Bobs 400g Dream System - Page 8

bjmycroft · #**176** 12/19/2006, 05:36 AM

I have made a little progress since the last post but I¡¦m still waiting for the tank to fill. Its now about 80% full so I¡¦m close ¡V should be full in a day or so and then start to fill the sump. I replaced the carbon and sediment filter on my RO to be double certain that the water is good.

I added the first bucket of salt last night along with a few heaters and some small pumps and it had all dissolved this morning when I checked. It looked fab though with a layer of white salt on the bottom contrasting with the blue back ¡V im thinking I may have to fnid a good source of really white sand!

I also moved the lighting a little which was a bit of a task. Because the tank has the external overflow at the back, it is about 6¡¨ forward of its predecessor. Also the last tank had the huge overflow inside the tank at one end and the bulbs in the metal frame had been positioned accordingly. This meant I had to rework the positions of the reflectors to be exactly over the holes in the Eutobrace. I also positioned them so that the inside of the single ended bulbs (the double ended bit inside ) was exactly over the centre of the holes.

Next I need to get some fans to play across the lights and top of the tank, in an effort to keep the acrylic cooler that it would otherwise get.

New Years Eve is looking decidedly rocky as a target-date for getting the rocks etc drilled and positioned. I had it all planned out, evening by evening but then suddenly its Xmas and all my evenings are getting stolen! Im desperately trying not to falter at this late stage and rush it, just to meat an arbitrary deadline set by myself ƒº

All I have left to do is;
1) Finish filling, heating and mixing
2) Cut some thick acrylic pieces into 2¡¨ squares, glue em into columns and drill them as supports for rock
3) Drill the rocks and cement together into the rock structures I want.
4) Skin the top so that people are not blinded by the lights.
5) Skin the bottom to stop the cat from investigating the pumps etc too closely.
6) Plumb the 4th overflow directly to the skimmer (parts bought).
7) Build a rack to hold the heaters stationary in the sump.
8) Cut overflow grilles out of eggcrate for the tank to stop fish sufing the Dursos.
9) Spend xmas money on snails and crabs etc.
10) Order/build a freshwater resouvoir out of glass.
11) Set up a cuttings/quarantine tank for while im treating the corals in my current tank to get rid of Red Flatworm (Flatworm Exit dip in a small hex tank).
12) Cut some acrylic to make a cover for the external overflow ¡V to stop algae growth etc

Apart from that, not a lot to do really¡K..

jnarowe · #**177** 12/19/2006, 12:24 PM

yeah baby! Not much left to do!

bjmycroft · #**178** 12/21/2006, 06:15 AM

Photos coming soon....

Last night I got 10 miinutes to have a play thankfully. the tank is now full and mixed up to the right salinity and temperature so now the RO is running directly to the sump.

I took the opportunity to transfer the 140lb of LR I can cured into the tank; not in its final state but just to get the rock in there.

Basically its piled up at one end. What is scarey is how the rock looked like masses in the 100g, yet is a small forlorn pile at one end in the new one! I can see where my "xmas tank money" is going this year - a couple of boxes of Reef Bones I think and a box of Live Rock to seed it. I might even buy some "Farm Grunge" from S-T-M. (http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/S...or_Marine.html). A couple of Kg of that sounds pretty wonderful ...

Sump should be full by tomorrow night and then I can get the circulation pump on and move the heaters etc to the sump; At the moment I have 2 Eheim 1060s and 5 heaters dangling into the main tank.

Will definitely get some pics up tonight!

People at home are asking for a "Tank Official Opening" - everyone from friends through to the guy who took the windows out to get the tank in!

-Bob

laomedon · #**179** 12/21/2006, 10:36 AM

Bob, I'm no expert or anything but If you can get a this: Bio-Activ Live Aragonite Reef Sand as it is much better as Caribsea Aragalive. I have never had any problems to put the first one to tank without pre-washing it and it was always clear and has never clouded the water. BUT the Caribsea Aragalive I had therible problems with it's clouding the water so I can't even see the back of my tank. I had to prewash the whole shipment several times (hard and messy job) before I have put it back to my tank. So I would recomend to get a sample ?!? one bag?

Perhaps I just got bad shipment or was just onlucky. that's just mine experience.

woodwrangler · #**180** 12/21/2006, 11:02 AM

Wow Bob, what a story
I'm sure I would have been in a mental institution by now, I commend you on your patience and persistance

Let me know when you want to fly me out to skin that baby.

jnarowe · #**181** 12/21/2006, 12:13 PM

I had the same experience with Caribsea. However, that clowdiness is not bad for you rreef in that it contains minerals.

laomedon · #**182** 12/21/2006, 02:47 PM

YEs :-) I'm sure it was packed with minerals but after 48 hours of trying to let it settle down or filter out but no luck, then I decided to wash, rinse it through in RO water. What seems to help.

bjmycroft · #**183** 12/21/2006, 04:13 PM

Interesting! I shall remember that about the sand :-)

I have some pictures. Not great pictures, but pictures non-the-less. If they appear blue tinted its cos the backgroudn is blue, the lights are very blue, and I was playing about with exposures and colour tempratures etc......

Heres the obligatory "Full Tank Shot" so far. You will see I only have two lights on the go - this is justa finance thing really - will have to wait post-xmas :-). Also notice all my rock piled up at one end - purely temporary until I can drill it and get stuck in with the fibreglass rods.

This one is just the empty tank but its georgous!

A shot across the top so you can see the lights and fans. I need to cut the drip trays to let the return pipes in.

This is a shot of the external overflow when it was running with tapwater. As you can see - 4 dursos each in its own compartment. The compartments are separated just by braces that go most of the depth but water flows between them easily.

Heres a shot of the pump and plumbing. The "Y" on the return is so that I can feed off the main pump to diverse reactors when I get them. Someones idea earlier in the thread that I listened to.

Here you can see the overflows to the sump.

Overflows 1 and 2 go directly to the sump. Overflow 3 goes to what wil be a raised and lit refugium and overflow 4 will eventually be hard-plumbed into the AP702 Deltec skimmer.

Just another shot...

Next task - I just spotted THREE Aptasia on the piece of live rock that I bought recently! Time for the boiling water and syringe I think.

Ooh - last picture...this is the scalectrics track me and my mates set up last night for a laugh. Its my brothers but since he just joined the army, all his stuff is at my house.....

-Bob

Cuby2k · #**184** 12/21/2006, 07:43 PM

Bob, Love the external overflows, very clean looking and should give you some very uniform flow. Keep up the good work my man.

jnarowe · #**185** 12/22/2006, 01:02 AM

Pics are great and the tank looks really nice. I really like all the quality plumbing parts. That will save you headaches in the future. That stand rocks dude...gives you lots of space under the tank.

bjmycroft · #**186** 12/22/2006, 03:33 AM

Cheers guys,
yup - one of the real pleasures is having all that space under the stand. My current tank has a *tiny* sump of about 14gallons, that I can barely get into. This one is sooo much better.

[WoodWrangler]"Let me know when you want to fly me out to skin that baby."
Ha! With my woodworking skills being about zero, thats not a bad idea! I might be asking you for woodworking tips in the new year mate!

Well, this is probably my lasy post until after xmas now unless I manage to find some time on saturday......lie im gonig to have any spare time the saturday before xmas :-)

So
****************************
** H A P P Y C H R I S T M A S **
****************************

-Bob

adddo · #**187** 12/22/2006, 10:31 AM

Havent read thru all of the pages yet, but will finish when i get home from work.

I just wanted to say that i am impressed by your patience and am VERY glad that there are people like Jnarowe!!!! Big Kudos to you!

jnarowe · #**188** 12/22/2006, 11:34 AM

Thank you for the compliment adddo but really it's all Bob on this. I would have had a total mental melt down were it me in his shoes!

bjmycroft · #**189** 12/23/2006, 02:34 PM

Ok, one last post before xmas; im addicted it seems.
:-)
Cheers guys, Jonathan has certainly been a great support to me - not to mention that I ripped the idea for my external overflow off his thread!

Today's lessons are as follows;
1) When siliconing in the glass sheets to act as baffles, choose glass that hasnt got edges like razor blades. Im going to have to split some rubber tubing and glue over the tops of the glass after having a hand full of glass cuts...

2) Dont idly daydream and think "I wonder how fast the water feels when sucked into the 2" intake for the pump?" when you are fiddling in the sump unless you want to get some broken fingers.

Nothing too bad - just cuts and a bruised finger.

Ever wondered if you are having a "Dumb Day".

Doh!

-Bob

jnarowe · #**190** 12/24/2006, 03:26 AM

yeah, I lost a custom gold ring into my Sequence Hammerhead. The ring has still not been located...

thor32766 · #**191** 12/26/2006, 04:25 PM

yeah thats going to be beautiful

mflamb · #**192** 12/26/2006, 04:32 PM

When you have glass cut, ask for finished edges. I had to bleed to learn that one too.

Cuby2k · #**193** 12/27/2006, 12:44 AM

Hey bj, the glass folks should have at least buffed the edge for you, that should have been done without asking. But, item 2, well I've done things like that too.

jnarowe · #**194** 12/27/2006, 01:07 AM

Around here if you don't ask for beveled or polished edges, you get plain cut glass, and it ain't cheap either!

mflamb · #**195** 12/27/2006, 10:57 AM

Bummer...I got 7 pieces of 1/4" cut and edge sanded for $65. I'm going to drill and partition my 125 sump this weekend.

bjmycroft · #**196** 12/27/2006, 11:21 AM

Well, home again and had some time to get on with the rockwork.

Heres what I was aiming at;

This is held together just with fibreglass rods, and I had lots of fun drilling holes in wet rock outside in the cold.

Heres what I ended up with;

IE Bears no relationship to the structure that I built outside. Im reasonably happy with it though. At the moment the tank water is full of fine dust that washed out of the rocks once I had drilled them. In order to get rid of this I stuck the skimmer in after a very good clean and scrub outside. It should settle soon enough. The rock structure is held together using just fibreglass rods at the moment. Once the water has cleared, I wil take a good look at it and decide if im happy with it. If I am then I will epoxy the rocks together to make sure they cant shift at all. Its hard to tell in the picture but there is swiming space all the way around and the rocks do not touch the side or back walls.

I have a pile of smaller rocks left over still so the next task will be to do something creative with them.

For those of you who are eagle-eyed, you will see that the skimmer isnt plumbed into the 4th overflow yet. I will do...just as soon as I have worked out the plumbing I will need in order to twist and turn to get the overflow to the skimmer inlet!

Ok - next bit in a separate post I think......

bjmycroft · #**197** 12/27/2006, 11:28 AM

A bitr of a tale....

Ok so the skimmer is in place and after a rather fraught time trying to get the Eheim pumps to screw back onto the body of the skimmer, all is well.

I switch the circulation on - great.
I switch the lights on - all great.
I switch the heaters on (3 running off a powerstrip)

**BANG**
The breaker for the 20A circuit just tripped out.
*grumble grumble grumble*
Switch the breaker back.
Maybe I just switched them all on too fast - click,click,click and it was the increase in load.

Switch on again
I switch the circulation on - great.
I switch the lights on - all great.
I switch the heaters on (3 running off a powerstrip)

10 seconds and then
*BANG*
The breaker for the 20A circuit just tripped out again.
*grumble grumble s0ddin grumble*
Odd. Perhaps the 3 heaters plus the lights are too much for the circuit....shouldnt be.....puzzled.....

Swich the trip back on again.
"Ok", thinks Bob, "All I need is the heaters and the the skimmer at the moment and I will balance the load out later"

Switch the heaters on and glance into the sump - strange - whats that orange and red sparking thing happening UNDER THE WATER?

*BANG*

bjmycroft · #**198** 12/27/2006, 11:35 AM

I must have dropped the pump for the skimmer onto the heater while setting the skimmer up. When I switched the heaters on, the heating elements were in direct contact with the water.

I was *lucky*.
I was very very lucky.
I just realised; At the point I connected the skimmer up and put the pump in, I had thankfully switched all the electrics off. If I hadnt then I would have had at least one hand in the water when I dropped the pump in and broke the heater.

oh Crap I could have been toast.

That was rather scarey.

its just hit me what just happened so im going to stop

-Bob

Cuby2k · #**199** 12/27/2006, 11:42 AM

YEOW! That's exactly why I dis-like glass heaters. That and the fact that they stick ON, overheating the tank. Man I am glad to hear that you are ok Bob, I fear that everytime I stick my hand into the tank.

jnarowe · #**200** 12/27/2006, 11:44 AM

time for a beer Bob!