The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[jnarowe]

Looks like Scott's work gets better and better and he is also putting a little style into it. I hope he can get to enscribing/etching a volcano into the lids!

[clekchau]

tom, it's a huge waste collecter. i think it would be a small club buddy, probably 15 people have spazz skimmers? our tanks have similar equipment, marco rocks, vortech propeller pumps and volcano skimmers

jnarowe, no custom inscribing yet, all i got was some volcano stickers

[Sparkss]

my post before was actually meant in response to that rotten bugger clekchau :P. Ok, so I am just a little bit jealous that he already has his skimmer

EDIT : it is kind of cool that we both thought along the same lines (Vortec, MarcoRocks and Volcano skimmer). What sort of lighting are you using ? Lumenarcs ? I can't wait to see yours getting setup and running !!!! I thought I remembered that you don't have a build thread yet. When you do start one, be sure to post the link to it here !!!


MakoJ.. thanks for the props..I have alot to compete with between yours, MrCrabs and many others tanks here.. now if Jonathan would only take some pictures so that we could see what his tank looks like these days

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by jnarowe
Looks like Scott's work gets better and better and he is also putting a little style into it. I hope he can get to enscribing/etching a volcano into the lids!

The way he is going with his new equipment, I wouldn't be surprised if he was doing that sooner than later. Although since our skimmer will be 5'+ tall, it is not like I will be able to see the top of the lid anyways :P

[jnarowe]

pics? we don't need no stinkin' pics!

It looks just like any other reef, but just a bit young. And I have an aiptasia "issue".

So many projects to do...so little time. I may hire someone to take over my business responsibilities so I can spend more time with my reef!

[Sparkss]

LOL.. I know how you feel. Every once in a while I feel the need to take a "reef sick day" to care for an ailing reef that needs my attention.. but somehow I don't think I could fly that past my boss, as others do to take a sick day to take care of their ailing spouse of kids (well, I could always just fib ).

[jnarowe]

you know you're not supposed to lie to your boss!

[tacocat]

Looking good Tom. You're mystery Pavona is a Pavona maldavensis. I have to concur that you don't need an RSDB. The DSB in your tank should be plenty.

[Sparkss]

There actually isn't a DSB in the tank.. it is only 2" - 3", and the 3" spots being unintentional, created by both the engineer goby and the vortecs. I still think that I can get away without an RDSB, between the skimmer that we will have and the other nitrate reduction steps we will take.

We tried out Seachem's De*nitrate a couple of years ago. It is basically a pourous rock that works to allow aerobis bacteria to host on the outside (to strip the oxygen from the water passing through) and anaerobic bacteria to host inside of it, similar to how a DSB works. It is meant to be run in a canister filter or I believe also passively in a filter bag in a sump. We ran it in a canister filter and it worked quite well to bring down our nitrates. Since it is a rock, it never gets "used up". Our sumps have compartments for bioballs, in a bubble trap sort of configuration. I plan to fill those areas with the De*nitrate rock that we have. Actually, we have the De*nitrate Martix, which is the larger sized rock, that is rated for greater than 50 GPH, the smaller, standard size needs to be fed no great than 50 GPH, which while it worked fine in a canister filter that I could control, won't work how we plan to use it in our new setup. Luckily I have plenty of both since I was testing both last year.

We will see if it does a good enough job on our nitrates, combined with the skimmer. If not it is easy enough to add an RDSB to our sump (much easier to add later than it would be to take one out ). The one downside is that we are pretty much giving away/trading away all of the sand that we had collected up for the RDSB from tank teardowns around the Bay Area.. most of it being kept "alive" in two 100g tanks. So if I change my mind later I will end up having to collect/buy the sand all over again. One thing that many people overlook is that even though we may not have paid for this sand, it was far from free... between gas, @ 14 miles to the gallon in our Expedition, buckets and lids from HD for transporting and our time and back muscles to empty out the tanks and lug the full 5g buckets back and forth. After everything is said and done it would almost have been cheaper to just buy the sand from the LFS that opened up 10 miles down the road. But then we wouldn't have the "live sand" that we were after .

[clekchau]

tom, i had a lingering nitrate problem and tried everything imaginable, seachem denitrate, kent nitrate sponge, sugar, water changes etc and it would go down some but jump back up to 40 ppm due to a heavy bio load. i finally put a rdsb and didn't check nitrates as i was pretty burned out on the problem. checked it in a month and it was 5 ppm . to be fair though, i had the small little rocks, not the larger sized ones and ran it thru my sump which had alot more than 50 gph, maybe that's why yours worked.

[Sparkss]

cleckau, we started with the small ones, in a canister filter that I controlled the flow rate through, but it was a pain to keep it between 40 adn 50 GPH (detrius buildup would slow it down, etc), so because we had decent success with it I dove in and ordered some of hte larger ones. They seems to help keep it under control (same canister filter, just turned the flow rate to full blast). So I am hopeful that replacing the bio balls in the trap section of hte sump with the larger Matrix rocks will give me the results that I am looking for. It is a pretty large area so we should be able to have quite a few rocks. I am going to see if they pack in to tightly I will mix in some of the bio balls to break up the rocks to help ensure that the water can flow through that section and not back up.

I will take some pictures of what I am talking about when I get a chance (and actually get to working on that part of our setup again).

[fishsoldseprtly]

Tom, everythings looking good bro. I will keep track of this thread for now on. Hope to see more pics bro.

[Sparkss]

Soon Warren.. working at the moment and hopefully sleeping in tomorrow

Sorry that we missed you today, we will definitely have to catch up with you the next time we head up your way.

We really love the frags that we got from you last year. The one just glows that dark green, like it has batteries inside it or something. One of my favorites, to be sure. Thanks again

[fishsoldseprtly]

man hows the rest of the frags you got from me? Yea I would really like to see how they turned out. send me a better pic of the one you are talking about. Next time you head down I will give you a couple of frags. take care buddy and congrats.

[Sparkss]

Thanks for the generous offer Warren. I will try to pick out some of the frags we got from you and take some better picts... There are a few standouts in our tank and more than a couple of them we got from you .

[cbui2]

everything looking pretty good here sparkss, took me some time reading a little at a time but nice from the beginning..

[tacocat]

Originally posted by Sparkss
There actually isn't a DSB in the tank.. it is only 2" - 3", and the 3" spots being unintentional, created by both the engineer goby and the vortecs. I still think that I can get away without an RDSB, between the skimmer that we will have and the other nitrate reduction steps we will take.

Sorry Tom. I need to stop classifying any sand substrate as a DSB. IMO You are very close to having one in your display. I wouldn't worry too much about nitrate reduction right now. I recommend an aggressive water change schedule for the moment. Have you looked at sulfur denitrators?

Do you have an easy water change setup configured into your system?

[Sparkss]

cbui2
Thanks for the compliment and thanks for following along

tacocat
You are right, we are very close to a DSB in out tank.. a bit more than I like, but our engineer goby, pain that she is, has a cool personality, enough so that she survived when we trapped out the rest of the engineer gobies and gave them away and that we even decided to move her to the new tank with everyone else.

Just to clarify, we don't have a nitrate problem that I am aware of. We do have chaeto in our sump/fuge and a good quality skimmer running (just not the beast that we want to have in operation ). We are just trying to plan for the future and any future need for nitrate reduction.

As for an easy water change system, no right now there is almost no automation built into our setup. I had hoped to get the ATO from our old setup installed this weekend, but that just didn't work out. If I can I will try to get to reinstalling alot of the automation throughout the week after work each day, but I may not get to any of it until next weekend. And we really didn't have any WC setup on our old one either.. any suggestions ?

[tacocat]

Originally posted by Sparkss
for an easy water change system, no right now there is almost no automation built into our setup. I had hoped to get the ATO from our old setup installed this weekend, but that just didn't work out. If I can I will try to get to reinstalling alot of the automation throughout the week after work each day, but I may not get to any of it until next weekend. And we really didn't have any WC setup on our old one either.. any suggestions ?

I have always been partial to water change sumps myself. I am using my growout tank as a water change sump right now. Here is a good example of one:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...totm/index.php

See the Sump and Water Change section.
If I had one, I'd hard plumb it in so that all I'd have to do is turn a couple of ball valves to drain the water change sump and to fill it.

[clekchau]

As for an easy water change system, no right now there is almost no automation built into our setup. I had hoped to get the ATO from our old setup installed this weekend, but that just didn't work out. If I can I will try to get to reinstalling alot of the automation throughout the week after work each day, but I may not get to any of it until next weekend. And we really didn't have any WC setup on our old one either.. any suggestions ? [/B]

I use a spectrapure liter meter III + water exchange module, it changes 7 gallons a day automatically. The only thing I will have to do is refill my rubbermaid stock tank and mix salt every 2 weeks or so and keep it covered to avoid evaporation. I also use the unit for my auto topoff.

[jnarowe]

clekchau: Got a schematic of your water change system?

[tacocat]

Originally posted by clekchau
I use a spectrapure liter meter III + water exchange module, it changes 7 gallons a day automatically. The only thing I will have to do is refill my rubbermaid stock tank and mix salt every 2 weeks or so and keep it covered to avoid evaporation. I also use the unit for my auto topoff.

That's my plan too. I just haven't purchased the modules yet.

[clekchau]

Originally posted by jnarowe
clekchau: Got a schematic of your water change system?

Jonathan, if you look on the top of page 9 there is a detailed drawing:

http://www.spectrapure.com/manuals/LiterMeter3f.pdf

I will finish my plumbing of the entire system hopefully this week and take pictures of how I did it. Basically there are 2 rubbermaid stock tanks, one is plumbed directly into the system and it will be my remote deep sand bed. The other is the saltwater mixing tank that will always contain premixed saltwater and covered to avoid evaporation. The litermeter III will take an equal amount out of the rdsb and run it into a drain and at the same time will take the same equal amount from the saltwater mix and put it into the system. You can program it to do this at a certain level, for me it is 7 gallons a day. I got the idea on reef central and Randall Holmes Farley's article advocating small, daily water changes:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

[xinumaster]

I haven't thought about how I'm going to setup my water change system. Thanks for bringing this up. I need to review all those literatures you posted for my tank.

Tom, any new pictures?

[jnarowe]

so you are setting it up just like they want? I would love to see pics if you get the chance. My only issue with this method is figuring out how to replenish teh water in the SW holding tank. I fill mine with RO/DI and then mix in salt to age. If you are constantly changing water out of it, then at some point there would be a salinity change right?