FragIt Dan's 2012 nano contest entry

[FragIt Dan]

"The Cave" is finished with a few minor mods...
1) Heater is now zap strapped to the underside of the lowest cross member. I had originally placed it inside the overflow 'box' (which is only used to feed the closed loop) but when I ran the leak test I realized that if (when) the tank gets too low on water this area may accidentally end up dry which would fry the heater.
2) I added a second Phosban 150 reactor inline with the first. This gives me a total of about 3 cups of the BA XPort BIO in the first reactor (completely full) and a bit more than 2 cups of XPort NO3 and a bit less than a cup of the XPort PO4. All of this media is in the form of 'croutons' and should not be tumbled, so it has been packed with sponges to be tight.
3) I was originally going to place my carbon in the Prizm skimmer media chamber but forgot the BRS 0.8x ROX is much finer than the usual pellets. The chamber will not contain the carbon and I am afraid it will restrict flow in the Phosban reactors too much so I have resorted to placing it in a sock by the intake of the Phosban reactors (for increased flow). This will eventually be hidden by live rock anyway.
4) I will not need to replace the bulb in the fixture as it is still in great shape (fixture was given to me about a year back during a friend's shutdown). Turns out it's a 14K 175w Hamilton mogul (in a LumenMax 2 reflector) which works out great as I use the 250w version of this on my DT, which is where I will be fragging out of. This makes this build 100% spare parts for me so cost is down to $0. Is it bad that I have that much tank crap around ?

I also suspect my MagDrive5 is putting out far too little flow than it should. It's acting more like a Mag2. Fortunately I have a couple of these around and have plumbed it so that it is a simple 4 screw swap out. I might change it over tomorrow to see.

I will post up final build pictures tomorrow and then will be out of town for a bit over two weeks with only spotty satellite Internet access.


Dan

[FragIt Dan]

"The Cave" build photos...

General tank view:


End on view:


Birds eye view:


Plumbing - Closed loop Mag5 and dual inline Phosban reactors feed by a MaxiJet1200:


Build is done, I can't wait to aqua scape and light the cave .

Dan




Dan

[FragIt Dan]

Cave update: don't run mag drives externally (I know it says right on them to not run dry, but who listens anyway?). I tried to do a closed loop with one and it did not end well. After about 5 days of running fine, it managed to melt a hole into the sealed motor portion of the pump, shorting it and blowing a breaker in the house. I didn't immediately know it was the tank that popped the breaker, so when I reset it, it just popped again. Eventually figuring it out, I unplugged the pump and got the electricity back on. Got up the next morning to find the tank half drained onto the floor (basement workshop) as a result of the closed loop siphoning the water out and through the pinhole in the mag drive. Glad it was just a nano!

Tank is filled and rock is placed:








Dan