The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

The skimmer is consistently pulling out gunk, but mostly watery skimmate at this time. I have not really tuned it yet, and because of the "lack of tune" the neck needs to be clenaed badly (which will help the skimming). Even with that it is clearing the tank. So I need to 1. Clean the skimmer neck, 2. Tune the water/air mixture, 3. adjust the water level properly (possibly changing plumbing in the process) and 4. Adjust the wet neck. new reactor should be here this Friday, around which time I will likely be tackling the wkimmer to-dos also . Here is a quick FTS shot to hold everyone over until then



Here is a left and right side shot :

[strittmatter]

The tank looks awesome!!!

[hawaiianwargod]

Tom,

One word: Wow!

[raddogz]

Tom how long did you let the marco rocks cure before adding the fish?

[Sparkss]

about a good month before any livestock went in. It wasn't so much about curing them as it was about letting them spur on our initial tank cycle. As soon as the cycle finished we started moving livestock over from our old tank. It could have been as much as 6 weeks, I don't really remember exactly now.

[cbui2]

good job tom everthing looks great, some of the tangs are fat too and colors are awesome. how big is the foxface now?

[Sparkss]

Not sure how big he is (he won't sit still for a tape measure ), but he appears to be fat and happy . Thanks for the kind words, we try to provide well for our livestock. There is still a ways to go before I am content in settling back "to watch it all grow", but we are so much closer now than we were a month ago (and the month before that, and so on ).

Thanks for following along . Any idea on an ETA for water in your tank Bart ?

[cbui2]

i would risk sticking my hands in there getting stung just to find out how big he is. 2 weeks, hehe. 1000lbs live sand caribsea bahamas oolite will be arriving this friday then following week 600lbs live Haitian rock will be hand picked by me in Tampa bay. i will start making water this weekend since it will take about 15 days to fill all my tanks, lol.

[Sparkss]

Can't wait to see yours up and running ... and if you really want to know how big the rabbit fish is, then you come out here and stick your hand in to measure him (although he is a big wimp, I would hate to see what he would do if he felt truly cornered).

[cbui2]

vacation in SF would be real nice, but will have to wait until kids get bigger maybe i will take you up on that offer if it still stands some what yrs down the line. hehe

[Sparkss]

Our new Ca Reactor is tracked as being on the truck for delivery, so it should be here soon enough today . I finally cleaned out the skimmer and tried adjusting the wet neck. Once it slimes back up I will know how successful, or not, I was on the wet neck adjusting

i am sort of sad today also. We trapped out our engineer goby to trade with another local reefer. The goby wasn't really a terror or anything, but periodically would bury corals with the sand he would clean out of his various burrows and other burrowing critter related incidents. Those really weren't enough to cause us to want to evict him, but the fact that they are mildly piciverous (sp?) was, mainly because we wanted to populate our tank with some smaller fish. The goby won't eat any fish that it can't swallow whole, and it generally is not a predator in that it doesn't go out "hunting" for fish to eat. We have had one or two fish disappearances that I suspect the goby for, but nothing definitive. Either way we will miss him, he was very cool looking and quite eel like (without the feeding and predatory issues associated with eels). And I personally loved the gold on black pattern that they get when they mature

[cbui2]

that baby look wicked

[hahnmeister]

Engineer Goby = Engineering new ways to bury your corals...lol. Yeah, I love em too, but those borrowing tendencies arent going to work with me either. Of course, if you have a tank where all your corals are up on the rocks, or a bare-bottom tank... you are set.

[hahnmeister]

Engineer Goby = Engineering new ways to bury your corals...lol. Yeah, I love em too, but those borrowing tendencies arent going to work with me either. Of course, if you have a tank where all your corals are up on the rocks, or a bare-bottom tank... you are set.

[Sparkss]

he will be missed.. they are so sleek as they swim across the tank (although they are not typically water column swimmers). They are definitely very cool fish, but don't have any fish that can fit into their mouths (which realy equates to no fish smaller than 1" or so, and long, slender fish maybe 2"). It is not that they are normally fish eaters, but they are just pigs in general that will eat just about anything they can. We have not found any food that we tried that they would NOT eat.. they eat just about anything . One article I read phrased their appetite like this : "They are never late for dinner, they come early and stay late" . Some of the harder to find fish that we get do come in on the small side, especially some of the smaller fairy wrasses that we plan to start stocking. Plus the engineer buried my wife's favorite cap that was on the sand bed too close to one of his burrows.. his days were numbered ever since .

Next will be to try to trap out the golden angel. Even though it came from an established reef tank and was around LPS and zoas, I suspect him of muching on our zoos. So we decided not to risk it and to just do our best to trap him our and sell him. He doesn't touch our clams, acans or SPS, I just see him hovering around our 2 zoa rocks a bit too often for my tastes. Combine that with some "mysterious zoa dissappearances" and his days are numbered also .

Ca reactor arrived is plumbed in and operational. I will take some pictures later on this afternoon and post them . It is very well built... but I expected no less from Scott . It looks just like the one on the bottom of this page :

http://www.aquaticacrylics.com/reactors.php

But look for pictures of ours running later today.

[yoboyjdizz]

Beautiful tank.... inspires my lazy butt to get back to work on mine!

[Sparkss]

Thanks for the kind words.. our tank is truly a labor of love... (but still a labor )

Here is a shot of the new reactor (yea, I know, we need to clean up those wires.. but a good portion of them are RO/DI lines *SIGH*). The reactor looks small next to the skimmer, but trust me, it is not small at all.. there is almost 30 lbs of fresh reactor media in that guy



and here is a close up

[asmodeus]

Tom your out of control.

looks awesome keep up the excellent work

[Sparkss]

Hopefully the coral growth will be out of control too, soon

Thanks for following along

[spazz]

why didnt you remove the protective blue tape??????

ha ha ha ha ha

p.s. keep a close eye on your alk and cal levels. they may jump as much as 100 ppm over night if you have that thing cranked up high. glad fed ex didnt use your shipment to pratice for the stanley cup this time.

[hahnmeister]

Just checking, but is all the hose on that reactor CO2 grade? You know it should ALL be CO2 grade except for the input, right? Even the output will degrade and yellow over time if its not (not to mention, let the CO2 bleed right through the wall).

[spazz]

Originally posted by hahnmeister
Just checking, but is all the hose on that reactor CO2 grade? You know it should ALL be CO2 grade except for the input, right? Even the output will degrade and yellow over time if its not (not to mention, let the CO2 bleed right through the wall).

here is a guide to go by when choosing tubing for a co2 based reactor.

MaterialCompatibilityMetals

Aluminium Satisfactory

Brass Satisfactory

Copper Satisfactory

Ferritic Steels (e.g. Carbon steels)Satisfactory but risk of corrosion in presence of CO and/or moisture. Cold brittleness.

Stainless Steel Satisfactory


Plastics


Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) Satisfactory

Polychlorotrifluoroethylene (PCTFE) Satisfactory

Vinylidene polyfluoride (PVDF) (KYNAR™) Satisfactory

Polyamide (PA) (NYLON™) Satisfactory

Polypropylene (PP) Satisfactory

Elastomers


Buthyl (isobutene - isoprene) rubber (IIR)Non recommended, significant swelling.

Nitrile rubber (NBR)Non recommended, significant swelling and significant loss of mass by extraction or chemical reaction.

Chloroprene (CR)Non recommended, significant swelling and significant loss of mass by extraction or chemical reaction.

Chlorofluorocarbons (FKM) (VITON™)Non recommended, significant swelling and significant loss of mass by extraction or chemical reaction.

Silicon (Q)Acceptable but strong rate of permeation.Ethylene - Propylene (EPDM)Acceptable but important swelling and significant loss of mass by extraction or chemical reaction.

[Sparkss]

Well, the fittings I used came from Lowes off the rack and US Plastics and the tubing came from HD off the shelf and Marine Depot (for the red colored tubing).

The red tubing is for the water in (I wanted opaque to minimize algae growth) and due to the valves that Scott has on the reactor the inlet line doesn't even come anywhere close to the C02. The clear HD line (polypropylene IIRC) was to extend the C02 inlet line, I used a spare ball valve to connect the two together, and that fitting was from Lowes. The fitting to connect that line to the regulator was from US Plastics and was Kynar, IIRC.

I will just have to watch everything to see how it wears over time.

[Sparkss]

redid some of the plumbing and lowered the skimmer as far as I could (by removing some of the foam from underneath it). That combined with some tuning experimentation allows me to get the water level to just below the twist lock now.. not optimal, but a heckuva lot better than it was before.

During the plumbing rework I ended up flooding the garage a bit (luckily I have everything, pumps included, a minimum 4" above grade, so it all just flowed out relatively harmlessly down the driveway ). But when I got it all back together I noticed that our main return pump was making some noise (more than the normal noise that has been building), so I went ahead and swapped it out for the spare Dart that we had (just for this purpose). We definitely lost some flow, but I think that we have enough to suffice (still 2000+ GPH through the tank/skimmer/sump, so at least 5X turnover).

Now here is the question : The new Dart is pretty noisy.. both from the pump itself and possibly the fan on the back of the motor (sounds like a blade hits the housing every once in a while). We picked up 2 Dart's used, but they never saw water, so I had a pretty high level of confidence that they should have been trouble free. I will be swapping out to try the other Dart tomorrow, as time permits. Any advice or suggestions about the pump and noise levels are welcomed.

On an up note, we did tons of trading today and ended up with a nive purple goni, an Oranji frag and some nive zoas. Unfortunately once we got them all dipped and acclimated the lights went off on the main tank, but once they come back on tomorrow, and the corals open up, I will take some pictures

[cbui2]

omg but the good things is the fish room is the garage which work out the best. no dart here, the sequence 1000's series is what i have and they are really quiet and infact the ehiem on my skimmer is louder then my return & CL combine. is everything else ok?