Addiction wins, 450 gallon system begins

[NexDog]

Originally posted by jnarowe
PS. NexDog

Trying to air condition a room that is producing heat is extremely inefficient. You have to spend so much energy it's not worth it. Like a restaurant owner near my store who put AC in the kitchen, but it can't do the job and costs too much.

The best thing to do is evacuate the hot air. You devise a simple system to remove the air, while allowing the supply side to draw from and air conditioned house. You are already using the AC, and just pulling some of that air to replace the hot air that is leaving the fish room.

That makes sense! In my plan, I have about six slits in the wall above the tank near the ceiling. It was my intention to use an air conditioner to chill the tank room and the office with the unit in the fish room. But if I put the unit in my office and put some exhaust fans in the fish room, the cooler air will be pulled in from the office via the wall slits/vents. Problem solved!

[Hop]

Good point NexDog... Two tanks and two differant situations. My planning was all done in my head and with a calculator (and to think I hated school, particualry math). Not sure if it's going to work yet, but in theory I think it's going to work out pretty well. I think the wet room temp is going to be a breeze, but it's the tank that's got my mind spinning. Trying to figure out, if I'm going to seal the headspace over tank off as much as possible from the room, and vent the air outside, where am I going to access, fresh, cool air. More drawing board stuff I guess

[NexDog]

Just make sure you have a chiller and have it outside and that tank temp shouldn't be an issue. I just didn't want to be frying whilst working in that room.

[jnarowe]

Not exactly...if your are using a high cfm fan and duct operated by a thermostat, with say a 5 degree range, it will turn off when the room gets cool enough, so your AC air will only be vented out as warm air. You put the fan/duct up high, and allow the cool air in from down low. Have it go on at around 75F and off at 68-70F. That will keep the room within the range of the house wthout venting too much cool air. It works, but a 3" fan will not do the trick. A linline duct fan like what is used to vent bilges on a yacht would work well. There are many of them available.

[WarEagleNR88]

Yes, vent to the outside as high as possible. The ceiling of the room would be your best bet. If you have a vaulted ceiling in the room, it will work even better as you'll get an even larger pressure difference in the room and a more natural updraft.

And if roof asthetics are not too important, you could probably have a vent fan put on the roof to help draw out the hot air without wasting ANY electricity. The wind will naturally pull the hot air out to help cool your fish room even more than just a hole in the roof or wall. Contact a homebuilding contractor if this option sounds like something you would like to put in as I'm sure a little bit up front construction cost would heavily outweigh the electricity costs of any fans over the years of use.

Keep us posted!
- WarEagle

[Hop]

Ok I'm posting this question on here as well as the MRC forum....

Since I have never messed with a MRC skimmer nor a pressure rated pump in regards to a skimmer... Here goes...

Probably stupid questions

Short story long but here goes...

I'm building my 450 gallon system and purchased an MR3 as my main skimmer (may be running a ASM in addition, but only if the MRC isn't enough) and I am getting the wetroom completed as we speak... So I have 2 questions.

1. I have the Gen X PCX55 and was wondering what the optimal distance from pump to skimmer would be... Will 3-3 1/2 feet (height) from pump to injector be OK or should I try to redesign the system to lower this distance.

2. Should I plumb from the pump to the injector with a hard line (pvc) or would a vinyl hose be sufficent to cut down on a couple PVC elbows.

Thanks in advance!!!!!

[Hop]

Nothing really to update this week. I did find out that the tank should be on my doorstep around the third week of August and the sump should be here in about two weeks. I really should have worked on the tank this week, but we wound up stumbling across a really good deal on a boat, so I spent the few days off I had playing around

I did snap a quick picture of the 125 in-wall that I am using to seed some base rock for future implementaion into the new system. Its amazing that I have around 135lbs of rock in this tank and it still looks like the tundra. This tank finally got over the diatom outbreak, cyano and hair algae issues. I have just a bit more hair algea, but it's almost completely gone now... Funny thing is that the tank only has four powerheads and a CPR bakpak for filtration, but it's working pretty well for it's purpose. You can't tell in the pics, but the coraline is really starting to take off on the base rock and the pods are going nuts. Obviosuly the tank is not set up to look great, but provide a home for a few fish, crabs, snails and shrimp during the seeding process.

At anyrate, I hope everyone has a good weekend!

[Hop]

Well it's official, I have not got a darn thing done in weeks

The sump is due in on monday and I'm taking a couple weeks off after that, so if all goes well I'll have all the plumbing done and the wetroom finished by the time I return to work.

I did manage to pick up a sink for the wetroom and got it stuck in it's new home. Too bad I was to lazy to plumb it today

[jnarowe]

I've got the same sink only my is, um, a bit older looking...Didn't I see somewhere on RC that there are problems with Instant Ocean?

[Mr. Eko]

Originally posted by jnarowe
I've got the same sink only my is, um, a bit older looking...Didn't I see somewhere on RC that there are problems with Instant Ocean?

Huh?
Hundreds of poeple here use IO and there is hardly ever a complaint. If there was something wrong with IO it would be all over the boards by now.....

[jnarowe]

Probably just a problem with my memory...I know one of the major brands has enough of a problem that I have seen posts about it...I just can't remember which. I thought it was IO.--J

[NeilPearson]

Originally posted by jnarowe
Probably just a problem with my memory...I know one of the major brands has enough of a problem that I have seen posts about it...I just can't remember which. I thought it was IO.--J

There have been posts about almost every salt having problems. Someone has a hair algae breakout and they blame the salt....

I have used IO and Oceanic and Reef Crystals and they are all fine. Some might have higher calcium or lower alkalinity or some other deficiency. None of them are really perfect. Just test what you are putting in and compensate for any deficiencies.

[Hop]

I've used IO and Reef Crystals for over a year and it has worked very well. I have to drive three hours to the closest LFS that carries anything other than the small bags of red sea salt, so when Dr. Foster had their sale(free shipping), I picked up a little over a years supply for the 450 which saved me nearly 200 bucks.

Been getting that excited feeling about the tank today, getting geared up for next week where all the plumbing and electrical should be done after the sump gets here. May even start cleaning out the room where the tank is going to go and begin tearing out the carpet and such. Otherwise I've been cruising trying to figure out what critters I want to put in the reef and in what order. Looking at corals and such and thinking about the woodwork around the tank when completed...

Currently the only livestock I've really thought about is:
8-10 blackbar chromis
a white cheek tang
Coral Beauty
and a foxface

Then the clean up crew I have now in the 125:
3 peppermint shrimp (might have some off spring in there now)
4 misc dwarf hermits (2 red leg and 2 zebra)
3 Margarita snails
then I have a slew of limpits and whelks that I'll need to scrape up and remove. Mostly they have been pretty good with what is in there now

So if any one is bored enough to throw out some other good choices, feel free. And yes I will have a bit of a sand bed because I like the sand sifting bottom dwellers. I'm planning on something like the Oregon reef in regards to how the sand in managed! The window shopping stage is a fun part right?

[jnarowe]

NeilPearson
I am sure your are right about that. I remember it being some kind of quality control issue and various posts chiming in on it. Is the 29g a "prison tank"?

Hop

I saw your earlier post about the free shipping, and immediately checked their site. The special they have going now is free shipping for live stuff, and explicitly marks salt as NOT part of the deal. Kind of funny, but I think you, and maybe others, ran them through the ringer on the free shipping deal. They probably forgot about the salt when they first set it up, and if anyone ordered gravel or sand for a large tank, someone probably got fired. hey, at least you got yours!

Window shopping is fine if you don't bring along a calculator...

[WarEagleNR88]

4 crabs in a 125 and 3 margarita? Are you sure? How would you ever know

Looks good. How long has the 125 in the pic been up and running?

[Hop]

LOL, The 125 was set up about five months ago just to aid in the seeding process of 60-80 lbs of base rock with the 50-60 lbs of live that I had from my 55 gallon. It will most likely go back to a planted tank after the 450 is up and running. I treid to simplify things by playing musical tanks for awhile.

I did have 5 margarita snails, but one's shell was confiscated and one took the salty highway to the floor.

[MarineTeng]

just FYI www.drsfosterandsmith.com is having a special no weight fee on instant ocean, i'd stock up it's a good deal $28 for 160 gallon bucket, with 7$ shipping and each one you add is only $1 more for shipping i believe

[MarineTeng]

just FYI www.drsfosterandsmith.com is having a special no weight fee on instant ocean, i'd stock up it's a good deal $28 for 160 gallon bucket, with 7$ shipping and each one you add is only $1 more for shipping i believe

[UnderwaterExotic]

tagging along

[GSchiemer]

Originally posted by UnderwaterExotic
tagging along

That's what the "subscribe to this thread" button at the bottom of the page is for.

Please be considerate going forward. Those of us that are subscribed to many threads don't appreciate having to open e-mail and log onto the internet when there have been no real updates to a thread.

Sorry that I wasted other's time with this post, but perhaps it will do some good.

[Knyght]

Oh my, another large tank to drool over
Work looks very nice so far. I will be following along, really enjoy following these build logs.

[bullfish]

I'm going to follow along. Everything looks great!

[Hop]

Thanks guys,

Hopefully I'll have some good updates over the next week. I work through Monday and then the sump should be in... After it gets here I've got some serious plumbing to do I'm hoping things go smooth and I can stick to a basic itin...Itiner...Itinerary... Ah forget it... Schedule

[Hop]

The sump came in today at almost 9:00pm. Didn't know the men (or woman in this case) in brown worked this late... Well I have to say that I'm very impressed by the quality of this sump by MRC. It's one tough peice of gear. I was a little nervous when I ordered it, but after I opened the box I was quite impressed. So tomorrow I am going to be knee deep in plumbing the wetroom

[WarEagleNR88]

Wow. Shiny Acrylic