Dogfish

Great tank. I like the clam. Do they have any special needs? Is the foot in sand or is there coarse rubble underneath?

I have another question along the same lines.. Anyone with a larger tank and sump setup. What sort of rate of evaporation do you have here in Texas?

Right now it just has a wall switch. Any ideas? I'm from Calif where we did not have AC in the house. We did have heat but the walls were not insulated. Very rare a day above 80 or below 40.

The room has an exhaust fan that vents thru the roof. I can add another pretty easy if needed. It also has a central air/heat vent to keep the temp stable with a thermostat mounted on one of the walls. 1 wall backs up to the garage so if needed I can add another vent and fan unit.

Thanks Jolt.

Not a lot went on today. Last night I unpacked another box. Found my lights, ATO and lots of wires. Just the normal spaghetti mess. I moved the power bar per Isaac's advice.

I have a question. Does anyone have brilliant ideas about what to do about those stupid power supply bricks, like for Kessel lights?

Thanks Woods. To bad I don't have room for a tank taller than 36" and being made out of glass i can't cut that down.  Can not imagine trying to move rock and stuff inside a tank that tall, full of water. Scuba I guess.

Waiting for Weld-On #40. Made a glue up stand to keep everything square while its being assembled. Note in the first photo the gap at the top of the square. I used cabinet shims in the back to bring it to a perfect 90 degrees. This way I will not have to worry about it being square. I can worry more about maintaining the 1mm gap for the solvent glue to make a clean joint.

That would be great. It will take some planning. You being a northsider and me being a southsider.

Woods, do you recall what craigslist had that posting? I did a search but have not found it. I might be able to chop the top off.

CHOKE GAG tank COUGH COUGH quote. Got a few quotes on my tank. I guess the tank builders are all millionaires. 20K, Ouch. Looks like I'm going to be building the tank myself. 6 sheets of 1" thick acrylic @ 600.00 a sheet is 3600.00 plus a few CNC cuts, will not add up to 20K. This is gonna be fun.

I did drill the holes and tap them for the probe holder. I am a hack. "Un-Skilled" Jack of all trades and master of none. Anyone know if there is a place in Austin that sells SCIGRIP #40? I called Regal and Austin but they did'nt have it or know who would. Online I guess? I want to use it for the sump instead of #4 to get some practice before I tackle the tank.

Thanks victoly, At that price I can replace a lot of them before i approach the cost of 1 PCV unit.

Built a filter sock holder and a probe holder for the sump. Plan is to start gluing the sump together this week.

Gate Valves ,

Does anyone have any experience or opinions on these gate valves? I need a 3" gate valve for my Bean overflow. Standard PVC ones are ok priced up to 2" then they cost like 3 hundred dollars for the bigger sizes. 2" is not enough flow. 3" is over kill but dialing it back with the valve it will come out perfect. These are cheap. Since it will only be gravity creating the flow I would hope they will work without springing a leak.

https://www.clearpvcpipe.com/valves/gate-valves/3-clear-pvc-gate-valve.html

Not much progress. Busy with the chain saw clearing the road. Plus power went out which means no power to my shop area. Finished plumbing the skimmer. Worked on the pump placement and the pipes underneath.

The floor is now dry enough for me to put things back in place. I decided to add some feet to my skimmer stand . They are just rubber end caps for 2" PVC.

Here is the acrylic for the sump. Regal did a good job on the cuts. On a scrap piece I routed the edges smooth as silk to remove the saw marks . Had a small piece come off the corner. Peeling back the paper I noticed it was fractured at that corner. They might have dropped it. All the other pieces are clean. Drilled hole to be sure my hole saw was the correct size for the 3" socks. Practice, Practice, Practice.

That good news. Don't want to take that thing off full of water to clean the crystal. The bulbs will come out the top. 10 foot ceiling. I do the wiper in my house system every weekend -  4 or 5 pulls each time. Do not know if it helps or not. I have a .05 micron filter just before the UV unit and my tap water is pretty clear except when the oak trees lose their pollen in the spring.

So now you have me thinking. My house UV system allows for bulb replacement without draining the water. You unplug the unit and pull off the electrical end caps and slide the bulb out. From the video it looks like the bulb slides out without taking off that screw cap that holds the crystal. Should still be water tight. Yes ? Do you find the need to clean the crystal?  If so how often? My home unit has a wiper built in so no need to take it apart.

I have another line for my main return. It will "T" off the main pump.

Not much progress today. Had to clean the chicken coop (not fun) and the windows in my own house. Did get the manifold glued up and attached to the reactors. UV unit is also plumbed. Working on getting the epoxy on the floor. That stuff cant dry fast enough for me. May have to fill some sand bags tomorrow according to the weather report.

The skimmer is a light duty commercial. Coral Vue Reef Octopus SRO 7000 EXT. They make some really really big commercial ones, making mine look small.

Thanks Ty. I will start off with slow flow and increase it little by little til I hit the sweet spot.

I dry fit some of the plumbing today. Its always fun building manifolds. Built platforms for the skimmer and 65 gal water tank. Mounted the RO/DI unit. Im on rainwater collection so my waters pretty clean at 18ppm. Maybe the RO/DI will not have to work so hard.

Thanks Isaac. In my haste to get things rolling I was not thinking about where I mounted that bar.

Thanks Ty. Good info on my unit. I did some googling and found that it can be either mounted flat or vertical but nothing that said upright or sideways. I cant see any problem areas where air might get trapped. We shall see.

Ty you had no problems with it? I was concerned that it didnt have a sight glass, but with 2 bulbs, odds are both would not go out at once. If one bulb did go out do you know if the current drops off enough to show up on an Apex controller?

Put up some FRP on the walls most likely to get a bath. Mounted the UV unit and some controllers. Not sure of the controllers final placement. Just wanted to unpack a few things I had. Decided the reactors final placement and will put the torpedo on the floor per Gig 'em's advice. Boxes of fittings and flex tubing arrived from Flex PVC today. There went another $500.00. Wonder if i forgot a fitting or 2.

 For parties we fill the skimmer with champagne , makes ton o bubbles :)))))

The opening in the wall is 5-1/2 x 5-1/2 x3 ft tall. The tank will be 60x60x34. I wanted to leave enough room on the outside to allow for a modern frame around it. The plan is to build some sort of folding stairs to get up around the back of the tank. The reactors take up 12" and I have 36" on that 1 side. 

Got the walls painted a shiny white. Made a board for the tank to sit on. It sits on a piece of shower pan rubber to take out any small imperfections in the plywood platform. Also trying to position the media reactors for the cleanest look that's easy to manage. I ran a  GEO's calcium reactor in my 125 and liked it. I had him make the smaller ones with an inlet at the bottom instead of the top to eliminate the tube down the center like on the Two Little FIshes reactors. One less thing to clean. I will prob put the CO2 tank on the floor. The cardboard you see on the floor is the location of the sump. Wanted to be sure it would fit around that support before i built it.