KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

[michika]

Well I think we are going to go the tankless route if we can. Although I am now just going over our tankless options and the costs associated with one. As long as I have enough water to shower with, and maybe for someone else to wash their hands it will be fine.

I figure its probably appropriate to make a tank related update as well. Last time I tested the tank, which I think might have been Tuesday or Wednesday, I had slightly elevated Ammonia, along with some nitrates, and phosphates. The tank also has some beautiful stringly green hair algae with complements the brown diatomes nicely. The tank needs a water change this week, and then, provided all my levels are still good this coming weekend, I'll slowly start restocking it. I figure by the end of the month, assuming everything continues to go well, I will have my livestock back in my system and things can hopefully continue on as they were.

[michika]

Well let me preface this with at least my house doesn't stink like clam die off anymore.

What we pulled out of the tank following the flood;


The tank on October 19th


The skimmer overflowed after getting things back up and running again. This was in a period of less the 10 hours.


The tank on the 26th


This is the surface flow now


I found a creature to live in my tank for a few days


Tank yesterday : (




The temporary return is a hairball now




So while the tank's chemistry reads fine, it obviously isn't fine. I will not put livestock in the tank as is right now. I will have to figure out what I want to do.

The basement

[Skimmerking]

Catherine its looking great kido , i see tha the hair algae is back again there must be something wrong with something there. I have never seen some one having that much problem with their set up starting out with your experience.

good on you to have the patience. I couldn't

OH YA what a great time to start dosing Vodka you wont burn anything

[michika]

Well the tank is at the point where all you can do is laugh about it.

The Dart return pump was seized again this morning when I woke up. I would also like to point out that I am getting extremely fed up with the tank.

So I am proposing that sell off the 180g tank itself, and build a sweet cube in its place.

[michika]

So I took the opportunity to do some water tests and at least I can be happy because for once my dKH isn't low! Yay!

Temp: 81.9 (I fear we have another heater disaster pending, I'm watching this)
pH: 8.12
SG: 1.026
ORP: 329
dKH: 7
Nitrate: 0.02 (Elos)
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Phosphates: 0.11

I figure the phosphates are leaching from the rock and feeding the GHA. I think of the 0.11 number more so as what is leeching out of the rocks, but not being used by the GHA. I was thinking of participating in Red Coral's Rent a Seahare program starting this afternoon. I also found that with some EXTREME force you can blow off the techni-colour algae. It doesn't seem like all is lost anymore.

[Chaloupa]

Originally Posted by michika

So I took the opportunity to do some water tests and at least I can be happy because for once my dKH isn't low! Yay!

At least you can find something good in all the tragedy you have had with this tank!

[michika]

So I got a few quotes today from Bow Valley, were we got the glass for the 180g, for the big tank.

for 13x3x2 = $3K glass only, not low-iron, including holes & eurobrace
for 11x3x2 = $2K glass only, not low-iron, including holes & eurobrace.

We'd need to assemble it obviously, but they would deliver and help us get it into the basement.

Now I just need to make a cardboard or plywood dummy pane for the long side panels to make sure we can get this length of glass into the basement. LIke I mentioned earlier we would probably cover the glass and keep it away while we finalize reno decisions for the basement.