Melev's new 280g Starfire tank thread

[rjwilson37]

Ok Marc, we need a new full tank picture with all those beautiful fish!

[MPH]

Mark,

I’ve been reading your any discussions about shucking clams. I do a lot of them and oysters also, because I like to eat them, not for my fish. I also like caviar and sushi, so sometimes the fish have to fight me for the nori. LOL

However the right way to shuck clams is: You can buy clam knives and they are different for oyster knives. You cannot open a clam form to hinge side as someone suggested. That only works for oysters. You would notice that a clam knife is quite dull. I find their blades to be too thick however. I prefer a cheap paring knife, like want you find a K-mart. Usually has a wooden handle with a thin blade. Then dull it. Run the edge over something hard, like the clam shelf. Or I just let my wife use it for a couple weeks LOL.
Place the clam flat on the palm of your hand with the hinge toward the base of your thumb. Put the edge of the knife on the line between the tow shells. Wrap your fingers up over the back edge of the knife and squeeze. It should slip between the shells. Then rotate the tip of the knife around inside the shell and cut the two eductor muscles. There is no way your could get cut unless you’re really trying. It will come right open. Put on some cocktail sauce and slurp it down. Or feed it to your fish if you feel you must.

Looking forward to seeing your sump plans, I’m looking for new ideas.

[melev]

Dave, that is a great system. I too want to set up some type of remote system, even though I do not have a basement. I think I'll eventually set up a system in my garage with a pump and switch like you described.

I don't drain the tank at this time, and hopefully won't have to later.

Weatherson has a nice system set up with dual containers and a pump that even aerates the water during the mixing/aging procedure. As soon as I have more space in the garage (in a few weeks!) I'll be able to come up with an easier and more permanent solution. Especially after I build my new sump.

[melev]

RJ, I'm sure I'll have some new pictures to post in the near future.

Miles, thanks for the suggestion. That sounds like a good system. I only have to do this about once a month, and obviously I won't be getting a ton of practice with only a few at a time. I miss the old frozen mix I used to buy at Walmart, because it had mussels in it already. - sigh -

The new sump isn't even on paper yet. Nathan seems to have some ideas that he'd like me to consider, so I'm going to find out about those this weekend. The outer dimensions I'm working with will give me a total volume of 150g. Pretty darn big.

[steve68]

Mark it's funny but i know what u are going through, i did the same thing when i first set up my tank i had a 55 gallon sump then went to a 150 Acrylic sump & had to extend my stand 7 inch's out when it was all done i just put a piece of 1/2 inch plywood across & the new sump was installed,but while doing all this i 2 was getting fed up with pulling 40 gallons across my kitchen 4 water change so i said 2 my self if i put a 3/4 inch bulk head on the left side with a ball valve & hook up a hose to it presto water will be forced out at a high & fast volume,then i thought well how can i get my water in there that fast with out having to hook up a pump,well i came up with the idea of a 35 gallon Drum wich would be at the top right corner of my fish room & gravity fed to my sump,i put a 3/4 inch bulk head on the bottom with another ball valve & ran PVC pipe to the left side of my sump where all the drains from the tank are & on top i put a float switch & hooked up to my RO unit & i also have a mag2 to mix the water + a heater the end result open one side drain 30 gallons close it,open other side fill the sump & it's done in 6 minutes & 23 seconds.
hope this gives u another brain storm

[melev]

That is awesome!!!! Love how you set up your pump to mix the water like a cyclone.



I may copy this quite closely, and hope you don't mind. I don't understand how you have the pump tied into the drain though? Or is it just there for mixing and then lifted out?

[steve68]

u can copy to a "T" if u like
the pump sits on top of the bulkhead with a hole on the side so the water goes though, i had to make the hole bigger cuz it would hold air when the water drained & the pump would not suck in the water,it's 4 mixing the water only

[rjwilson37]

You guys amaze me at some of the stuff you do, I mean I know that it's not rocket science, but just too cool all the same.

[melev]

Steve, why didn't you just use a Tee? It would allow the water to suck through easily, and drain just as easily?

[smurf04]

great job marc, ive spent the last couple days getting back into the grove and catching up on what everone has done, im very impressed to see what you have done, congratz man, i love your tank, do you still have those zoo'z?

Smurf

[melev]

Yes, they are still in my son's tank, and haven't done anything but survive. In other words, they are fine but haven't grown out at all.

[DerekW]

Originally posted by melev
.......I'll probably put several drains in place so all the sections can be emptied.

If it's acrylic. you could just drill a small hole in the baffles and use just one drain, I have one large compartment, then it goes over one baffle, and under another to the pump, I drilled a 3/4" hole in the baffle and drain the entire sump out fromm one end.

[DerekW]

Originally posted by melev
Steve, why didn't you just use a Tee? It would allow the water to suck through easily, and drain just as easily?

Why even have the pump attached to the bulkhead anyway? I just sit mine in the can.

[melev]

Originally posted by DerekW
If it's acrylic. you could just drill a small hole in the baffles and use just one drain, I have one large compartment, then it goes over one baffle, and under another to the pump, I drilled a 3/4" hole in the baffle and drain the entire sump out fromm one end.

If I set my sump up with multi-compartments, I could drain water from the skimmer section, the propagation zone, the refugium and the return area. That is why I need to get this on paper so i can make all of this work.

[steve68]

Why even have the pump attached to the bulkhead anyway?

Cuz it circulates the water better & i dont have the cable from the pump & heater getting all tangled up,in my old 35 gallon when i did that the pump & heater would get all tangled up & i dint like it.

Mark that would have worked much better u know how it is some times we just dont think straight

[DerekW]

Originally posted by steve68
Why even have the pump attached to the bulkhead anyway?

Cuz it circulates the water better & i dont have the cable from the pump & heater getting all tangled up,in my old 35 gallon when i did that the pump & heater would get all tangled up & i dint like it.

Good point, I also have that problem

Originally posted by melev
If I set my sump up with multi-compartments, I could drain water from the skimmer section, the propagation zone, the refugium and the return area. That is why I need to get this on paper so i can make all of this work.

True, you could still put the drain in the skimmer compartment, then drill the holes at whatever height you want the other sections to drain down to, assuming you have each area successively higher. Does that make sense? Of course, it is easy enough to put a bulkhead in the bottom of each section, then a stand pipe to the height of where you want the water to drain. Or for that matter put a 1/2" bulkhead through each of the baffles, then have a tee and a standpipe in each section to determine how low the water will drain. Just throwing ideas out there.

[melev]

Yes, that would work too. I was thinking of floor drains, because that way I could rinse out detritus far more easily.

[DerekW]

True enough.
You know the last time I did a big water change, I decided to get all the detritus out of the sump. By coincidence, I had my wet vac right beside the tank, and voila, clean as a whistle! Took 2 minutes.

[rjwilson37]

Marc, Here are the new Green Bay Packer Zoa's I got.

[melev]

If there was any doubt before about my clown babies, I think what occured today will cast those aside. :cool grin:

[Vert20]

Clown Babies! WoooooHOooooooo!

BTW, WooooHooooo! is redneck for Congrats!

[NuclearReefs]

LOL vert,, you aint right!,,,LOL

[smurf04]

Kool, hope they survive, sorry to hear that those zoo's havent grown any, it seems that everytime i get zoos they just live and dont ever grow, hopefully that will change once i get my new tank up, well congratz marc on it all man this is simple awesome and outstanding.

Smurf

[melev]

Thanks Vert, I'm psyched! It's funny, the first set of eggs weren't that color at all. I don't know if that was a practice run or what, but these look like the images I've seen from others.

Thanks, Smurf.

Okay, today I did yet another 55g waterchange. It started off with siphoning off the cyano on my sandbed. I'm about ready to use ChemiClean instead. While I was pumping water out of my sump, I grabbed all my cheatomorpha and razor caulerpa and shook it repeatedly in the waste water. Then I stirred up the base of the refugium repeatedly as I pumped water out into buckets. I believe I've found the source of my P04 all this time, with a good 1/4" to 1/2" of detritus accumulation there. I swear, I hate this sump.

Anyway, after pumping out brown sludge from the refugium (10g worth), I added more water from the skimmer/intake zone and pumped out another 7g of sludge from the refugium. The plants are nice and green, the water far more clear and the substrate is almost visible in there again. I'm going to continue to concentrate my efforts on purifying that section of accumulated detritus for now, or maybe turn off the return pump every evening for an hour during feeding to reduce the food just collecting and rotting in that compartment.

Btw, earlier today I tried to run my skimmer more wet. After 2 hours I went into the fishroom and found my 1.5g container overflowing and a lake on the floor. Quickly shutting off the drainline from the collection cup, I got a mop and bucket to clean up the mess. That is when I saw a trail of water leaving my garage and down the driveway. Apparently I drained about 5g of water from my system running the skimmer too wet and the auto top-off added kalkwasser to make up for it. Great, now I worried what the pH was. Quickly turning on the Pinpoint Meter, it reported 8.63. (My Aqua Controller appears to be broken in some way, because it has been giving me false readings for days. I've contacted Neptune Systems about it, and was told to recalibrate the pH settings, and possibly replace the Orp probe. I need to order calibration solution now.) With the high pH reading, I dashed around to the front of the tank to see how the corals responded. Typically the Green Slimer (A. yongei) will release slime in stressful situations, but it was fine. The entire reef looked fine. Another disaster averted.

The Ritteri appears to be dissolving this evening. Part of it looks fine, and part of it looks like it expelled a chunk of digested shrimp. I don't know what I could have done differently to help this anemone.

[ynot]

Well it has taken me 5 hours to read this thread from page 24
till here...I am completely amazed at everything you have done
And I can now see how great this forum is.
Everyone here is willing to help out as much as they can. Your
reef is so full of life.

I hope your babies survive, that would be wonderful.

I am in the process of finishing up my reef room after reading
your website. I am hoping to have pics to share sometime next
week in a different thread.

I also just wanted to say thanks for sharing do much in detail.
This thread and many others have helped me in planning process.