mojo

Headless Donkey, in all of his Moderator wisdom, was able to provide me with Photobucket links to the photos that Brian took of the system as it sits at Kingfish Aquarium. Hope you all enjoy, and thanks H.D. for getting the pics to me.

Dude, I saw pics on RC. That is a BIIIIIG boy tank. I really like the tray to catch water on the right hand side of the stand. This tank should turn out amazing!

Thanks for checking it out on the other thread. I'm going to get the Photobucket link so I can post the pics here. Big boy for sure, equipment-wise and size-wise. I tried reaching the bottom to screw in a bulkhead today and my arm is about 1" too short. Guess I'll have to put on a snorkel when it's time to add the clams

I went to Kingfish today and saw the tank in person. It's larger than I saw in my mind, and the dimensions are very appealing to the eye. I owe props to John and Brian for uncrating everything for me and putting it in their shop until I'm able to get it home. Those guys are awesome to work with! We decided we're going to finish out the sump (Brian is the acrylic Sensei) and begin the initial stages of the plumbing with it at the shop, then I'll get it home once it's closer to being ready to be filled.

Brian took some pics, but I don't have access to them so I can't post them. I don't think anyone else can post images on this blog - I'd change that setting if possible, but I'm not very blog savvy. If I get the files from him I'll show what the tank looks like. It looks much better in Austin than it did at AGE!

I saw your thread on RC and I am glad posted here on ARC.

Super sweet tank. The PVC bottom seems to be all the rage.

Yeah, gotta support the home team, you know. This is my 2nd AGE tank - I have a 450g reef in my office. The PVC bottom really takes the pressure off of aquascaping, and landslides are no longer a threat to the bottom of the tank.

Mike

Did you get my response earlier? Sorry, but I'm new to this whole blog concept (yes, I'm a 39 yo fossil) and I'm not sure if you got it. Please let me know if you didn't get it and I'll re-send it.

Mike

I see this reply.... haven't seen anything else.

Sorry, and thanks for commenting. Yeah, I can't wait to see it too! As far as a future meeting goes, definitely, but I think it'll be more than a year until this tank will be presentable.

Mike

Did you get my response earlier? Sorry, but I'm new to this whole blog concept (yes, I'm a 39 yo fossil) and I'm not sure if you got it. Please let me know if you didn't get it and I'll re-send it.

Mike

Yowsa! That is one big tank!

Can't wait to see this bad boy in action.

I think we know where a future meeting will be at

Here's the actual tank, still in the shop.

The stand is constructed from steel, and I'll eventually skin it with a nice wood cabinet. There will be no canopy. Here's the stand, powdercoated and with leveling feet.

I chose steel so that I could optimize the amount of storage space inside the cabinet, since all of the equipment will need to be concealed within. Plumbing through walls or the floor is not an option in my current home. Here's a close-up of one of the leveling feet.

The sump inside the stand will sit upon a starboard bottom that will lay inside the steel shell.

This will cover about 2/3 of the length of the cabinet. The other 1/3 will be used for dry components, and to salvage a few extra inches of height I'm putting a pan in the bottom that recesses down to the floor instead of sitting on top of the bottom "shelf" of the stand. This will also serve a dual function in that small drips or spills will be directed into the pan instead of onto the floor.

Here's the pan.

I'll be using a rimless 3/4" acrylic sump to house most of the supporting equipment. The dimensions are 40 x 24 x 16. Here it is, without baffles and still at the shop.

3/4" plywood was cut to accomodate the plumbing from beneath the tank, and here's the system minus the most important part ... the actual tank.

I have a thread on RC, but I wanted it here too so I could get some local viewing action. After having a 30g tank for nearly 2 years, I feel like I'm ready to move up in size. I love the look of the European and Japanese open-topped tanks, and a little closer to home the tanks of Invincible and Naka in Houston. With that in mind, I decided to go with a rimless tank for my next system.

Here's what's planned. Of course I need to give credit to John and Brian of Kingfish Aquarium for helping me design and acquire most of the equipment.

First, here's a cartoon sketch of the overall system.

I'm not sure if I'll mount the controller into the door or not, but it's drawn that way for now. The small box to the left of the system is just a decorative covering for the chiller if necessary. That is, if my wife doesn't like the appearance of the chiller itself.

The tank's dimensions are 60 x 30 x 26.

The tank is made of 3/4" Starphire glass on the front and 2 sides, and it was constructed by Aquarium and Glass Exhibits. The tank has a PVC bottom that has been predrilled (machined) for Hayward bulkheads to support the overflow drains and returns, as well as the closed loop. The overflow contains dual 1 and 1/2" drains, a 1" return from the sump, and a 3/4" return from the chiller. Adjacent to the overflow is a 1 and 1/2" drain for the closed loop, and this will return via an OceansMotions 4-way to the four 1" bulkheads toward the front.

The back will be covered with a black material for the background, to go along with the black acrylic overflow. As you can see in the picture above, the overflow does not go to the top of the tank. This is to accomodate the wave that will be created by the Tunze Wavebox. The overflow is centered to minimize any sloshing sound.

This image shows the machining process for the PVC bottom.

And here's the bottom, completed.

There's an active thread on RC that discusses different controllers. The discussion centers around this excel comparison chart.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Wow, now that's service! Thanks John.

Monday night I went to see the Toadies. Great concert! But when I returned home at whatever hour that was, the tank was dead silent. We had a severe storm Sunday night, but nothing else in the house was without power. I was in no mood to problem solve, so I brought a couple of heavy duty extension cords to get me through the night, and the equipment was plugged into a non-GFCI outlet.

Last evening when I got home from work I figured out that my Mag12 closed loop pump that I had just removed a few days ago and cleaned in dilute muriatic acid was tripping the GFI outlet. I can't see any leaks or obvious damage to the pump, but something's causing it to trip the GFI? Any suggestions? In the meantime, I'm foolishly keeping the pump running via the extension cord until I figure out what to do.

Not a true "emergency" although I don't like bypassing the GFCI.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

I have a 30g tank, and I change 5 gallons every other week. I make up 20g of salt water at a time, so if you do the math, it takes me 2 months to use up the last of my reservoir of salt water. I keep it mixing with a MJ1200 powerhead and so far no problems. As long as the container is well sealed and you maintain circulation, I'm sure you could keep it for even longer if you wish.

John, I'm disappointed that you didn't get it for my office tank, but I'm glad it has a good home. Congrats on your acquisition!

Mike

Make sure to check all frags and rock you get from anyone!

Addendum: Make sure to check and dip all frags you get from anyone!

Nice pics, Gabriel, as usual.

Mike

That's some crystal clear-looking skimmate, my friend. Got anything in the tank besides water? But seriously, it will settle down after a while. You're definitely going to have to empty the collection cup a few times until it does calm down, so don't leave it unattended for too long.

I used to use a Remora skimmer before getting the Deltec MCE300, and I was actually quite pleased with it. Like others suggested, you should strongly consider the overflow box that's made for it. The only downside to using it is that it will take up more space from the top of your tank.

Mark, I haven't had any problems with microbubbles. The return tube has an attachment along which the water glides down into the sump, rather than falling straight down out of the tube. This is not on the photos I posted above, but if you check the Deltec website, you'll see what I mean. This, along with the baffles in my sump, essentially eliminate all microbubbles.

aquarius - Did you see the size of that collection cup? It's friggin huge, IMO. You're correct in that it would be VERY difficult to rig an external collection cup, but I think this would be counterproductive anyway. Let's say you were able to engineer an external drain of some sort. This would only encourage LESS cleaning of the cup and riser tube, which would decrease the efficiency of the skimmer for sure. Even though the MCE300 is rated for heavily stocked tanks up to 60g, if you're doing a 60g tank, I'd personally recommend a skimmer rated for a larger tank than the MCE300. The MCE600 would probably be a better choice for you, but again, that's just my opinion. I'm a big fan of over-skimming.

I've crossed the 3-week mark with this skimmer, and I remain happy with it. Regarding its ease of use, I'd have to say that the Remora was a little simpler. The air intake valve needs to be adjusted every time I empty the collection cup, so I can't just clean the cup and run away. The Deltec's collection cup and riser tubes have a lot of surface area, which is great for pulling out crap, but it's also more tedious to clean. I've been using an old soft toothbrush, but this is clearly too small and I'll need to get a larger brush for future cleaning. The manual recommends cleaning the cup ever 2-4 days, and I've been doing it every 4-5 days due to the time it takes to clean it. This hasn't helped the efficiency of the product, as I'm sure I'd get more skimmate if I cleaned it more regularly. One of the problems I was having was that my light rack is in the way of the skimmer, and I'd have to loosen the clamp and slide the unit away from my sump just to remove the collection cup. I finally got smart and I've tightened the clamp at a position where, if the skimmer slides back away from the sump, it won't be perfectly vertically-oriented, but it won't fall off either. This way, I can simply slide it back a bit and remove the collection cup without having to fuss with the clamp each time. This will decrease the "PITA" factor for me, and I'll begin to clean it more frequently (like every 2-3 days).

Performance-wise, I can't honestly say I've noticed any difference in the tank itself. I just tested for nitrate and phosphate, and both are undetectable with Salifert test kits, but they've always been undetectable in my system. I do have a lot of confidence in this skimmer, however, and I'm not afraid to add more livestock and more food to the tank. Hope this is helpful information.

I just got this skimmer at Kingfish, and thought I'd post a review since it's relatively new and mine may just be the first in action here in Austin. For those who don't know, I have a 30g cube, mixed reef. If anyone's interested in a lot of specifics of my tank, please refer to my thread on Reef Central. The tank is just over 1 year old, and before the AEFW raped all of my acros, it was a fairly heavily-populated tank. Now all of the acros are gone, but I'm in the re-building phase. The tank is supported by a ~14 gallon sump/fuge, and my previous Remora skimmer hung on the back of the sump. I was happy with that skimmer, and I've never had any measurable nitrate or phosphate despite having 4 fish, lots of corals, and fairly hefty daily feeding. But when I saw the crap that Deltec skimmers were pulling out, I just had to have one. When this MCE 300 HOB skimmer became available, my juices started flowing. John and Brian allowed me to take it home and ensure that it would fit on my sump before commiting to purchasing it, and luckily it just did - with a few modifications.

First off, this unit is a few centimeters wider than the Remora, and if it were 2 mm more in width, it wouldn't have fit within the constraints of my sump's skimmer compartment. The next problem was that the return tubing from the skimmer to the sump was too long, as it was running into the shelf inside my cabinet. Here's the skimmer, without the drain pipe connected.

In this close-up you can see what I mean about the pipe running into the cabinet shelf.

The next hurdle was that the drain pipe extended out into the refugium compartment. Both of these horizontal tubes had to be shortened, and this was safe to do according to Doug at Deltec. The return tube was easy to remove and cut, but the horizontal drain tube was mistakenly glued into place by the manufacturer, and I broke it trying to get it out (it's supposed to be a slip fitting). Fortunately John and Brian gave me a new one from their shop, and Deltec will send them a new replacement. This new tube was cut to proper length, then installed.

When I installed the skimmer, I then realized that the strainer of the drain pipe was still above the water level. I fixed this by heating up a segment of 3/4" vinyl tubing which was slipped over the strainer and the riser tube.

I didn't feel the need to clamp this connection, since I don't want to accidentally do it too tightly and risk cracking the material. Also, it's fairly low pressure and a tight fit at that, so it should be sound.

The skimmer began producing foam almost immediately (it had help, as I had recently treated some cyano with Chemi-Clean). After the first 48 hr of operation, here's the skimmate that was produced.

Overall I'm happy with this skimmer and I'm glad I went with it. There are a few other points I'd like to make, but I have to run so I'll update this a little later.

Woops, sorry Clint, that was unintentional. Although I happen to know that Mark, like us, was leaning toward a Deltec anyway, so I don't think he was a viable customer. Besides, I want you to hold on to that Euro Reef so we have something to use on our next QT happy4.gif .

Mark, it's too big for your 30g. Get the Deltec MC300 instead (I just did!).

Mike

Sorry, Clint, 35 pounds is fine, but I don't do "hairy."

Any feedback on that red worm you found? How do the corals look w/r/t color and PE? Everybody happy?

Mike,

What was the silver cylinder looking thing you were holding?

Yes, the glasses are quite pricey. I wasn't kidding about the cost equaling a REALLY BIG skimmer. The 5x ones that I'm going to get cost even more. Unless you have a professional use for the glasses, get the Mag-Visor that you mentioned.

I'd be glad to head up a group buy on the glasses, if there's some interest. I actually want another pair anyway. Mine only magnify to 2.5x, and I'd like to get a pair that goes to 5x. Just let me know who's in. If I were you all, however, I'd use the money to get a new Deltec skimmer instead (a really BIG one) . Plus, I don't think any of you out there would qualify to wear them, since you have to be a dork to pull it off.

That's some fine work. I may be interested if I don't get a Tunze nanostream for the holidays. I'll definitely keep this in mind.

Mike