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jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
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I'm confused by your question. I dont have any tank water yet as the tank isn't plumbed and I'll need an RO/DI unit once the tank is ready so why not buy one now?
 

Tim

Tim`s Aquatics
Location
Rockland County
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Yes you can use the bushing with a slip/barb you just have to prime and glue them together. The slip part will be primed/glued into the bushing and the bushing primed/glued into the part you want to reduce.I`m assuming it is the ball valve. Also make sure the ball valve is a slip not threaded....
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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Actually I will have the ball valve right after the T, before the long run to the skimmer. Its that 1.5" run that I need to reduce to a .5 " barb fitting so that I can use a short piece of vinyl tubing to connect to the skimmer inlet. This is proving the hardest part of the plumbing, just because I find the necessary reducing part locally and am confused by all the parts on the internet stores ( and being that its a long weekend, there's noone to call ).
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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I finally found time to work on the plumbing. I cut and dry fitted everything but wanted to post before I went ahead and solved, so let me know what you think. I tried a few different configurations and this is what I ended up ( and a bunch of extra PVC and Spaflex PVC ). My main question is whether I should leave it as is and just connect the skimmer to drain with a length of vinyl tubing or first use a longer length of spaflex and then vinyl. I can easily do the second by just turning the skimmer and drain away from each other, but then I'll have to support it and figure out how to keep it neat and in place.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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Another issue I'm having is leveling the tank. As you can see in an earlier post, it is slightly off level. I bought a pack of shims from Loews but am not sure if it is safe to support the whole tank on a few shims so I will see if moving the setup up a little will help. Hopefully I'll get my rocks from Marco soon and put photos of a filled, scaped' tank next.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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Tanks leveled, plumbings finished. I'm just waiting on the Marco rocks. I'll give it another week to ship and if he cant I guess I'll cancel and buy elsewhere because its getting ridiculous. The only thing I have to keep me busy is to figure out how to hook up the RO/DI unit and fill up a can.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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Ok so everything is up and ready. The tank is almost filled with RO and the Marco rocks finally arrived a couple of weeks ago. Leaks are fixed, tank is leveled, broken camera replaced.

Now before I put the rocks into the tank, should I rinse them or soak them? These are dry rocks from marco rocks and the tank is empty except for ro. I havent added salt yet either. My plan is to calculate the volume of water in it now, add the rocks and see how much the level rises so that I can adjust for that when I fill all the way and then add salt ( this way I'll know the actual volume of water in my tank and not just the nominal ). Can I just throw the rocks in there or should I rinse or soak them first? If the latter, is tap or ok or do I need to make another can of RO just to clean the rocks?

Thanks for being patient and helpful. I'll post new pics once the aquascaping is done.

Oh also, is ok to add a thin layer of sand before placing the rocks and then adding the rest of the sand ? I dont want to chance scratching or cracking the glass.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
26   0   0
Finished aquascaping last nite. Ended up with close to 50 lbs of extra rock that I couldnt use and stuck in my sump after giving up trying to break it apart. I guess once everything is cured and seeded I'll just sell the excess. Once I was satisfied I drained half the water out and added some sand and then put the water back in. Right now its a big sandstorm so I'll wait until Sunday to put the skimmer online. I really want to get some mechanical filtration to clean up the debris, and want to add a phosban reactor but have to make a manifold first. The most interesting thing I saw so far was a claw of what was probably a red hermit crab floating around. So tell me what you think. I'm open to suggestions since nothing is epoxied in place yet.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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I have some views from the side but have to figure out how to rotate them first. Also, how do I post larger photographs? I copied and pasted the image code.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
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Thanks for the suggestion. I did make some small changes so once the sandstorm clears ( and I'll clean the glass ) I'll post some better photos. There are lots of open spaces within the rockwork. I will try to use a shelf piece to make an overhang but I have to figure out how to do it without knocking everything over. The idea behind the scape was to cover as much of the overflow box as possible. I also wanted to create a height gradient for different corals as well as for the aestetic but I also wanted to leave open space and open sand so its not too closed in. With the pieces I had this was the best solution I was able to come up with. I tried to break apart some of the live rock I bought since they were pretty big pieces but I simply couldnt do it. The waterflow is pretty good in there with the three powerheads and the drain/return. I know because I have spent some time watching the detritus blow around to get an idea of the water flow. Another challenge was the small footprint. There is much more height than footprint, which was another factor in pushing towards the stack.
 

jejton

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk
Rating - 100%
26   0   0
Any ideas as to how to filter out the particles and fine sand floating around? I dont have filter socks at the moment but I do have some filter floss. Can I just smush some in between the baffles?
 

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