on and it made no difference. Should I try without again? if you have an iphone I could send you the live feed so you can see the tank. Pictures won't load otherwise. I will have to wait until I am home.

The tank until tonight. We added the dry rock and foam-HUGE difference, appreciate all the advice.

Now onto waiting for the tank to clear?

http://inlinethumb01.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg

If the foam doesnt work you might try a piece of those Sylicon cooking ware. I had sylicon ice cube trays I never used and slid it under my pump and had no noise. Think I got it for like $2 @ superstore. Their nice because they dont slide around at all and are easy to clean.