Dogfish

I have to be at the Aqua dome Sunday 12:30. If you want to try and meet, you could tell me how much you need. I can pick out some pieces or a piece. I have not received a pm

Update with some pictures. Not good ones but then how good can a iphone 5 be. The reactor is now set at 7.2 and I have achieved a some what steady cal (425 to 450) alk (9.3) . Still got the cyano but it does not bug me much anymore. Just another task to do. I think its slowly going away. One thing that has me baffled is the low nitrate and phos. No pink in the test for nitrate. Phos .05. I am feeding more but that just makes the phos go up a little. 14 smaller fish plus the clowns, sand sifter and lawnmower, I do have some green spots appearing on the sides of the tank. Coraline maybe. Also a lot of green starting to appear on the rocks. I do have some macro algae growing. But its not really a lot and its not really growing. Wife says all corals are growing. Some really fast.

Yes maybe a better choice. Aeration is the key here. 700 watt might just do it. It takes more watts to get it started once it starts it draws less.

Great stuff. Shot like a pro. That Haddoni is a bit too big for my tank..... But it was nice of you to offer

Im learning a bit more about this, reading a sea grass and other saltwater planted tanks threads

My cal reactor is the only "dosing" I do. I feed my tank a mix of frozen and fresh food, rodi,, spiralina brine, mysis, calanus, Live; white worms and baby brine. I do feed my corals once a week, green milk- a mix of phyto feast and oyster feast. Everyone seems happy. I figure my once a week 10% water change should give them all the trace things they need. My nitrate is falling so im trying to feed more and watching my phos in case it gets high.

So speakin of additives........ I got a box of Red Sea Coral Nutrition A/B stuffed in a bucket of salt. Is free good? Is this stuff any good? Anyone using it? Any issues?

If you still have them in the fall when it cools down. I might be interested.

Its been soaking in salt water with bacteria and a powerhead.

I have some marco rock, big pieces. Its been soaking for months now. Here is one picture. I think i posted some pictures in the for sale section and there are some on my build thread.

I have only had 2 salt water tanks, and I made beans for both. The first one was internal and was a pain because the tank was acrylic and had a top. It was hard to clean and leaked once in awhile. But when you by a junker ya cant expect everything to be perrrrrrrrrrrrfect.

Oh ya the fish mansion with a house attached. :)))))

70 hum drool.

I agree. The only thing missing is an emergency drain. I guess you could have one just a bit higher than the other so one is full flow and the other is partial. Might cover the main if it gets a bit backed up for some reason Do you know if all the equipment works? If so this would be a good deal. Lots to play with.

Its a hard call to make

That will work. The only disadvantage I see is no surface skimming.

That could have been a fresh water tank. No sump. Good idea for a coast to coast. To achieve surface skimming you will need to have an internal overflow box. If you go this route you will need to clean the inside glass really really really well before attaching the glass box to the inside. Use aquarium structural silicone. You will have 2 drains. A main drain plus emergency. A herbie set up. My coast to coast is external 4' long and I use 2" PVC. I do a bean animal drain system. Return pump is a ReeFlo Barracuda/Hammerhead. It supplies my reactors as well as a return. I have it dialed back a bit.

After doing some research, people find it is much easier to adjust each main drain, if it has its own gate valve. So you will need 2 gate valves. It will be ok to connect the 2 pipes together after that if you need to. Maybe because of room under the stand or something. To keep the drains silent, they should terminate 1" under the water of the sump. I guess the pipe with holes was underwater when the tank was running. Maybe the pipe was for a sock. I duno. You dont have to use that piece of pipe. The 2 other drains ( lets call them emergency drains) can empty out anywhere in the sump. It would be a good idea to not have them terminate under water in the sump. That way, if you hear splashing, then you know something is wrong with one of your main drains. You can connect them together if you want, but you dont have to. Anytime you join 2 pipes its best to go a size up. That way you dont restrict the flow. If you can't then that's ok too. Hope you can follow this. Im attaching a picture of what I envision as the look inside the overflow box. The up is emergency and the down is main drain. If there is room you might think about a flat screen on the main drain intakes. In case a fish or something decides to go exploring they will stay in the overflow and not end up in the sump. Nothing like a snail to clog up the pipes. Let me know what if any questions you have.

Great pictures. This will be a piece of cake or pie, as my old boss peter pan used to say. Im going to suggest you do a herbie style drain. Here is a link as to how it works. The tank does not have to have holes in the bottom like Nathans. http://gmacreef.com/herbie-overflow-reef-tank-plumbing-method-basics/ I will be able to explain more later when I have time but the 2 drains closest to the middle will be plumbed together and a gate valve will be placed after that. This will be your main drain. The 2 outside drains will handle the trickle and be your emergency back up.

I remember the 80's well sort of :)))))))

Can you send a picture of what it looks like inside and outside. Maybe you can do 2 sets of a herbie type overflow, with duriso pipes. Quiet with the second pipes as emergency. Bean just adds the 3rd pipe as a last case fail safe. This is prob overkill for most people.

The right one is the emergency/ The middle is the full flow drain. With no air able to get in it runs at full syphon with no noise. The left one has just a little water going thru it during normal operation. It needs to suck some air to do this. The red air tube end is positioned just above the water level. If the main drain gets clogged and the water level rises, the end of the tube will be underwater. It becomes full syphon at that point and can take the full flow that the main drain usually handles. Normally that drain is positioned a little bit higher than the main drain so you can get the full one going before it takes on too much of the flow. Here is a picture of mine . its a little bit different with my exteral over flow box. My middle drain is my backup, with just a little water going down thru it. I put a hole in the top of the cap. If the water gets to high it covers the hole and become a full syphon. The screen you see on the left is temp to keep my new clowns from going over the falls into the overflow box.

Spoken like a true salesperson. :)))) Welcome Good Peoples here. Lots of great advice form very experienced peeps. They can save you a few dollars here and there.

Since i do not know what your overflow box looks like I will post this picture of a Bean Animal type overflow set up. This might help or might not .

Normally overflow boxes have the holes in the bottom but looking at your pic i see they are in the back, yes? You can use street 90's . 2 turned up and 2 turned down. The upwards ones would be emergency.