mojo's Blog

[mojo]

I like taking photos, not only so I can share with y'all but also so that I can remember what I've done. Thanks!

[+ACampbell]

Very wise adding the additional bulkheads for expansion. I wish my sump had some.

[GKarshens]

Take my advice! Buy a Brute on rollers! It is so worth the money. I have the 32g one and fill it up to the line where it gets a little wider. That is about 25g. I have a Maxi-jet 1200 with tubing attached. I turn off the return pump and empty the sump (about 25g). Then I move the maxi-jet into the new SW and pump it into the sump. Turn the return pump back on and it is done.

Did you get the rock in?

[mojo]

Take my advice! Buy a Brute on rollers! It is so worth the money. I have the 32g one and fill it up to the line where it gets a little wider. That is about 25g. I have a Maxi-jet 1200 with tubing attached. I turn off the return pump and empty the sump (about 25g). Then I move the maxi-jet into the new SW and pump it into the sump. Turn the return pump back on and it is done.

Did you get the rock in?

I actually have a Brute on a roller, but so far it's been stationary. Since I'll be using Zeovit I'll be doing 10g water changes (5%) each week, so that's only 2 buckets of water. It'll be just as easy for me to carry those 2 buckets as it would be to have to empty the trash can. But I appreciate your input, Gabriel!

The rock is in. No updates to the blog as I've been more than a little under the weather the past 3 days and I haven't had the motivation or energy to take pics, upload them, etc. But pics will follow eventually.

[mojo]

You can always drain the sump and add them later, Andrew.

[mojo]

OK, a little catch up. First off, I finished the plumbing from the overflow box to the sump. Here you can see the two 1.5" drains. The lowest section of PVC was cut in a spiral spray bar fashion (not pictured) so that if the water level rises in the sump for any reason, water would still drain out fairly quietly from the drains. Eventually I will attach filter socks to these drains for mechanical filtration, since I don't want to have to siphon out the sump very often. You can also see that I've been running carbon since introducing the LR.

The green hose is Eheim tubing returning water back from the chiller via an Eheim 1262, and this ascends through the overflow box and into the tank via LocLine. The right-most return under the overflow is 1" plumbing that currently dead-ends with a SUBV. That will eventually connect to the primary sump return pump, which to date I still do not posess.

I also received my skimmer feed pump, a Hydor L35, and the skimmer was fired up 3 nights ago. I placed the pump in the chamber just beneath the overflow drains. The clear 1/2" vinyl tubing connects the pump to the Deltec skimmer, which you can see better in this next photo.

Here it is from the side, showing also how I had to angle the overflow drains so that they'd place the water more centrally in the sump chamber as opposed to directly against the sump's back wall.

The skimmer has pulled out what I would describe as clay. There's almost no odor, and I'm wondering if this is just proteinaceous material released from the live sand? At any rate, here's what it looked like when I cleaned it out tonight for the 1st time.

Now that it's been cleaned, I'm starting to see what I think is the real deal skimmate -- nog!! A 3-day break in period seems about right to me, eh?

[mojo]

The sandstorm has abated and the aquascape is visible! I had previously removed the drum from the 4-way so it wouldn't be damaged by the suspended sand, and this has been left on so that I could see where any sand voids would develop. In total there's 195 lb. of Lalo live rock, which as I understand it is a deep Tonga rock. There's also 120 lb. of CaribSea Ocean Direct live sand. The aquascape has 3 separate zones. On the far left an alcove was created, and I concealed the CL returns reasonably well. Adjacent to this is a valley that extends to the back of the tank, offering some depth to the 'scape. Centrally is the tallest peak which nearly breaches the water surface. Then, to the right of this is a separate rock mass that hides the CL strainer from view. The photos don't show it, but from above there is actually a meandering gap between the center rock mass and the one on the right. I'm very happy with it, especially since it's the 1st aquascape I've ever done alone, but I'm not closed to criticisms, so please be honest if you don't like it. Of course the pictures don't truly portray the depth that's been created in the tank, but at least you'll get an idea. Enough typing, here's the pics.

This one's taken from the right side of the tank.

[Headless_donkey]

Super cool, as usual. I like the right side view the best. That is an awesome rock.

[mojo]

Yeah, I think I'm going to be very happy with this rock. It's the same stuff that's in my office tank, and I'm very pleased with how it has matured in there.

[thedude]

It's actually completely different than the rock in your office tank. The office tank rock was almost entirely Tonga Fusion (a mixture of branch, normal tonga fused together) and the rock in your tank is all Tonga Lalo (deepwater).

The first few batches of fusion were awesome, then they started to come in with algae and smaller and uglier pieces.

FWIW,

John

[mojo]

Uhh, I know.

[mojo]

The tank's just been percolating for a while, without much action at all. That finally changed. I had been seeing lots of copepods on the glass, and now I'm seeing a ton of amphipods crawling all over the aquascape. The sand is developing worm tunnels, along with an ugly coating of film on the surface. But more importantly ...

I'm now officially a ZEOvit dude! I chose to use this form of filtration due to the glowing results I've seen in many of the European tanks, particularly those lit with T5's, as I intend to do. The corals just seem to have richer, purer coloration than most other systems, in my opinion. I also like the fact that it's a fantastic method to keep phosphates under control, which seems to be a hastle even for many of the more experience reefers out there.

I received my reactor late last week but didn't have time to begin setting it up until yesterday. It's a GroTech reactor and came with an Eheim 1250. Here's how it looks.

The reactor didn't come with a manual, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it was for me to figure out how to get it situated and running. First of all, being a German product, all of the plumbing is in metric sizes. This mattered because the Eheim puts out 317 gph, and I need to run only 150-170 gph through the reactor. I wanted to dial down the flow from the pump but instead thought I'd try to dial it down from the effluent plumbing, which is closer to 1", in order to conserve space in the sump. When I dialed down the effluect flow with the ball valve I installed, it simply flooded the top off of the reactor, rendering this option a dud. So I looked around my tank supplies and happened upon a MaxiJet600 which, as fortune would have it, puts out 160 gph. Perfect! I rigged this up to fit into the 20mm reactor inlet plumbing by wrapping the MJ outlet with teflon tape, and I squeezed this into a segment of 1/2" nylon tubing. This was secured with a plastic hose clamp, and the assembly was inserted into the 20mm plumbing. Here's how it looks.

It's now running in the sump, although it takes up more room than I had anticipated. Once I add the gate valve to the Eheim pump, I'm not sure I'll have room in the sump for this.

[Headless_donkey]

SUPER SWEET! I have been following this on Zeovit.com. I am excited someone in the club is trying the zeovit system. Having to order stuff from europe kind of sucks though. I guess you didn't find the automatic reactor. Have you started dosing the tank yet? Have you picked your bulb combo yet?

I am sure that I could find a place for the red dragon if you "run out of room" Maybe it's time for a red dragon 2 run externally.

[mojo]

I wasn't really interested in an automatic reactor, since they're not yet 'tried and true.' I started dosing today, so it's officially day 1. After 3-4 weeks I should be able to start stocking the tank.

As far as the RD is concerned, mine can be plumbed internally or externally, I'll just need to acquire the proper fittings. If I run it internally I'll just need a screen to cover the inlet, but again I'm not sure if it will fit in the sump since the ZEO reactor takes up so much space. I'm not familiar with the RD2, is that a better pump? Geeze, just when I thought I knew what was going on out there, I get one-upped!

[Headless_donkey]

Possibly the longest 3-4 weeks ever.

When do you know the tank is"ready"?

I don't think the RD2 is out yet. I am not sure what the difference is.

That is cool your pump can be external.

[GKarshens]

I think he was talking in text message mode. 2 = to.

[mojo]

Actually Gabriel there is a Red Dragon 2 pump. I checked it out in the ZEOvit forum. But that was still funny.

I'll know the tank is "ready" when the parameters are stable and all of my equipment is up and running. The ZEOvit guide (or maybe it was the forum, can't remember) mentions that new tanks are ready for stocking after running ZEOvit for 3-4 weeks. That's how long it takes for the bacterial populations to stabilize and to achieve a "low nutrient" state. The rate limiting factor for me will actually be the lights. I hope they're here in time, as I really don't want to rig my little 250W single MH pendant over the tank.

[mojo]

So here's what I worked on yesterday. As indicated in the photo above, I'm using a Red Dragon 6.5m3 for my main sump return pump. I chose this for many reasons, some being that it's deadly silent (I'm torn between calling it a ninja pump or a stealth pump), it requires very little maintenance due to the calcium bypass from the impeller, it creates almost no heat even when it's run internally, and it runs on only 65W. All of this comes with a price, but I became so tired of my Mag12 seizing and late night emergent impeller cleanings that it was worth it to me. This will probably result in more flow through the sump than I want, but I can live with that. I'm running it internally so I only need plumbing for the outlet. The only problem with the pump is that the inlet and outlet are metric sizes. It's supposed to come with silicone tubing but none is available currently. In case you want to see more photos of the pump, here it is.

To get around the whole metric connection, here's what I did. I used a piece of 1" clear vinyl tubing, heated it in hot water, then with the strength of 10 men I applied it to the pump outlet. This was connected to a barbed fitting, followed by a threaded adaptor, and finally a SUBV was glued to that. The photo doesn't show it but, naturally, I used teflon tape at the threaded fitting. The connection was incredibly tight, and I would have to name it Houdini if it were able to pop off, but to make sure I added a bunch of zip ties for added security. I feel very confident that this won't come off unintentionally. Here's how I rigged it up.

This will return to the underside of the tank via a 1" bulkhead in the overflow box, then to the tank via an OmniFlex nozzle. When I fired it up the it didn't work properly, although it tests out perfectly in a large basin. There's a problem somewhere in the return plumbing between the SUBV and the OM nozzle, I just can't seem to figure out where. There are no visible leaks anywhere. Maybe the riser tube inside the overflow box isn't seated well? I'll have to check that tomorrow. In the mean time, the pump is sitting idle in the sump.

[Headless_donkey]

NINJA PUMP

[mojo]

Don't hold back James, tell me what you really think .

[mojo]

Here's to let you know that already I believe in this stuff. I've been using the basics (carbon, ZEOliths, ZEObak and ZEOstart) for 6 days now and already the water is clearer! The tank has always looked clear to my eye, but when gazing from the side with the sun shining through the window on the other side of the tank, I've always seen a faint haze in the water column. After only 4 days of this method that haze has completely resolved and the water is truly crystal clear. I'm so hooked and I don't even have any corals in the tank yet.

In other news I tested my potassium (K+) and it was 330. It needs to be raised to around 390, which is considered important for the method for coral growth and coloration, so I'll need to get the supplement eventually.

[Headless_donkey]

Do you have a Potassium test?

I am kind of jealous I didn't go with the zeovit system on my new tank.

Did the hospital tank get its new coral?

[mojo]

I'm using a K-Z potassium kit. It needs to be done in very bright light, so it's only valuable if I test during the day since the color chart is very difficult to interperet.

You can begin using ZEOvit with an established tank, no problem. If you're truly interested, go to the forum and post your tank specs, and they'll walk you through it every step of the way. I can give you more specific direction if you're interested.

My office tank has 13 new corals that we picked up from 'the farm.' They're all doing sensationally well, thanks for asking.

By the way, I got my Powermodule! It'll probably be another week until I get it mounted, since I'll need the help of at least 2 other guys and I'll be out of town from Sunday until Wednesday afternoon. The mounting hardware has a slide that looks pretty easy to use, so I don't think I'll need to get the pulley system you're using, James.

[Headless_donkey]

If you need any help mounting the light let me know.

[mojo]

Thanks! I might take you up on that.