JapanReef - 450 gallon In-Wall system - Page 39

NexDog · #**951** 04/16/2006, 10:23 PM

Hey Hop, good to see you back! Did you ever decide what to do with your system? I seem to remember you were thinking about selling everything due to electricity bills and other things?

jnarowe · #**952** 04/16/2006, 10:28 PM

I don't think silica based sand has any buffering quality to it but I could be wrong. There must be some coral based beaches in Japan with all the islands around there. At least I would think so. here in the USA the left coast has silica based and the East coast, at least down South has coral based sand. I would put in a good effort to rty and get crushed coral. I can't imagine there is not market for it there but maybe that is what you were referring to that costs $10?

Hop · #**953** 04/16/2006, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by NexDog
Hey Hop, good to see you back! Did you ever decide what to do with your system? I seem to remember you were thinking about selling everything due to electricity bills and other things?

Thanks, it good to back home and here on RC. For now I'm certainly keeping the tank. I have some issues to solve and now after returning from training and a new job description, I have some major time issues. So I'm going to try to keep things simple and manageable

More of a FOWLR and some low maintenance corals for now.

As far as the cost of the tank goes, I pulled a few switcheroos and lowered the monthly operating cost down about $100 a month

So that helps things out a bunch.

Keep up the good work, I'll be watching closely!

NexDog · #**954** 04/16/2006, 10:37 PM

I'm pretty sure it's all crushed coral around here but I can't be sure. The sand I use in my main tank costs $10 for 2kg which is about 4.4lbs (typed incorrectly last time) and I remember Anthony Calfo saying that an RDSB would need to be 50g for a system of my size. No idea how much sand that would be but upwards of 100kg I'm sure and I don't feel like spending $500 on sand.

NexDog · #**955** 04/16/2006, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hop
Thanks, it good to back home and here on RC. For now I'm certainly keeping the tank. I have some issues to solve and now after returning from training and a new job description, I have some major time issues. So I'm going to try to keep things simple and manageable More of a FOWLR and some low maintenance corals for now.

As far as the cost of the tank goes, I pulled a few switcheroos and lowered the monthly operating cost down about $100 a month So that helps things out a bunch.

Keep up the good work, I'll be watching closely!

Pray tell, what did you do?

Hop · #**956** 04/16/2006, 10:53 PM

Well for now I'm only running two MH and I shortened the lighting period across the board. Then I got rid of the Sequence Barracuda and replaced it with a blueline. Finally I just started tweaking the AC Jr and playing with various timing of key components and stuff and found a lower end of the "sweet spot" of the tank. It shaved a nice chunk off my electric bill

I'm not certain that the tank is running perfect, but it's running and everything seems healthy. I just have a bit of an algae issue on the rear pane...

jnarowe · #**957** 04/16/2006, 10:54 PM

I put about 300 lbs. in my 50g RDSB and it's plenty deep. But I understand about the money believe me. If I could collect it locally I would have. See what you can do and just remember to sift it. If you rinse it too much you will lose the benefits of live sand...maybe going out on a boat and getting it away from shore would be the best idea. It would be a pain but then you would get true live sand and hopefully much less or zero pollutants.

Dreamy! Free live sand! DROOOOL...

NexDog · #**958** 04/16/2006, 11:03 PM

Hop, I got rid of one pump when I switched to gravity feeding my skimmer but it was only an Iwaki. I still have my big Sequence 1000 running 24/7 but the area under my rock islands is stunningly clean. I left an opening in each so I can just make out a small area and I can see the reflections of the loc-lines so it's doing its job. I just can't see a way to streamline down my bill at all....

Jonathan, I was just going to go down the beach and scoop up the dry sand in buckets. Then I can sieve any crap out of it. Sand doesn't need to be live as it's just there for denitrifying bacteria and those bacteria will soon colonise the sand (within a few months?).

Hop · #**959** 04/16/2006, 11:08 PM

Hmmm... Somehow I really messed up the headloss calc when I was planning mine. I expected the sequence to be the right pump, but found out that I was way over powered. I bet I was pumping 1000gph through a T, right back into the sump as it was too much for the drains in the overflow to handle. Now with running the blueline, I don't have a T going back to the sump at all... and it fixed my micro bubble issue to boot

No more filter socks!

jnarowe · #**960** 04/16/2006, 11:09 PM

true, but you could get some good stuff in live sand. (as well as some bad stuff) But sand off the beach is bound to have a variety of pollutants I would think. Maybe you should, if you haven't already, do some research into that.

I know with my planted tank I did several "no-nos" like I used sand and rocks from the stream on our property, and I also used worm castings in a lower layer of the substrate. Most "pros" would tell you not to even think about that but I have one of the nicest natural FW Planted tanks around.

NexDog · #**961** 04/16/2006, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hop
Hmmm... Somehow I really messed up the headloss calc when I was planning mine. I expected the sequence to be the right pump, but found out that I was way over powered. I bet I was pumping 1000gph through a T, right back into the sump as it was too much for the drains in the overflow to handle. Now with running the blueline, I don't have a T going back to the sump at all... and it fixed my micro bubble issue to boot No more filter socks!

One thing about gravity feeding the skimmer is that I had to choke off my return pump to match the skimmer's capacity. I thought that would cure my microbubbles aswell but it didn't. Redoing the return pump's connections has been on my list for months.

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
true, but you could get some good stuff in live sand. (as well as some bad stuff) But sand off the beach is bound to have a variety of pollutants I would think. Maybe you should, if you haven't already, do some research into that.

I know with my planted tank I did several "no-nos" like I used sand and rocks from the stream on our property, and I also used worm castings in a lower layer of the substrate. Most "pros" would tell you not to even think about that but I have one of the nicest natural FW Planted tanks around.

My problem is lack of choice. It's either that or shelling out $500 on sand. In fact I don't even want to pay $50 for sand. If I sieve the dry sand and then rinse it really well I'm hoping it would be okay. But I'm widely open to advice on this subject.

jnarowe · #**962** 04/16/2006, 11:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hop
Hmmm... Somehow I really messed up the headloss calc when I was planning mine. I expected the sequence to be the right pump, but found out that I was way over powered. I bet I was pumping 1000gph through a T, right back into the sump as it was too much for the drains in the overflow to handle. Now with running the blueline, I don't have a T going back to the sump at all... and it fixed my micro bubble issue to boot No more filter socks!

Damn I could have traded you for the 4200 I have. I just bought a new Hammerhead so I could get a little more flow. The 4200 was OK but not quite enough to keep up with all the auxilary equipment.

Do you still have the Barracuda? The algae issue should lessen with less light unless you have too much Nitrate or Phosphate in the tank. If you want to speed up the demise of the algae, just put a 1 hour nap in the middle of the light cycle. HA cannot ramp up photosysnthesis like plants and animals and nap will really screw up the HA. I have that programmed in on my FW Planted tank and it works great. Good water in, proper water changes, and a mid-day nap. That is the cure for HA.

jnarowe · #**963** 04/16/2006, 11:23 PM

Dog,

PM me about your set up...I have a gravity fed skimmer and I am running about 4200g/hr through my overflow with ZERO micro bubbles. maybe we can troubleshoot it so you don't have to redo anything?

Well I wonder if there aren't other options for the sand. Can't get out on a boat? What about shariing with an Aquarium getting a load in? What kind of sand is used there in construction? Swipe some sand bags off a military base?

Alright guys, I just took a sedative and I have to go to BED!!

NexDog · #**964** 04/16/2006, 11:35 PM

That's some massive flow you have there. I'm down to about 800GPH now as that's what the Deltec 902 needs to perform at its optimum. I'm pretty sure I need to retape the nipples on the return pump. I resealed all the other joint and that's the only thing left.

Kent E · #**965** 04/17/2006, 07:46 AM

Quote:

I'm pretty sure I need to retape the nipples

As far as enegy consumption. I have a 450 tank and I run 2- 250 xm 10k on a light mover and the sps couldn't be happier or more colorful. its an 11 hour burn time. I feed a very heavy varied food.

flow is another story, four darts 24/7. I think I'm going to use cycle-timers to cut down on energy consumption.

jnarowe · #**966** 04/17/2006, 08:42 AM

Pasties anyone?

NexDog · #**967** 04/17/2006, 07:00 PM

Well, that was a short-lived failure. Woke up this morning to find the second mandarin dead. I had put it in the main tank hoping to improve its chances of survival. This is the last time I get fish from that particular place as the survival rate of those fish is like 10% (seriously). When I try again in 6 months or so I'll order from favourite shop in Tokyo where the PBT and Lyretails came from.

Today is teh last day of hypo (4 weeks) and lost only one of the initial 6 Lyretails and the PBT is also doing great. I reckon I could have saved that other Lyretail too if I'd had the sense to dip and dose Formalin earlier. It has some kind of intestinal parasite I think judging by the red blotching I saw on its stomach when it died. About 10 days ago it looked like one of the Lyretails was going to die as it looked really bad. It's colour became very mottled, almost white and the only thing I could thing of was Brooklynella. A Formalin dip and subsequent dosing in the QT cured it. It's still not as active as the other 4 but its colour has fully returned. I'm going to start to raise the salinity there tonight.

NexDog · #**968** 04/19/2006, 01:55 AM

So the pods arrived safe and sound yesterday. I'm going to try my hand at culturing them too. I put half in the main tank, quarter in the fuge and quarter in a 5 gallon tank. I also got some Phyto-Feeat and dosed the fuge and culture tank. Feels great to find another source for stuff that I'll need. If my Clarkii pair ever spawn I might try my hand at rearing them and get live Rotifers from ReefNutrition too. If I had more space I'd start now - live Mysid too....

Now to study up on culturing Phyto over at MelevsReef.

jnarowe · #**969** 04/19/2006, 09:02 AM

yeah Marc has some really good culturing pages. Easy to understand and execute.

Danables · #**970** 04/19/2006, 08:05 PM

Nexdog your tank is looking great nice job! i was woundering if you can post some more pics of your fish room and sump set up thanks

NexDog · #**971** 04/19/2006, 10:53 PM

I would but the only camera I have is the one on my phone and it suuuuuuccccckkkkkks.

Hop · #**972** 04/19/2006, 11:13 PM

ROFL! I'm right there with you... Dumped so much into the tank and still have a POS camera. Every time I go and look at new cameras, I think... That's $800-1200 I could spend on the tank

jnarowe · #**973** 04/20/2006, 12:21 AM

I have apretty good digital camera but they just don't do macro very well until you get into the upper price ranges. I am bummed but I will either have to use my 35mm or buy another digital! My wife freaked when I told her how much the clowns and anemone cost.

NexDog · #**974** 04/20/2006, 01:24 AM

The camera I've been using for the past 5 months or so is a digital video camera that also takes stills. It did the job but nothing spectacular and it couldn't do close-ups at all. Two weeks ago we went to an amusement park and I was on a kiddies roller-coaster and it flew off my lap onto the concrete below. The video part of it still works funnily enough but it no longer recognises any memory cards.

jnarowe · #**975** 04/20/2006, 08:51 AM

That's what we call TOAST !! I had that happen and the repair place had it for 3 months and then told me it would cost as much as a new one to fix it.