The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[mrcrab]

Hehehe.

No matter what you think and how hard you try...it's going to take longer than you think.

All my critters were supposed to be in the new tank before Christmas.

[zemuron114]

those are nice rocks! I would go for a few more pieces do you already have some rock that you are going to use?

[GreshamH]

All caught up Tom

[Sparkss]

Johnathan and MrCrab
Yea, it not only is harder and takes longer than expected or planned, it always ends up costing more as well

DJ
Yes, there are multiple smaller sized rock, up to 10" and 2 over 12"-14". There are pictures earlier in the thread of the 2 larger ones both in and out of the tank and pictures of the other rocks in the tank (none with them out of the tank). That was why I was thinking we had enough. But I did ask Marc for one more nice, good sized piece. I have not heard back from him yet, but am hoping to firm up things so that he can get them shipped out tomorrow. Then it is just a waiting game for the rocks to make that cross country jaunt

Gresh
Thanks for joining in, glad you could catch up on the thread finally.. although luckily it is relatively short now, so easy enough to catch up in one sitting . You will get to see the carnage from the construction that I have yet to clean up when you come by this weekend .


Overflow combs have still not yet arrived, and I am giving more and more serious thought to completely revamping our sump/fuge and plumbing. I am going on Saturday to look at a larger sump/fuge to possibly replace this one. So for local folks, watch for our current custom sump to possibly be up for sale sometime in the near future .

If/when that sump change takes place, that will also affect the skimmer placement. But this is becuase of some experience I had yesterday evening with doing a quick water change. I will post about it (With some picutres) later on today. I had an interesting revelation about our current setup . Look for an update later, as time permits.

[mrcrab]

Originally posted by Sparkss
Johnathan and MrCrab
Yea, it not only is harder and takes longer than expected or planned, it always ends up costing more as well

That's why I stopped accounting for costs after I paid for the tank!!! LOL

I don't want to know.

[jnarowe]

Originally posted by Sparkss
ours are SE also. Kind of rough to have to have a separate lighting setup just to burn in the bulbs.

Well when you blow one ballast and bring another one in to replace it, you can buy a new capacitor and then have a spare ballast. That's what I had to do...

[Sparkss]

MrCrab
Yea, I am so far over budget that I really don't even want to think about it . Mainly because I know that I am not done yet !!

Johnathan
Well, at least you found a use for your spare ballast, and you also have a spare, that gets checked every so often (when you burn in bulbs), just in case you need one down the road.


Well, I had a little snafu on my part.. I kept b*tching about the overflow combs not arriving, so I went back to check the shipping last night and the USPS web site reported them as "Delivered" back on last Saturday, at 9:55a... well, I knew that I didn't have them, and I had not seen them up on the porch, so I started to think the local kids maybe grabbed the box, etc (never happened before, but anything is possible these days *sigh*). Well, we use the garage to enter/exit the house. An old habit from back when we could actually pull the car intol the garage (those days will be back again soon enough). So I really don't go out the front door unless someone comes tot he door and I need to answer it. The postal delivery person had put hte box between the screen door and the front door and the bottom of our screen door is a solid panel, so I never saw the thin box that has been sitting there since this past weekend *sigh*. So I cut and installed the bottom pieces last evening and after it is done curing tonight (glues says 24 hours) I will cut the comb inserts and start the RO/DI unit back up topping off the tank. No pictures of the new combs yet as I want to fill the tank up to check the level, etc.

Johnathan, how far above the bottom of the combs teeth does your overflow water rise to ? Or maybe it will be easier to ask how far from the top of the combs is your water level when the tank is running ?

[Sparkss]

Got a couple more pictures from the rock supplier, so I am sharing them here. One was a piece that he had already set aside for us, but the original picutre did not come out, so he sent a new one. It is a piece that I am pretty stoked about



Here is a "new" piece that he is suggesting :



and here is what he suggests as placement on top of some of the existing rock for our order :






That would take our order to 266 lbs... still alot less weight than I would have thought, for the sizes being provided

[jnarowe]

Originally posted by Sparkss
Jonathan
Well, at least you found a use for your spare ballast, and you also have a spare, that gets checked every so often (when you burn in bulbs), just in case you need one down the road.

Well, having a spare is a good idea and I didn't like it when it went out, but I can imagine it will happen again one day!

Johnathan, how far above the bottom of the combs teeth does your overflow water rise to ? Or maybe it will be easier to ask how far from the top of the combs is your water level when the tank is running ?

Not a valid question since so many things are variables. I am using a Hammerhead to feed 6 combs and my water line is about half way up the comb. It is pushing about 4,200g/hr on average. This can change when the combs get dirty (I get lazy) and other factors influence flow.

The rocks look great. How much per pound?

[Sparkss]

Yea, I know there are several factors.. I had to decide the elevation on the overflow boxes to mount the combs, made especially difficult to "guess" since they were half the height of our current overflow teeth, but I did not that the aqua medic combs had more flow through area per linear inch than our existing ones, even though it looked less (many smaller versus fewer larger flow through openings).

The rock is $2.97 per pound for the larger, cherry picked pieces, the "football" to "volleyball" sized pieces are $2.25 per pound. I told him to go ahead and through in 4 or 5 of those "smaller" pieces, since that will only add about $5 to my overall shipping cost. . That is the one thing about freight shipping.. once you reach a certain point, anything after that is pennies on the pound.

I should know tonight or tomorrow when to expect the shipment to arrive here in Ca. I will likely have to go pick it up from the closest freight terminal when it arrives, unless that is so far away that it is more cost effective to just pay them for doorstep delivery.

[jnarowe]

Tom,

You could actually figure it out but that would take measuring and math! I see what you mean though regarding the two different sized combs. I would just mount them so that the bottom of the comb openings are about 1/4" to 3/8" below your target waterline. Then youi can adjust flow to meet that target. I never really thought about it much because I knew I was going to hide about 3" of the top of the tank anyway.

That rock is pretty nice and I think it is not a bad price for seeing what you are getting before you buy.

[Sparkss]

yea, I had options to pick or pan each pieces, and add shapes and sizes as I needd for our design plans, so all in all it has been a great experience dealing with Marc over at Marco Rocks. Too bad he has been soo tied up with some custom tanks back East, but even so he still manages to find the time to pick out our rock and get us the pictures and shipping prices, etc. Darned hard working man, to say the least

As for the combs, I did put them a little higher, and they are sort of "adjustable", so I can move them up more if needed. It will be hard to tell where the tank level wil be until I can get the return pump pushing water through it. Since I still need to top off the tank, and also finish the drain plumbing (was waiting for the new skimmer, but that is still a ways off now). Plus I am going to look at a new sump/fuge this weekend and may end up completely redoing our plumbing (it is a 3 day weekend, just right for cutting everything over to a new sump/fuge *sigh*).

I would really like to know the operating water level so that I can work on the front door.. right now I can only guess at how of the top of the front of the tank needs to be covered, I would like to know for sure, so that I can move ahead with the door and trim/casements. Because of that I may end up doing some temp plumbing this weekend to get an idea of level and just re-plumbing it whrn the skimmer gets here. It is only 10' or so of 2" that I would need to re-run, not that big a deal.

[jnarowe]

I would just decide to have the level at 1/2" or 1" below the bracing and mount the overflow combs slightly below that. As far as being adjustable, I don't know about that. If you keep them higher than fully inserted, you might have issues with organisms growing in the slot. Once that happens, it may be tough to clean out the slot. You had to cut the combs? Got a pic of that? I just routed my overflow slots to fit the combs so I didn't have to deal with cutting them.

[Sparkss]

haven't cut the combs yet.. and I am a little ticked off at Miracles (the original tank builder). When they built the tank they built the overflows (in both corners) differently. I had easier access to one, so I measured it and cut for both. I know, stupid mistake and even worse assumption, but what is done is done. The result being that the right side looks good, the left side works, but I dislike the slots orientation. This is important because the solts are mounted on the outside of the existing overflow (that was the only way that would realistically work, to be able to ever remove the combs, etc. I will try to take a picture later.. likely after I have topped off the tank, since it is hard to get a shot of what I am talking about, just above the water line currently. But the 2 pieces on each overflow have one that overlaps the end of the other, on the corner. On the right hand one that overlap has the slot visible on the piece that runs parallel with the front of the tank, so it is only visible from the far left, and you need to "look for it". On the left side, the overlap is on the piece perpendicualr to the front glass and the slot is stright on visible from the front. I only hope that once the combs are in that it is less obvious.

EDIT : Just exchanged Emails with Marc about the rocks, going to finalize everything early tomorrow and get ti shipped out. He said typical lead time to the West Coast is 5 days, (not sure of business or claendar, or if the Holiday monday will impact that). Since it is freight shipping, they often transport across the weekends, etc (via train, truck, etc). So it looks like we will have the rock by the end of next week, possibly the following Monday at the latest, but likely middle to end of next week. I am super excited about getting that rock and making this look more like a tank and less like a glass bowl

[Sparkss]

minor update : Picked up some materials to take a stab at the front access door and trim work. Also picked up the first of 2 new sumps/fuges (150g each) that will be plumbed in to replace the existing 100g one. Also have some VHOs that I am going to play around with to add to the existing lighting array to give some "cheaper" lighting for longer viewing times (morning/evening). We already have a couple of 660s and waterproof endcaps, I jsut need to see where I can mount the bulbs .

I also started the process of getting one of our Vortecs replaced. So far I must say that I have been less than impressed with IceCaps quality control percentages. We had 0 out of 4 that did not have some abberrance with the pump or driver. Only 1 out of those 4 actually resulted in a non-functional pump, but that is still 25% failure rate, right out of the box, which does not give me an extreme warm and fuzzy. I will keep this thread updated with how that replacement goes. From what I have read so far they expect me to ship this week or so old pump, that never worked right, to them at my own expense and wait for them to ship back a working one. I heard so much about the customer service from their company, I guess I get to find out how much of it is real and how much hype. Again, progress reports as things happen

[mrcrab]

I had an issue with one of mine and I'm sure you've read of Jonathans. The customer service is superb. You won't be dissappointed. They even replaced a missing dryside gasket, no charge, from a vortech I bought used from another RCer.

[jnarowe]

sorry to hear about that Tom...I figured by now they would be shipping fairly solid units. not cool IMO.

Check out this thread.

[Sparkss]

I have a bit of an update on the Vortec issue. Here is an excerpt from a post of mine in the IceCap forum :

I went ahead and did a bit of troubleshooting on my own (although to be blunt, I do not feel that it should have been necessary to do, and nothing a little good ole fashion QC couldn't have prevented). I swapped wet ends with one of our other pumps and found that the nut on the end of the shaft (that holds the impellor on) was loose and actually fell off into the tank when I moved it over to the new pump. This was aparently what was wrong from the begining. So now we need to torque test all of the nuts and bolts on every pump and wet end ? . Once I replaced the nut and tightened it down the wet end started working and so far has been going all night. The real test will be if it is still going in the morning

So that means that, to date, I have been able to overcome all of the build quality issues on all 4 pumps sufficient to make them operational. I suppose I should be happy about that, but the fact I had to deal with any of it just rubs me the wrong way.

[jnarowe]

Yeah well, get used to it! You are installing new technology man!

Whatever you do, do not over-tighten the nut. Eco-Tech was very specific about that.

[Sparkss]

define over-tighten ? that wet end has been running since last night without incident. If it is over tightened will it show up with rattling or some other symptom ?

And another update.. the wet end I moved over to the problematic motor was stalled again this morning. This was a wet end that has been running for over a week with no problems, so the issue is definitely on the driver/motor end of things. I don't think it is code corruption since I can get it to restart the last couple of times I tried, but have yet to try to get it to restart today, with the new wet end on it.

[Sparkss]

Well, I picked up a 150g commercial fuge over the weekend and a tek light to keep over top of it (both used) and have a second 150g to use as a sump that I hope to be picking up next weekend (if it is ready for pickup by then). These two will make up the bulk of our filtration, coupled with the Spazz skimmer being gravity fed. I am still mapping out where the heck everything is going to sit in our "fish room", partly due to the height restrictions on the sumps and the floor space available for us to use. I am also considering sectioning the fuge to double as our prop tank, but right now just can't make my mind up about how it all would work out and if it is even feasible.

Other than that I have not gotten a whole lot done this weekend, due o having been under the weather and having little to no usable energy

so I will post some pictures from Marco Rocks of them boxing up our rocks for shipment . There was some sort of a snafu with the shipping company and the rocks still have not yet left their factility in Mass., even though Marc, from Marco Rocks went out of his way to personally deliver the pallet to the shipping company, versus waiting for them to stop by for a pickup. That was last Friday, late morning. *sigh*.

Here are the rocks being boxed up :





and here they are in the back of his truck, ready for transport to the shipping company (lotta good that did us )



Their estimated delivery time to the local shipping facility is next Monday, Jan 22 *uugghh*

[jnarowe]

wow! I would totally do business with Marc. He really does a nice job.

I am glad you and others are posting about the Vortechs as it seemed for a long time that I was the only one doing so or having problems with them. Eco_tech has told me more than once that I am the customer with the most failures so it hasn't been a good feeling on that regard.

I am dying tio see what your commercial fuge looks like. That is an area I really think I need to improve.

[strittmatter]

wow the rock look great. can't wait to see the pic of it in the tank.

So what's the secret to get Marco to return the e-mails? I have sent 2 e-mails asking about rocks.

[Sparkss]

Johnathan
You are definitely not alone with regards to issues with the Vortecs. And I am not one known to be quiet about things. I post just as much good as I do bad, or at least all experiences equally. Marco rocks so far having been in the good column

EDIT : The commercial fuge is nothing all that impressive, IMO. I am happy with it mainly because I got it for pennies on the dollar . I believe it is an Aquatic Eco brand fuge from a couple of years ago (not that I can find it on their web site now). It is very well built, and heavy as heck (even empty). It measures 72" X 24" X 20" and is basically a 3 section sump with accomodations for the center to be used as a fuge. I can take some pictures tomorrow, but it really needs to be cleaned up... alot. And the store that used it before we bought it had cut out one of the corss supports to make room for a skimmer they had in sump. I also need to patch up a couple of bulkhead holes and what not, but that is all easy stuff (it is acrylic). And yes, I got both from a store that was moving and setting up the new location different and all new, and basically just blowing out all of their old equipment .


strittmatter
I am not sure, I had no problems getting Marc to answer my Emails, but then again I think it is also all about timing. Most of last week he was tied up with some custom setups and of course this past weekend was a 3 day weekend with today being a federal holiday, so I am unsure how responsive he would be after 5 PM EST Friday and before 8 AM EST tomorrow. Are you sending Emails through his web site ? Maybe he is having hosting issues. I also called him and left a VM and later followed up to talk to him in person.

[raddogz]

Tom - how many sumps did you pick up from Mermaid anyway?