Hop's 300 gallon in-wall build

[jnarowe]

I didn't do it, but I am going to scab a box onto my tank and insert a Tunze or other similar powerhead. Basically it will be a box mounted on the side with 2" hole in the tank wall near the top and a Tunze mounted in a hole near the bottom.

It will be a while as I am dealing with another issue, but when I build it, I will post pics and videos. One of the biggest drawbacks to using Tunze is having the visual polution, but by building a box outside the tank, or using full height overflows, you can keep the unsightly mess out of the tank and have very powerful waves.

Mine will be a lot like the one in that vid, only mounted on the outside. And if we can find a less expensive powerhead that can be cycled on and off repeatedly, that will bring a lot more people int the wave-making fold.

[Micki]

Wow Hop that's big!

[Hop]

Originally posted by Bax
Nice, I am a big fan of UV

Well obviously it's too early for me to make an educated decision, from what I have read, I believe it will be an approach on this tank that I like!

[Hop]

Originally posted by Micki
Wow Hop that's big!

Thanks It was bigger than I expected, so hopefully it will perform better too!

[Hop]

I got caught up on homework tonight so I've been trying to get some more done in the wetroom and start tucking wires. I'm 90% certain I am done with equipment in the wetroom until I need to start running a ca or kalk reactor. So I can finally get things cleaned and buttoned up in there.

Here is the pO4 reactor going in after I made a quick bracket out of acrylic. I made the bracket big enough to hold another reactor in the future.


Here we are running:



And here is the UV with the beginning of the wire tucking. I'll tuck it inside wire loom by the time everything is finished. the skimmer was skimming pretty well until I slapped my stupid hands in the tank:


So hopefully over the next few days I can get the remaing wires tucked and everything cleaned up. I need to do a 40 gallon waterchange, syphon out the diatris and clean up the tank some...

[melev]

Very tidy. Not OCD at all.

[Hop]

Originally posted by melev
Very tidy. Not OCD at all.

Well hopefully when everything is done, the wetroom is clean looking without wires and easy to work on. I still have pleanty of room for the few things I would like to add in the future, so hopefully all this work pays off I've been going nuts and still am, having things out of order and strewn around the room. I can't wait until I can just worry about regular maintenence and can focus on the tank itseld, rather than building, adding and figuring!

[bleedingthought]

Hop, it's my understanding that the UV should be after the skimmer especially if you're dosing ozone to help with O3. Am I wrong?

[Hop]

Originally posted by bleedingthought
Hop, it's my understanding that the UV should be after the skimmer especially if you're dosing ozone to help with O3. Am I wrong?

I guess it depends on how your system is set up and the purpose of the unit. Personally I have read and subscribe to the theory that it should be big enough, with slow enough flow at the skimmer feed so that the majority of nuked matter can be removed from the tank, rather than being placed back into the tank to further decompose and burden the tank with additional waste.

Due to the way my skimmer is set up I will not run ozone on this tank unless sometime in the future I see a huge reason to and have the means to change skimmers

[Hop]

So I spent the majority of the night siphoning diatris and crud from the cube and sump and made up 40 gallons of water for a waterchange later today. Then I cleaned up the wetroom some and did some other chores trying to get that area cleaned up.

I did snap a few pics for an algae ID and had a few moments before the lights went out to play a little. Nothing too exciting, but here are just a couple pics:

[Micki]

What is the first one?

[melev]

Devils Hand polyps.

[Micki]

Cool, I don't think I've seen them up close and personal like that before.

[Hopeful Reefer]

I have a small devils hand leather in my tank, and I certainly never would have guessed the polyps looked like that...

Awesome shots Hop...keep em coming!!!

[otiso777]

Great pics!

[Hop]

Originally posted by Micki
What is the first one?

Originally posted by melev
Devils Hand polyps.

Good eye

Originally posted by Micki
Cool, I don't think I've seen them up close and personal like that before.

When I first got it, it was huge and healthy. It started to take a massive decline which took me a long time to figure out that there were little brown shrooms under the backside of it that took over and nearly killed it. I fragged the DH into four pieces and only two made it. they are now slowly rebounding, but it's taken almost a year to where the polyps have started to come back out.

Originally posted by Hopeful Reefer
I have a small devils hand leather in my tank, and I certainly never would have guessed the polyps looked like that...

Awesome shots Hop...keep em coming!!!

Thanks, but I think I'm about out of things to take pictures of I told CRVZ that I would have to start taking macros of the inside of my dog's ears!

Originally posted by otiso777
Great pics!

Thank you!

[tcmfish]

take some FTSs it would be nice to see the rest of the tank

[Hop]

Originally posted by tcmfish
take some FTSs it would be nice to see the rest of the tank

It looks the same as page 16... Not much has changed. I'm hoping to get some new critters here friday and clean things up for a set of FTS

[melev]

Originally posted by Hop
Good eye

How could I not recognize it?! I've had it for years and years, and not only shared at least 100 frags with others, but have taken enough pictures of that coral to recognize it from a single polyp.

However, I was rather hoping you'd correct me. I didn't HAVE to be right.

[erics3000]

Holly moly finally found your new thread. I have a lot to catch up on. Everything looks incredible so far that I have seen...WOW

[Hop]

Originally posted by melev
How could I not recognize it?! I've had it for years and years, and not only shared at least 100 frags with others, but have taken enough pictures of that coral to recognize it from a single polyp.

However, I was rather hoping you'd correct me. I didn't HAVE to be right.

I'll try to get something soon that maybe you'll have to guess at

Originally posted by erics3000
Holly moly finally found your new thread. I have a lot to catch up on. Everything looks incredible so far that I have seen...WOW

Thanks eric. Hopefully things will come together here by summer and then I can sit back and do a little maintenance and watch things grow!





So I did my 20%ish 2:00am waterchange just a little bit ago and I have to say that my eyes did not deceive me when I was looking at the tank the other day... The water is definitely more clear, so the UV is doing more than sucking juice and killing stuff When I do my water changes I generally fill old, but clean salt buckets so that I can roughly measure how much I'm taking out. The water in the bucket is normally tinged tan or yellow. Tonight I noted that the water in the bucket was at least 50% more clear than normal.

Otherwise I've been cruising the net, looking at some potential new corals for the weekend and maybe an anemone. I'm done on fish for a while, but may grab some more snails one of these days and a few more peppermint shrimp.

I'm also contemplating taking down the planted tank I have and giving all the critters to the LFS here in town that only does FW. Then I would like to set up a simple 24" wide softie tank with t5s, modded mjs and a modded hob skimmer... That's it. We'll see if that happens, but it could be really fun!

[Micki]

Sounds like a fun venture! Looking forward to following along.

[jnarowe]

you are a sick man Hop...may the FWP tank RIP.

[steve the plumb]

Hop how do you take such nice pictures,mine never come out like that.

[erics3000]

He has a bad a$$$$camera...and some nice lenses.....