New Custom 120g - Pix Begnning Day 1

[NewfiDog]

Taking live rock from someone, letting the tank cycle, then removing the rock is not a good idea as you will remove the bio filtration. Still would be best to use some of what you have or if your gonna buy somw new anyway get some of it now. Seems the cycle has started good luck.

Depends what you want to do with the silicone, the acrylic solvent should have been leak proof, so if you using it for a small leak it most likley will work.

 

[cybermeez]

Day 34
Added more live rock last night. I pulled what I could from my old tank without disrupting the environment and killing the critters. It meant removing corals from some rocks and fragging others. Ammonia in the new tank is 0 but nitrite is around 2ppm. All fish and corals have to be moved no later than 12/30/11 and I may need a plan B to find temporary housing for the critters. Getting a little worried.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

nitrate is right around the corner

 

[cybermeez]

Went to the store this afternoon because I needed some Seachem Prime in case I can't get the nitrite down in time for the critters move. Decided to get 20 lbs more live rock while I was there to push things along. The rock from my old tank had some bristle worms and a few aiptasia. Neither of them seem remotely phased by having nitrite in the water. In fact the bristle worms came out to look for the fish food I put in to keep the cycle going. :irked:

 

[cybermeez]

Day 36
Ladies and gentlemen, we have nitrate! Around 15 to 20ppm. Nitrite has dropped dramatically in the last 2 days from 2ppm to about 0.25ppm. I'll give it a couple more days and see if all the nitrite gets consumed while still feeing the tank. If it does, I'll finally be able to move the fish, corals and the live rock from my old tank into the new one.

 

[cybermeez]

Everything Fixed but the Loud Sump

Day 40
Five weeks after the initial set-up began, the tank is cycled, the water is clear, the plumbing modified to quite the overflow, and the door to the wet side of the stand modified to allow more water to be in the sump. The only things that need to be addresses are changing out the lock-line on the returns to remove the Y, making the screen mesh cover and quieting the noisy sump. The last one is the most problematic. I'm definitely seeing surging in the overflow and down into the sump which has to be contributing to the noise problem. I've included a video of the sump in action and welcome any suggestions to fix the problem.

<EMBED height=315 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=560 src=http://www.youtube.com/v/ZzA0SrIdkCM?version=3&hl=en_US allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></EMBED>

 

[strgazr27]

Do you have a vent line up top on the drain? If you don't your pulling a vacuum and than all of a sudden it lets go causing the surge. Adding a length of airlinr tubing down into the drain will allow the drain to breathe and help eliminate the issue. The way you have the split for the feed for the fuge is also likely contributing to your drain/surge issues. You may want to think about redoing that section. You may want to lengthen your drain tube within the sock so that it's below the water level. This is just an ovservation by me but your flow through the fuge section seems real fast. You may want to back it down a bit.
HTH's

 

[cybermeez]

Do you have a vent line up top on the drain? If you don't your pulling a vacuum and than all of a sudden it lets go causing the surge. Adding a length of airlinr tubing down into the drain will allow the drain to breathe and help eliminate the issue.

Yeah. It's a GEO Standpipe Silencer. How far down in should the airline tube go?

The way you have the split for the feed for the fuge is also likely contributing to your drain/surge issues. You may want to think about redoing that section.

What sort of modification would you recommend?

You may want to lengthen your drain tube within the sock so that it's below the water level. This is just an ovservation by me but your flow through the fuge section seems real fast. You may want to back it down a bit.
HTH's

I put a 45 degree piece of PVC on the end of the drain tube so the water isn't falling straight down and added some water to the sump. I also dialed back on the flow to the fuge. Those things have helped a little but the stand pipe now gurgles (or maybe it's just that I can actually hear it now?).

 

[strgazr27]

Slowly slide the tube down till you see/hear the surging ease up. May take a little while to find the sweet spot.

As far as redoing the drain I would have had the T pointing down not out towards the front/back of the stand. Whats happening is the T is filling up and than dumping out of the elbow.

 

[cybermeez]

Day 49
This is kind of a long post, but worth it for the photos.

Today marked the first casualty. My really cool serpent star (Ophiolepis superba) had been increasingly stressed in the old tank, so I moved him to the new one hoping the better water quality would do him some good. He lasted another 48 hours. When I went to check on him this morning the bristle worms had only left behind a few pieces of his legs. This is him a few years ago right after I got him:

Today I finished moving all the live rock I could from the old tank without totally freaking out the Jawfish. I plan to move all the remaining corals and fish in the next day or two as well as the lights.

Since setting up my first reef tank 7 years ago I've had a really cool invert living in my live rock. A Blue Ribbon Worm (Notospermus tricuspidatus) hitched a ride on a pice of rock I bought. I discovered him by accident one night when looking at the tank after lights out. He's a very secretive crittter and the last time I saw him was about a year ago. I've wanted to keep all my live rock during this move in the event he was still slinking around in there somewhere. After moving the remaining live rock today, I checked the new tank tonight and guess who was poking his little head out of a hole (center of photo):

This is a better photo of him I took a while ago. Neat, eh?

Yesterday I installed the skimmer with its new waterblaster 3000 pump and ordered a few special PVC couplings to redo the drain plumbing. Gonna try straightening things out as the PVC descends down into the filter sock by replacing the the tee with a wye and tweaking the angle of the PVC going to the fuge. Hopefully it will eliminate the surging and quiet things down. Lots to do tomorrow so I'm calling it a night.

 

[cybermeez]

Day 50
Didn't get quite as much done today as i wanted, but the crappy weather enabled me to devote some much needed time to aquascaping in preparation for the critters move tomorrow. I still find that the sand I went with makes the tank really cloudy with even the most minor disturbance. So, I'll be hanging on to that homade micron filter.

 

[Awibrandy]

Sorry you lost you're starfish.;(

Love your're Blue Ribbon(Notospermus tricuspidatus)Worm Robin!!

Happy your tank is finally cycled. yippeeeeee

 

[cybermeez]

Sorry you lost you're starfish.;(

Love your're Blue Ribbon(Notospermus tricuspidatus)Worm Robin!!

Happy your tank is finally cycled. yippeeeeee

How's yours doing?

 

[Awibrandy]

How's yours doing?

Stuck in the high trites & trates.LOL

 

[cybermeez]

Stuck in the high trites & trates.LOL

What a bummer.

 

[cybermeez]

Day 51

Finally got all the critters moved into the new tank.

Home sweet home:

 

[cybermeez]

Day 58
All the critters are starting to settle in to their new digs. The Jawfish took the hint and built his burrow right up front and center in the tank so he's easy to watch. He's even making use of the 45 degree PVC elbow I gave him to get started. Here he is in his new home with his little piles of reef rubble nearby:

The spot makes it easy for him to keep a look out for those interloping Zebra Dart Gobies who'd really like to be his roommates:

And the giant hermit crab just passing by who got a little too close to the front door:

Saltwaterinbrooklyn is building me custom wall mounts for my pair of Python LED fixtures. Right now they are in the planning stages. Hopefully I'll be able to show you something soon. In the meantime here's a sketch:

To be continued...

 

[guarda]

cool little worm there Robin. Glad everything is looking good so far!

 

[cybermeez]

Custom 120g Update

Day 69

I've lost several SPS over the past 2 weeks, probably due to the lack of proper lighting and maybe a temp a little cooler than they were previously used to. Part of the idea behind the design of the new tank was so I would not have to run a chiller - even in winter. The two mag 12's in my old tank threw off a lot of heat.

Last night I got the lights mounted on the custom brackets saltwaterinbrooklyn made for me.

Today I finished modifying the plumbing. I eliminated all the tees and replaced them with wyes to straighten out the flow in the hope it would reduce the noise and stop the surging. The noise from the main drain pipe is considerably less. However, the surging continues and now the pipe to the fuge is making a lot of noise, but I can control that by submerging the end of the pipe in the fuge. Gotta rethink how water is getting into thge fuge. Maybe it shouldn't be coming off the main drain and be fed from the sump instead?

This is the the return plumbing before:

Here it is after my mods:

This is the drain plumbing into the sump and fuge before:

Here it is after the mods I did:

Next I gotta hook up the calcium reactor.

 

[cybermeez]

Any further thoughts on the plumbing is welcome.