Thanks - it's interesting how the wave will sort of crest and peak depending on the interference with the other Tunzes, so there is a neat variation to the flow pattern. It's not chaotic though, like how it was when I had the 6100's on the Wavysea's and they were pulsing away (it was random but TOO chaotic - it was nothing like the flow patterns you'd expect to see on a reef). So I'm glad I was able to get these 6080's for the Waysea's, it's much better like this. (Thanks again Jay and Christy
)
When I turn the sump return off the water level drops down to the sweet spot of the boxes and the wave gets to be more like 3" or 4". As impressive as that sounds though I don't think I'd want that for real in a tank like this one, maybe in a 8' or 10' tank and assuming the tank had actually been built to accommodate that kind of weight shifting. I should try to get a video of it like that just for the novelty of it though - maybe tonight.
So tonight's task will just be to tidy up the cabling and get the Ranco and heater up and running. After that it's salt, then rocks, then sand and then I guess it's cycling time! Man .. it's actually starting to feel close now.
On a side note I swapped out my old Mak4 for Steve's Mak4 with the broken impeller. Steve's impeller was definitely kaput, it was missing at least one fin and another was mostly broken off too, but the motor is super silent compared to mine. So an impeller swap from the two and away we go. The Mak4 at full open is WAY too much flow for the skimmer so it's throttled down considerably (the valve is more than half closed). For curiosity, I took out the watt meter and the Mak4 is pulling 138w at fully open and around 85w where I throttled it down to.
What's weird is I can't tell why my old Mak4 is so loud. It spins quite readily and when I power it off it continues to spin for some time as it winds down. So you'd think it's not a friction issue. It is however somewhere in the order of 8 to 10 years old (I think I set up my 72g bowfront in 2001? I can't remember anymore, and that's where that pump was used for a few years) so I guess I could just be expecting too much of it. I was half tempted to take it apart to see if I could grease a bearing or a shaft or something but I guess without an intact impeller it's not much use as anything other than a spare motor in the event that the other Mak4 has a problem down the road. I'm not sure if you can buy replacement impellers for Mak4's anymore and maybe it's not even worth it if the bearing on this has gone (but you'd think it wouldn't spin so nicely if it was a bearing? I dunno, I guess I don't know much about motors).
Anyhow I guess I need to get on with the task of sourcing out some sand. I had originally planned on going BB in this tank but now that there's water in it, the silicone work on the bottom is really noticeable and it's .. just brutal .. to look at. Not the nicest silicone work I've ever seen (nicer than anything I could do but.. that might not be saying too much.
) So I think it needs to be covered up.
I'm thinking a mixture of a little Fiji pink, a little Bimini pink and a whole lot of plain white sugar sand. I dunno, what do people think of the pinker grains from Caribsea? I need to go look at the bags and see what I think in person but I do like the pictures.
http://www.caribsea.com/pages/produc...aragonite.html
(The Bimini pink seems to be only available in wet:
http://www.caribsea.com/pages/products/aragalive.html )