My new 100g set-up

[dazed]

Originally posted by bchbum189
looks great man, glad you like the sump. Your email scared me, all i saw at first was "gashes in the".... and my heart jumped

lol; The ups guy I have gotten to know due to picking up stuff at our business and all of the other things he brings to the house, the first thing he tells me when I see him is "I didn't do this" and I believe him, as he takes it off the truck. But since you packaged it so well with all the Styrofoam it was not an issue at all; I didn't even think to ask you before if you were over here on this site; see I could have been bugging you with pm's all along.....
Very nice work and thanks again..

[melev]

Very nice update. Looks really nice.

[dazed]

Thanks Marc; I'm real happy with the way the sump turned out. I should have a bunch more room than my current setup.

Well yesterday after about 14 months of sitting, splitting, and hosting my 2 clowns; my bta decided to go for a cruise from one end of the tank to the other; problem is he burned/stung some of my monti's along the way. One particular digita looks real bad and has not shown any pe since being disturbed. Will the coral be okay? This morning it looked as if some of the tissue at the base is now completely gone.

[bchbum189]

have you checked your phosphate levels as well? I think that can be reason for sps dieing from bottom up, or is that alk. Well now i dont know, point is, there is a chance your bta decided to move due to a change in tank conditions you may not be aware of. So give the tank a good testing, that may very well be why.

[rjwilson37]

Hey there dazed, this looks to be a really nice setup. I can't wait to see more, and I am sorry to hear about the current issue. That is weird that after so long of being content, the BTA decided to move, did a PH dislodge and blow at it or anything that may have caused it to move that area.

[dazed]

Thanks guys for the suggestions; I'm pretty sure the damage was caused by the bta. I had thought that maybe something with the tanks water parameters had shifted as well but did some testing and all seems to be around the normal. I do run a tlf reactor in my sump with phosban & carbon, as well as grow chaeto on a reverse lighting schedule from the main tank to help keep the ph up at night. I do dose the tank with Randy's 2 part and all evaporated water is replaced with limewater.
Did some testing at lunch here are the results:
ph=8.2
alk=10dkh
cal=430ppm
mag=1400ppm
phos=.02
trate=.01
temp=79.5
sg=1.025

The flow in the current tank has not changed and I have not added anything new; except for a lawnmower blenny to the tank and i do not think he would have been the cause because he is still hanging out in the corner of the tank while he tries to make friends with my 6 line.

I don't know why he moved oh wait yes i do it's because I'm going to vegas soon for a couple of days and he wanted to give me something to stress about. lol don't you just love this little hobby of ours.......

[dazed]

Okay; now I am a little bit more confused the bta has settled down in a spot it seems for the last 2 days; the problem i have with his new home is to the left of him is my Galaxea coral to the right is one of my green monti caps and when he inflates during the day he is right under/touching one of the monti's digita that has already taken a beaten?

What gets me the most is I can draw a straight line in the tank from where he was to where he is now.. It's like he moved from point a to point b in the most direct fashion? but did not move any higher or lower in the tank?

I tried to very gently get him to start letting go of the rock he is attached to and was only successful in creating 3 new frags to watch grow out. I bumped my cap made a 1" piece I bumped the digita and broke 2 more branches of it off..

I leave tomorrow morning for a couple days and I'm pretty sure that by the time i get back the digita is going to be toast.

Any suggestions??

[rjwilson37]

Hmmm.. That sucks big time. That is one of the problems of having a BTA in a reef tank with corals, you just never know when there going to move or split and such.

[dazed]

Okay well made it back from Vegas still very foggy......
but boy oh boy did we have a good time as always; the bta is still in the exact spot from when i left and my tank made it 5 days with a new reefkeeper looking over it to boot, guess it's time to get started on the plumbing for the new setup.

Originally posted by rjwilson37
Hmmm.. That sucks big time. That is one of the problems of having a BTA in a reef tank with corals, you just never know when there going to move or split and such.

^^Yeah I'm thinking now about not moving it over into the new tank for this exact reason I wonder how ticked off my clowns will be at me if I don't bring their home over to the new tank??
Hmmmm choices, choices

rjwilson37; I got a chance to check out your website; nice looking tank, I really like the pillar on the one side with the caps.

[dazed]

Well after one crazy weekend I did manage to get started on the plumbing for this tank. Nothing is really glued in place at this point except for the reducers on the unions; and I still need to pick up some more elbows to finish off the skimmer drain area.

Things I learned 1" spa flex is not as flexible as I had thought it would be, may have been the fact that my garage was about 34 degrees most of the time.

Any ways on to the pictures: Does anyone see anything that is a problem with how it is plumbed? any changes or suggestions are welcome. For right now the tank is in my garage so I have it set up in there for all the testing; and once all that is done I will need to disconnect the tank and move everything inside.
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and last but not forgotten, my new addition to my current tank
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[melev]

Why is the middle plumbing smaller in diameter?

To make SpaFlex flexible, put it in the oven (preheated to 200F) for 5 mins. That's enough to get it to bend nicely. As it cools, it will take that new shape.

[dazed]

the two outside lines are the 1" drains & the one in the middle is the 3/4" return line from the sump. The return pump is an oceanrunner 2500 is this going to be a problem?
I will have to try the oven idea tonight if i get a chance.

[bchbum189]

i would eliminate the unions at either the sump or at the back of the tank, only need one place for those.

Drains might be noisy being 1"

[dazed]

I agree with only needing the unions at one spot and that was my original idea, but this is not the final resting place of the tank & sump setup so I started thinking about what would make it the easiest to move the whole setup into the house after the holidays are over.

This way I can disconnect the sump and tank and move them separate from one another; or if need be remove the sump down the line if something was to go wrong with it I could slip it out and another one in and only have to disconnect the 2 unions at the sump. I plan to run the drain line into the skimmer area unrestricted and adjust the flow into the refugium side as needed.

thanks for the suggestions so far; anyone else?

[dazed]

Anyone know what pump you can use to substitute for the oceanrunner 2500 on the head loss calculator on the home page. I did not see it listed?

[dazed]

Well I finally managed to get some work done on the new setup with the holidays and hopefully all of the flu bug that has gone around my house done with i hope to be able to get things back on track. I did have to change the drain style to regular stockman types the other ones that i have used before i could not get the drains to stop burping air, so i switched them over and all was well. I ran the setup in my garage for 2 weeks with multiple shut downs and was glad to find no leaks. The one issue i did find is that i do not like the top off unit i have on hand and will need to find something to replace it. anyways here is a picture of the completed setup during the testing process. [IMG][/IMG]

After I was done with all that, it was time to break it all down and start the finish work for the stand & canopy. Both the stand & canopy got 2nd coats of white paint on all the interior surfaces that were not going to be stained. The rest of everything was sanded & prepped with wood filler for the finish nail holes and then a final sanding of 220 for everything. I then coated everything with wood conditioner, followed by 2 coats of sedona red stain & then covered in 2 coats of poly for protection. Well this is where I'm at right now with everything so far. I would like to try and get the stand & tank inside the house this week, I just finished up installing my dedicated circuits for the tank as well.[IMG][/IMG]
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i need to get the doors back on and take a picture of everything together. Now i just need for the weather to calm down around here so i can get this thing in the house, we have been blasted on the coast here for the last couple of days with some crazy wind & rain.

[melev]

It looks great.

Were you water testing with fresh water or saltwater? The burping situation shouldn't have been that bad with saltwater. A few minor adjustments usually fix that problem.

[dazed]

Thanks Marc; I did use freshwater for the testing and i remembered from reading on your site that the splashing in the sump would be minimized when the saltwater was used, don't know why I did not apply that theory to the drains as well, I'm going to blame it on the fumes from the stain, etc. lol...

I have 120lbs of sand for the new tank what is the best way of rinsing it?

I plan to add a couple of cups from the current tank to help seed it.

My next concern is the change over from one tank to the other any pointers on that?

[melev]

Rinsing sand - is it new sand or old used sand?

If you can have both tanks running in the same room for a couple of days, it should be possible to make the water parameters match (temp, salinity, & pH). Then you just move livestock from tank to tank.

[dazed]

The 120lbs of sand is new/dry No life at all. I will take a couple of scoops from my existing sandbed to help jumpstart the new one I just keep reading about rinsing the new sand and i can not remember if i did it last time or not.

I could have both tanks running for a couple of days I suppose, but again i keep reading threads on switching over tanks and allot of people seem to recommend using as much of the water from the existing setup as possible? Is that not really needed? I don't really want to make up and then waste around 40g of water if i did it that way.

If i had both tanks running and got the temp,sg,ph to match and i just remove my rock and livestock from the existing tank and place them in the new one will there be a big cycle to deal with? The rock and livestock have been established in my current tank for around 3 years now.

[melev]

When I did my switch over from the 29g + the 55g to the 280g, I had all the tanks running. I literally moved stuff from one tank to the new one. And of all my livestock moved, the beautiful blue Maxima clam perished within 2 weeks. Perhaps it might not have had a acclimated.

Fish, corals, LR, etc... it was as if nothing had ever happened. The only reason you might encounter a cycle is if you leave the LR exposed to air too long. Any hitchhiker sponges that are exposed could quickly start dying, so if you can't place the rock quickly, either scrape the sponge off or submerge it in a holding container quickly.

I've never rinsed new sand, especially if it is from the LFS. If it is from Home Depot (like Southdown sand everyone used to covet), you'd probably want to rinse it because that stuff is super fine (almost like flour). I use sugar-fine sand, and it never has been a problem. The skimmer cleans the water as does the LR, usually within 12 hours.

The only reason I would not use the old tank water would be if I was polluting it by trying to clean the LR out. Blasting it with a powerhead in a barrel, that water would quickly turn brown and ugly. If you want to siphon out some clean water from the existing tank and add it to the new one, that would be fine of course.

[dazed]

Marc; The new sand is from the lfs and is what they are calling #3 as far as size goes, I took a look at the #1 & #3 and decided that the #3 would probably be better especially with the 2 6101's running in the tank. I hope that after a bit of time and the sandbed has a chance to start sticking together that i won't have issues with a sandstorm in the tank, guess i will have to wait to find out for sure though.

I think i will try and siphon out the water in my current sump and try and get as much of the life from there for the new fuge, there are a ton of pods,mysis,etc. running around down there.
Thanks again for all of your help.

[melev]

If it is LFS bagged sand, I wouldn't worry about rinsing. If it is CaribSea or similar, it is pre-rinsed and ready to go.

When you get the sand in the tank, it can take time to settle. I wouldn't turn on your Tunzes for the first few days because the sand that blows around will etch your magnets. The LR and your skimmer will clear the water pretty quickly, and as soon as it is clear you can turn on the pumps.

You may need to wedge something under the bracket to lift it slightly so it doesn't blow right on the sand and send it flying again.

[dazed]

Well I made some more progress over the last 2 days i was able to get everything moved into the house and finally place the tank & stand in it's new resting spot.
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So last night i added the sand and as much water as i had on hand and was able to fill the tank about half way. So i left the ro/di unit running over night and will hopefully have enough water to finish filling the tank & sump later on today. I will then add the salt and fire up the heaters to get things prepared for the changeover; In this picture I'm getting the stamp of approval from my 2 little reefkeeping helpers; I think they may have been even more excited than me about the water going into the new tank; lol.
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[melev]

Look at you, using a pump to push the water into your tank instead of straining your back.