Gig 'em @ NDstructible
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Everything posted by Gig 'em @ NDstructible
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My problem with putting a vent fan in there is when I draw the pressure in the room down, the easiest source of new air is from the garage from under the doors. And in the summertime, that air is going to be nice and toasty. Also when my wife parks her car in the garage, that air is nice and rich with CO2. I would prefer to have neutral or positive pressure on the fish room so as little garage air as possible is drawn in.
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Yes! Exactly the issue I'm running into now. The house was so muggy yesterday, and that's with the aquariums isolated in their own room now. We had to turn the AC on for 30 minutes just to bring the humidity in the house down a little. My fish room straight up feels like the tropics, even with the dehumidifier running. The dehumidified does a decent job of keeping the humidity low, but it generates so much heat that it warms up and creates more evaporation. I think the best solution is to just install a dedicated AC unit for the room. As much as I hate to continue to dump money into this room, long term I think I will be happy with that decision.
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Well unfortunately I think I’m going to need to install a mini split AC unit in the fish room. It’s been one of those periods of the year in Austin where it’s not cold enough outside to make the house cool, but not warm enough for the central AC to run. I insulated the fish room pretty well, so when the ambient temperature isn’t cold enough and there’s no air being pushed through the AC vent, heat is building up pretty well in there. I walked in this morning and it was a balmy 84 just from the few pieces of auxiliary equipment running and the dehumidifier running. I’m thinking if it’s this warm when it’s in the mid 60s outside, what’s it going to be like when the garage temperature is reaching triple digits? It might be different in the middle of summer when the AC is running most of the day and pushing cool air into the room, but I’m wondering if it’ll be enough once all the equipment is in there and running 24/7. Also I don’t want these temperature spikes in the spring and fall when the house temperature is in this limbo. Probably better off just biting the bullet now and installing a unit.
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One of my gigantea anemones. Debating keeping them in an anemone dedicated tank in the fish room, or displaying them in their own 1/3 side of the display tank. They are called gigantea for a reason, and I have 4 of them...
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A break from the build photos. A couple photos of livestock in the frag tanks. 5 species of montipora growing in to each other
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SOLD Reef Octopus Calcium Reactor
Gig 'em @ NDstructible replied to Gig 'em @ NDstructible 's topic in Hardware
Pending -
Selling my Reef Octopus calcium reactor now that I’m consolidating down to one system. Works and no leaks. Comes with CO2 tank, solenoid valve, and pH controller. $300 and it’s yours.
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The frag tank and anemone tank have settled into their locations and the water has cleared. Starting to feel more complete
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You mean the hinges aren't supposed to go on that way?! 😂
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To my wife’s pleasure, I got the frag tanks moved out of the living room and into the fish room. Took me a whole day, but all the tanks are now plumbed together. I also got the Radions hooked up to my Apex, so I will be working on programming those lights soon. I seeded the tank with new rock that has been sitting in a brute for the past month and rocks from my frag system to get the cycle going. Turned the lights on tonight to get a quick photo
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Well I just got home from my field assignment and headed to the tank to throw on some filter socks when I saw that it cleared up while I was gone! So weird that it took so long... maybe adding sand and the particulates from that helped precipitate out whatever was suspended for so long?
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My momma onyx jumped out of the tank this week, widowing her mate. Does anyone breed them locally?
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Well this is all great news. So glad I mixed my brand new tank with a potentially tainted salt [emoji24] As if all my mystery problems with my current DT for the past 1.5 years wasn’t enough. Well I guess I can run carbon on this new tank like crazy before I move anything over and hope for the best
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I don’t remember this being such an issue a couple years ago when IO was my go-to salt. I switched to Fritz for a while and went back to IO. I wonder if they changed their source or have started adding something to their salt since then? It used to clear up within a day of mixing. [emoji848]
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It is Instant Ocean. Usually new salt water clears up after a day or two, I find it very odd that it is still so cloudy. Granted in this picture there’s the addition of cloudy sand water AND bubbles from the return pump that had just kicked on, but it’s still not clear. Could be the cooler temperature of the water since it’s not being heated yet? I plan on running a filter sock and adding a small protein skimmer to try and pull out as much suspended particulates as I can over the weekend.
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The march of progress continues steadily on. Plumbing is complete, only two minor leaks that will be fixed later this week. The tank is filled all the way and most of the sand has been added. The water never has cleared since mixing salt into it. I’m hoping running the return pump will help clarify the water.
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Water is getting salty!
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I used to grow nanochloropsis and rotifers. I still have some gear from that, but with my travel schedule the colony would always collapse due to neglect. I can think of a local university project that may have use for buying some fresh pods to feed to corals
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The cabinets are in place, despite the IKEA doors not wanting to fit with my stainless soft close hinges, but I made it work (for now). The Radions and T5s have been attached to the light rack. I left room for my BML actinic strips, which are currently being used on the old DT. I was admiring @victoly build thread and was inspired by his tablet bracket on the wall. I decided I could take advantage of my low ceiling and attach an adjustable swivel bracket for mine to control the Apex and music in the room. It’s nice because it can swivel 180 degrees so I can flip it around to control the Apex when standing at the frag tanks too. Geeking out about this addition pretty hard right now [emoji851] It’s almost 2020 and I had set a personal goal to have the tank full of water by 1/1/20. It probably won’t be full by midnight, but at least RO is starting to fill the tank!
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You just gave me a really good idea. My house used to have a pool in the backyard and there is still a platform on the side of the house where the pumps used to be and there are 2 faucets there. It would be a great place to have a cheap utility sink that just drains into the grass. Boom! Juieceman for the win.
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I do have a dehumidifier. It will probably run non stop once the tanks are in the room and running. I'll run the drain line out of the garage door and into the french drain or the yard. The dehumidifier creates heat though, so it may be more efficient to just have a dedicated unit for the room or something like that. We'll see.
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Hahaha yes, under the false ceiling would have been impossible. But the tank is pretty freaking heavy, so I let it sit until it was time to move it into place to cut the hole. Everything is still in their original tanks scattered in the dining room and living room. I lost about 90% of my acros after the move, so there's not a whole lot to hold at the moment. Just fish, LPS, and a few SPS remains. I've pretty much neglected the old DT now since it's lost nearly all of it's value to me and grows nothing but GHA. I'm going to cook that rock and give it an acid bath before transferring it to the new tank. I've had nothing but struggles with that tank this year and I'm not risking bringing anything over. As for equipment, flow will be from 4 Tunze Turbelle streams, lighting will be a mix of Radion G4 Pros, T5s, and BMLs. I don't know my skimmer situation yet, but it'll have to be hefty. Carbon, GFO, and biopellets. Apex to run everything. A sink is one thing I really wish I could do. I considered it for a while, but it just wasn't that feasible or cost effective. Also my fish room is small enough as is, I wouldn't want to waste valuable space with a sink. Instead I installed a door that leads out of the garage when the garage door is open. I bought a french drain and 100' of drain line. I will install the french drain right next to the driveway and run the drain line into the backyard where it slopes down. I'll dig a deep hole and fill it with gravel where the salt water and waste water can drain into. So whenever I want to do a WC, I'll just run the hose out the door into the french drain and let it go out into the yard. It's not perfect, but better than hauling buckets.
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Hi all, after living in a small home for the past 6 years and having limited space for a larger tank, the wife and I finally moved up into a larger home with plenty of wall space for a larger tank. We plan on living in this home for a while, and this is the closest I'll get to a dream tank for a long time. I decided to order a custom build tank through River City Aquatics that is 7 feet long, 30" wide, and 24" tall. Roughly 260 gallons of water in the display tank. We are also expecting a daughter to arrive in February 2020, so planning the tank to be kid safe was a key consideration. Since I don't want the kid to have access to the tank sump, the rats nest of wires and cables, and all the chemicals and reagents I keep under the tank, an in-wall tank was the best solution. The house we bought did not offer many wall options for an aquarium except for the living room wall that was shared with the garage. My wife has never been able to park her car in the garage, so I had to be sure to leave at least half of the garage available to her to park her car while also having a fish tank in the garage. Since it's Texas and the garage will get insanely warm in the summer, I decided to build a dedicated fish room in the garage to house the tank and accessories. Since it's a one door, 2-car garage, I had to build a false ceiling for the garage door to open over. It seemed like an easier and cheaper option than replacing the garage door with a 2 door garage. I ran electric on two dedicated 20 volt breakers through the room. I also ran 1/4" tap water lines and internet cables through the walls to reduce the clutter. I decided if I ever wanted in-ceiling speakers to listen to music in the fish room while I performed maintenance, now is the time to do it, so I installed 2 Bluetooth speakers in the false ceiling as well. Trying to think long term here. I plumbed central air into the room for temperature control. Not sure if this will be enough in the summer heat, but I'm going to try this first before installing any kind of AC unit in the room. The build was going well and on schedule until the day I opened the wall for the tank and found that a load bearing column for the loft of the house ran right through the open space I wanted. This was a devastating blow to me. I thought the project would be dead in the water with such an integral part of the house in the way. But I persisted on, spoke with some engineer friends, did my research, and settled on installing a beefy header that would more than carry the load of a 7 foot opening. I built a temporary wall to support the weight while I removed the studs and the column. With the help of a friend I was able to wedge the header in place and secure it. I had made and installed a mesquite live edge bar top in the kitchen of our previous home and liked it enough to do something similar in the new house. The aquarium provided the perfect location for one, so I bought a solid piece of cherry, filled the cracks with gold leaf, and covered it in a high gloss epoxy resin. A little bit of drywall work to patch up where I installed the header, I installed the bar top, and I'm back on track to getting this tank build complete. I built a light rack out of extruded aluminum and hung it over the tank with a modified kayak lift so I can raise and lower the lights when I need to. I worked my butt off to get this room built starting in mid November, and I met my deadline of having the tank wet by Christmas. Granted I'm only performing a leak test at this point, but it sure feels good to have gotten this far considering the obstacles I've faced up to this point. Plumbing the tank will be next!
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The Maroon Lagoon V2.0
Gig 'em @ NDstructible replied to Gig 'em @ NDstructible 's topic in Tank Builds
I am going to use a 40 breeder. Still trying to decide on sump flooring option -
The Maroon Lagoon V2.0
Gig 'em @ NDstructible replied to Gig 'em @ NDstructible 's topic in Tank Builds
Haha yes, I have that feeling too that it needs to be up off the floor, but again I just can’t think of why when it’s concrete with nowhere for water to go but out the garage door. The one benefit I can think of for building a floor for the sump is it will be level while the garage floor is slightly sloped. It’s funny that there’s a pre conceived notion that a sump HAS to be elevated, but there isn’t a clear reason why. [emoji2369]
