afgun

I installed the new closed loop pump after stubbing the plumbing, based on a recommendation I received:

I also moved another of my plumbing lines to make some room over the sump:

I'm thinking about building an algae scrubber, and there's just no room anywhere else under the tank to put it, which precipitated the change. I'm still waiting on RCA to get back to me about the pump for the skimmer... but I did a test fit and boy are things tight:

The weir camouflage panels are installed. Here's a nighttime shot while I was testing out my lights:

Slow but steady progress... today I need to bug Jake to see if he contacted his supplier, and fire up the table saw to work on the eggcrate for the refugium. I'm going to have a DSB, benthic zone, a layer of LRR and finally open space at the top for macro algae.

Welcome to RR, Garrett. There's also Amazonia on 35, and I hear that Petco in Pflugerville usually has a good selection of saltwater fish.

When you get it going again, a suggestion to monitor the tank is a low-light video camera, recorder and some sort of moon lighting overnight. It won't stop whatever is happening (if it happens) but at least you should be able to go back and see how things are occurring...

New motor sourced and will be installed back into the system today. I'm still working with RCA on a skimmer pump. The camouflage for the weir is done, but didn't come out looking like I wanted. I will take the wife's opinion on whether to install it or not. Hope to put the first batch of water into it tonight!

Did you move the tank or still need help?

Can any of our local sponsors get bubble blaster pumps? If so please let me know. I need to work on the skimmer while waiting for my 56_J_ frame motor to come in.

Nevermind. I figured it out... Accidentally bought a 56C instead of 56J motor. DOH

I hooked up the VFD today. Very cool tool. I like it. Unfortunately, when I went to install the pump on the new motor, here is what I found.

Hammerhead motor:

My new motor:

Obviously the ends are different, and there's no way that the seal would work properly against that keyway.

How do motors identify the type of shaft/mount? My Baldor vm3538 obviously needs replacement... help? Thanks!

After me being silly and not properly measuring the fittings, a return trip to the hardware store has the leak repaired. The RO/DI is not producing the expected 90 gallons/day due to water temperature and lower than quoted pressure, so I ordered a piggyback cartridge for it.

The second barrel should fill today, and I hope to dump the first batch of water into the tank tonight. With luck it will be full by early next week.

Stupid "90 gpd" RODI system... grrrr First 55g barrel STILL isn't full. Going to check for restrictions shortly.

Supports for third panel have been removed and all rock wall is holding nicely.

Hopefully I"ll get water in this thing soon...

Barrels cleaned and installed and RODI plumbing completed. 0 TDS exiting the membrane right now, though I'm sure it'll go back up in a bit. Filling the first barrel.

Third rock wall panel silicone is drying right now. I need to make it to prof's tomorrow so I can pick up some more sand to do my weir camouflage. I expect to have some water in the beast on Wednesday!

Does anyone local have a PAR meter that they'd be willing to lend me once I get water in my tank?

I have created an eggcrate/foam/rock wall in my build as well. I just attached the second panel to the wall today... hope to know how it winds up overall in a few days!

With mine I cut the eggcrate, laid it on some plastic, decided generally what rocks I wanted where, took the rocks off to the side and foamed the snot out of the eggcrate with waterfall foam (note: the stuff they carry at home depot is black but NOT UV safe). Then I stuck the rocks back on. I had to pull some pieces out and put extra foam on the back to get them to really stick well. You want to squish the foam as much as possible to reduce buoyancy.

Note, the foam will keep expanding even after it's sat for a few minutes. What I ended up doing was waiting until it dried, ripping off the smooth foam that stuck out between the rocks, then I laid down UV safe epoxy (aquadome carries "pond shield", but it's pricey) and covered it in sand. When dry, it looks just like in my thread pictures.

With our old tank, we used the frozen cubes, thawed. Spread it across the tank and some of the pieces hit the bottom, where they were grabbed by shrimp and crabs.

I'm not qualified to answer... my wife is the one who was originally interested in a reef aquarium. I wasn't keen on spending the money, but she convinced me... and I have ended up the addict! She's just frustrated (disgusted?) at how long it's taking me to get this thing ready for water! Bottom line is what other posters have said... don't obsess over it, don't let it be the focal point of your life, but let your SO know that you're very interested in it and you'd like them to be open to the idea of keeping it together!

Well it's a Baldor vm3538 and isn't in their "made for inverter" series, so it's only suitable. Thanks for the advice. Hoping it's quiet!

Very nice!

First is to only submerge your piping as little as necessary in the sump. The deeper it is, the harder it is for bubbles to escape.

Second, you could use a tee in the pipe that flows into your sump. Leave the top open (stub it as necessary to keep water from leaving through the top) to give air a place to escape before it gets into your sump.

Third, you could try a bubble tower on the inlet to the sump. You can see an example on Melev's reef at http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/a/sump_model_a.html this is probably something like gonzobob was suggesting.

Obviously cementing a bubble trap (over under over) to the walls of the rubbermaid container won't work, BUT have you considered making an acrylic box for your pump that you set into the sump, that has a bubble trap built into it? Seems a nifty DIY project that you could also look into.

Yesterday I took a trip to home depot and then I made some time today to work on the 'quarium once again. I finished the ugly plumbing under the sink along with a couple other maintenance tasks in the bathroom (wife is now happy)

Then I used some silicone to attach the center panel of my rock wall to the back of the tank (on its own it leans forward a bit by more than an inch at the top

Assuming it holds, I'll tackle the others over the next couple of days. I also have an idea on how to make the weir blend in. I bought some fiberglass screen and will use more of that Pond Shield epoxy along with some sand to make a sand cover for it. I hope it looks OK.

I ordered some shielded wiring for the VFD, but it hasn't yet shipped from the distributor. So that project is on hold right now. So in lieu of an update on that, I'll give you with another teaser:

I found a smokin' deal on a Euro-Reef RS-250 skimmer with a dead pump (the pump really is dead... several days of acid haven't unsiezed it, but the impeller did break. It fits (barely) in my sump... So I'm thinking about getting a Bubble Blaster to replace that pump. Would the 3000 be sufficient for this skimmer body (8" diameter) ? Any opinions on converting it to recirculating?

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer, so that's when I'm going to tackle cleaning the RODI barrel and bringing it inside.

I would second the fragging comment... give the frags away if you must, but do that rather than killing 'em ! In a few weeks hopefully I'll be ready to take all the free frags you want to give

Oh yes, I'm quite adept and repairing PVC leaks, as well as (re)sealing NPT joints with Teflon tape!

I have heard that the VFD can produce significant EMI, so I'm prepared to get a filter for it if it impacts me or my neighbors. As far as the physical noise, I'm told to simply turn the PWM frequency up beyond human hearing and you're good to go.

+1 on getting rock from Prof. My rockwall was done with stuff I acquired from him. Always a pleasure dealing with him, too!

So I was pretty much a lazy bum the past 3 weeks, choosing to goof off over vacation rather than do pretty much anything. Last weekend my wife and I DID stop by Aquadome to check out the store and pick up some PondShield epoxy. We also visited Amazonia on the way home as we're trying to get a lay of the land, so-to-speak, with respect to LFS.

Anyways, I grabbed some sand from Prof on Friday night, and yesterday I got to work finishing the rock wall, since I figured it would be the last semi-warm day for awhile. The PondShield was a LOT thicker than I anticipated, and I didn't have any alcohol to thin it, so it went on kind of goopy, but it seems to have done a pretty decent job adhering the sand. I don't believe that I'm going to try and get the last little bits of foam covered with sand, unless I get a lot of strong advice otherwise:

Today for some reason I felt motivated (yes, I am slightly feverish!) to do some more work, so I got busy finally mounting my RODI system. It was pretty easy to do (not sure why I didn't tackle this beforehand), but fishing the tubes through the wall did wind up to be a bit of a pain, but it all worked out:

I'll finish it up by getting a block-off plate and drilling a couple of holes for the tubing, then sealing the under-sink. Now I need to clean the 2 barrels I have had sitting outside for awhile, drill and mount the shutoff valve for the RODI and finish that plumbing up. I have a pair of dual-inline TDS meters; any suggestions where to plumb them? I have 2 pre-filters and 2 post-filters (I basically converted a 4-stage to 5-stage ala http://www.spectrapu...axCap-RO-DI.htm). Do I plumb the first sensor after the pre-filter and carbon block but before the RODI, or elsewhere? Etc...

I'm getting VERY close to finally putting water in it. I'll fill the tank with RODI for my final in-place leak-test, and if all goes well, just add salt to the tank. Time to start stocking up on salt, test kits and other miscellanea!

Oh, and here's a teaser of what Santa bought for himself... more on this later after I get some shielded wire and the energy to take the Hammerhead apart to install it!

As always, I appreciate everyone's input!

To spell it out more clearly... to help purge bubbles, the water should flow through the bubble trap and then over the edge into the sump for return to the tank. Since your water level appears to be an inch or so over the bubble trap, it's not nearly as effective.

If you want to feed the fuge as well as your bubble trap, I might suggest putting a tee into your overflow output with a ball valve to control feed to the refugium section, and lowering the water by a couple of inches in the sump. I'd also (personally) move the heater to a higher flow area of the sump, if you have room.

Most of the mold stains came out with simple vacuuming. Tomorrow I'll attack it with some ideas I've been searching to see if I can get it clean the rest of the way.

Hooked up the lighting today and did the final trim-out on the rock wall... please note that the pond foam when compressed can have a very long curing time; I trimmed some excess foam off of the back of the pieces and uncured foam started leaking out. Think "pyrotechnic snakes" from your days as a child and you can envision what it looked like! Trying to decide how to cover the weir (it's smoked glass but I suspect it's going to show the plumbing (bad idea says the wife). Not sure if I will do just eggcrate/foam/rock rubble/sand or go for something thinner like fiberglass screen/epoxy/rock rubble/sand. Thoughts?

20K versions with flash and without for your viewing pleasure:

Man I love this fixture. I need to get the firmware updated so that the fans aren't running all of the time, but it's bluetooth programmable (it has wifi, but I'm not sure if you can program it over wifi or not yet) and has a whole pile of features. I need to order up some bulbs to go in it as well (sports a pair of T5 sockets). Some people I talked to are running this with KZ Fiji bulbs, but I thought I'd put it out for recommendations from ARC. The LEDs themselves are supposed to be able to go from 16k or to 24k so in temperature and it can go quite white and extremely blue...

I didn't order the epoxy that I was looking at previously, as reading carefully I discovered it was not UV-safe. Aquadome is supposed to carry Pond Shield / Pond Armor which IS UV-safe, so I hope they have some in stock tomorrow... No progress on the RODI system aside from getting that barrel. I hope to spend some time mounting it and hooking it up tomorrow...