abcha0s' 300G Ultimate Reef

[abcha0s]

Sorry for the delayed responses.

Originally Posted by lastlight

Sorry to hear about the hassles. I love the look of my sandbed but yeah it can be a hassle at the same time. I'd get a sand-sifting fish to help you out. My sand was also forming solid layers (but fused with what may have been cyano) which quickly disappeared with my goby always sifting.

Interesting idea about the pellets too. Maybe you should suspend their operation until the tank has a decent bioload. Your skimmer definitely looked severely under-worked when I saw it.

My stocking plans include a couple of sand sifting gobies, but I have been hesitant to put them in the tank before it matures a little. Other than bacteria, theres probably not much in the sand bed for them to eat. I'll have to consider whether I can keep them fed with pellet food?

Turning the biopellet reactors off may or may not be a good idea, if I ever plan to start them up again. I'm not ready to give up yet. I'd really like to get things balanced and have the biopellets work for me. If I take them offline now, then I will have to go through this whole ordeal again at some point in the future. I'd rather just figure it out now. I guess I'm stubborn that way.

Originally Posted by Kalifornia

Beautiful absolutly prefect

May ask what was the cost of the stand as I am planning a 180 DD build inwall and just want to get an idea of the cost to go to a steel stand such as yours

Thanks

Looking forward to the progress

Thanks for the compliment - I tried to PM you but got an error. Anyway, I paid way to much for my stand because I didn't like the first version and sent it back to a different welder for modifications. In hind sight, this was a mistake and I should have just left well enough alone.

I do really like my stand and would recommend to anyone to build a metal stand. Just make sure the welder understands the importance of having it perfectly square, level and planar. Also, consider how you will brace the stand against sheering.

If you have the ability to transport the stand yourself, I would take it for powder coating yourself. The first go around I paid the welder $250+ to do this for me. The second go around I took it to the power coater myself and it cost me something like $100.

For a 180 DD your probably looking at around $400 - $500 all inclusive, but it could be less. I wouldn't expect it to be more.

There's a link in my post about the stand to a thread on RC. I found that to be a very useful thread.

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Thought I'd toss this out there:

http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22732

♥

Thanks Albert!! - That's really amazing. I will talk to a friend of mine and see if he has this for sale.

I'll have to do a little reseach to see how it interacts with biopellets. My concern is that it will interfere with the biopellet process. If it works by breaking down protien then the bacteria should not be directly affected but I want to understand that process a little better before going down that route.

In the thread, the OP wants to rid his tank of bacteria. I want the bacteria, I just want it to stay in the biopellet reactors.

If I do try this, I will let you know how it works.