+Mitch Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Well after many delays, I finally have water in my tank! It's currently plumbed and has RODI circulating. I just need to figure out how to quiet down the return when it dumps into the sump. Any ideas welcomed! Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622764924692/show/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Looking at your pics, try having the water dump out just below water level. I put a 45 degree fitting on my downpipe such that only about 1/4" of the fitting is above water. Now the water comes down, gets gently turned and emptied into my sump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 yeah, i figured i had to submerge the pvc stubs at least. i hadn't thought about the 45 deg fitting. thanks! the noise level is reasonable now =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 Put in 90lbs of sugar sized sand and created one heck of a dust storm... resulted in about a 2" sand bed... put rockscape in... total rock weight (dry) was only 66 lbs... Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622665207247/show/ So what's the norm for cycling the tank? If I recall correctly, place a raw shrimp to let it decay etc. My concern is that my rock has been sitting outside for several months now, so I would think that it no longer has any beneficial bacteria in it. If not, how do I seed it with bacteria? I do have a bottle of Stability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Eckreef Posted November 13, 2009 Share Posted November 13, 2009 Looks great Mitch! I really like the open rockscape. I used a half a shrimp and stability and my tank fully cycled in about 3 weeks. There are many different ways to do this though. You will also want to find you some small pieces of LR to seed your corraline algae. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 14, 2009 Author Share Posted November 14, 2009 thanks! i dropped 2 small frozen shrimps in yesterday... AND i've got ReefCleaner's refugium mud on order (delivery WED/THU), so not sure when to start the Stability treatment... and i remember reading that i simply need scrapings of coraline to seed the tank as it distributes thru the tank easily. i've got my 2 mp40w's setup as master/slave... pretty sweet! and slowly but surely piecing the rest of the tank together via the Apex... likewise sweet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Eckreef Posted November 14, 2009 Share Posted November 14, 2009 You can pull the shrimp out when you add the mud as that will be plenty for the cycle. There are a variety of ways to seed coraline. I added a couple of small peices of coraline rock in a area of high current and scrapped some coraline off as well. How is the sugar sized sand handling the vortecs? I used the Caribsea reef select sand which is coarser and it still gets moved around by my MP40. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 14, 2009 Author Share Posted November 14, 2009 i'm using Caribsea sugar sized sand... once the dust cleared out and the SB settled with respect to the flow around the rockscape, i only see some light shifting at the SB surface mainly in the open area in the middle... but it's not gettting kicked up at all... oh, the top of the vortecs are mounted about 3" from the top of the water (water is 22.5" tall), sand bed is about 2" tall, and the vortecs are in antisync, full power, reef crest mode... a couple q's about the cycle process, do i need to have lights on? and what temp do i need to maintain? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Eckreef Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 nice that you have the extra height. My vortec is 3" from the surface but my tank is only 16" tall so it "kicks things up" at full power. I run my in reef crest mode at about 50% (in a 40g breeder) My tank has been running for 2 months now and my live rock is about 30% covered with coralline. It is really exploding now. I was very conservative and only ran the actinics for a about 4 hours a day during the first month. Coraline will grow well with the actinics...I kept the full spectrum lights off to prevent algae bloom. I had minor algae bloom which some Turbo snails took care of very quickly. I added them after about 3 weeks. Kept temp around 78. I began adding some corals around week 6 and just started adding fish. So far I have been very pleased with the results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 dropped in 2 frozen shrimp 3 days ago, so just waiting for the ammonia to start kicking on... the SB has settled in w/ a nice contour as the flow interacts w/ the LR... the water has really cleared up ... i took these pics with the CFL spotlight i will be using for the refugium: http://www.flickr.co...692128305/show/ by WED/THU, i hope to get my order of reefcleaner refugium mud and will pull out the remants of the shrimp... hopefully, what was left in the dried out LR, decay from the shrimps, and die off from the mud should be plenty for the cycle... i will start my 7-day treatment of Stability too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Nice scaping you have going on there. Will look nice with corals down the road Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 19, 2009 Author Share Posted November 19, 2009 yes, thanks to everyone's feedback! here's that thread for reference: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/8397-wanting-feedback-rockscape/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 23, 2009 Author Share Posted November 23, 2009 Finally finished putting my lights and lunarsim in my canopy! Pics of shipment from ReefGeek... these were primarily to document the condition of the shipment in case something was wrong, as well as have detailed pics to refer to later... I got the AquaIllumination T5 retro kit (4-48" + 2-36" = 294W) w/ standard output Universal ballasts, and various combination of ATI Blue Plus, ATI Aquablue Special, GE 6500K, and Korallen Zucht Fiji Purple: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622249583382/show/ Initial build of light rack... used Elfa wire shelving: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622341877816/show/ then after realizing the way I configured the equipment in the stand, I had to flip the ballasts so the power plugs were on the other side, and re-distributed the ballasts along the depth of the rack, and added the lunarsim led's... sorry no pics... And finally in the canopy... the last pic is with lunarsim: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622733445801/show/ Oh, btw, I did a little re-arranging of the rock around the overflow and added about 8 lbs to that area as well as the open sand bed area... I figure it would be nice to have another island to isolate corals etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Looks great but now I know where you live, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 While waiting for the tank to cycle, I ended up grabbing vwmike's LS from his 29g and adding it to the 1" of reefcleaner's mud giving me about 3" of SB in the refugium. As an extra bonus, and unbeknownst to vwmike, an old frag w/ 3 polyps of orange bam bam zoanthids survived! Thanks vwmike =) The tank finally finished cycling just in time for RCA's sale (12/12/09), so I promptly picked up 7 blue-green chromis, some green star polyps, and a scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp. The 7 chromis quickly dwindled to the 3 that now remain (which was really my intended target). On 12/17/09, I added my CuC from reefcleaners - a mix of nassarius snails, dwarf ceriths, hermits, limpits, and a fuzzy chiton. I added some red mangroves plus a red macroalgae (can't recall the name right now) to the existing chaeto I had picked up from Mark on 12/1/09. And realizing that my rockscape was a bit too tight and didn't offer many hiding places or caves, I opened up the arrangement. This took away a lot of the open SB area, but it now has a better feel to me and lets me isolate future additions from growing onto other rocks. After giving the tank a little time to settle in (12/21/09), I picked up from Fishy Business a hawaiian feather duster, a tube anemone, and a diamond goby. The goby quickly went about making caves under the rocks and mixing up the SB surface which started developing some diatoms. On 12/26/09, I noticed the first signs of coralline algae in various places (overflow, glass, vortechs, frag rack), a new zoa polyp developing, and the gsp's mat starting to extend. I also added another rock about 2.5 lbs to the island on the right, and took the old "cap" and combined in on the wall on the left. Oh, I also scrubbed loose the red hair algae developing on the overflow and back glass. There is also a green algae that has covered the rock, so i've reduced the photoperiod. Lastly, the FD was doing fine for the first 3-4 days, but has now been retracted for the last 3-4 days. Based on what I read, I'm just gonna let it be and hope it's still ok. Next on my list of to-do's, setup the ATO and Ca Reactor. Here are some current pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitch_sengson/sets/72157622967192125/show/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnG Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 are you sure you want those star polyps? are you going to put any other corals in the tank? if so, you will need to get rid of the star polyps now before they completely take over your tank. - John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 yeah, i've been warned/read about gsp. my long term plan is to only have it on the overflow and/or back wall, but in the meantime while i don't have much else to stare at as i let the tank mature further, so why not if i had been quick enough, i would have grabbed some of your great corals - but cest la vie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 21, 2010 Author Share Posted April 21, 2010 it's been almost 4 months since i did my last entry, so here's been what's going on... i had to deal with these issues: 1) my PM Ca reactor, bought new, had a bad impeller in the recycle pump. it's a reverse flow design, so technically the recycle pump draws from the top of the reactor, then pushes from the bottom. the CO2 is introduced into this recycle flow and recollects at the top (vs escaping thru the effluent hole). well, the flow from the Eheim 1048 (158 gph) should have been plenty strong to prevent any accumulation at the top of the reactor. however this is what i saw: i got in touch with PM who asked me to verify that 1) there were no clogs and 2) the pump was primed and not binding. check and check. so i got Jake/RCA involved as i had gotten it from their sale late last summer. he was wise enough to simply submerge the pump only and it was only trickling out. hey, i didn't know any better so PM sent me a new pump. so got the replacement pump and i plumbed it in, and same thing... argh!!! brought both pumps to Jake and he figured out that the impeller blades should be fixed to the magnet. this is how both impellers came: the new impeller design has 4 notches on the magnet side which engages with the teeth on the blade side, but this didn't work too well in my case as the teeth got worn down on my original pump/impeller. anyways, Jake glued the blades to the magnet and voila we got flow! i took the pumps back and plumbed the newer one in, but unfortunately i was a little too zealous in tightening and cracked the pump housing... F^&* !!! PM doesn't use the Eheim fitting, so it was easy to overtighten. i swapped out pumps and was uber careful to not overtighten, and assembled the reactor, filled with water, then let ran for 12 hrs. i found a small leak i figured i cracked the housing again as i could feel moisture in the proximity of where it happened last time. i didn't want to mess with it again, so i brought it to RCA and they confirmed i did crack it. they swapped it out with one of their pumps and i was back in business. they (RCA nor PM) didn't give me grief for cracking 2 pumps, so great customer support from Jake & Gilbert and PM. i would have to say i was rather disappointed that PM didn't QA their product to ensure it was functional before leaving their warehouse, but c'est la vie. btw, this process from the time i first plumbed the reactor to when it was completely functional took over 2.5 months. 2) after accumulating 12 fish, i added unlucky 13 which was a beautiful powder blue @ the beginning of Feb. it eventually got ich (2 weeks later), then the kole, firefish, and mccosker got it. i felt so bad for the powder as it looked like a teenager with a serious case of acne. so i picked up some garlic extract, pellets w/ garlic, and soaked the nori w/ garlic and gave this approach a week to see if it would subside, well no luck there. so i setup my 29g tank as a QT. i was already prepared and had the sponge for the sponge filter sitting in my sump since day 1. i picked up some QuICK Cure, pvc elbows, etc, then netted 7 out of the 13 (powder, kole, 2 clowns, 2 firefish, mccosker - i couldn't catch the bicolor, lawnmower, diamond, and 3 chromis). so i followed the treatment, but eventually the kole died, then the powder, then the clowns. the firefish and mccosker looked healthy so i decided to return them to the display, but those died shortly as i'm guessing from the stress of the move. the bicolor, lawnmower, and diamond, which were all kept in the DT, died so i was basically down to the original 3 chromis which started my tank. all parameters were good as tested by me and RCA, so no clue why i got wiped out. i dropped in 2 bags of Purigen and plumbed my GFO reactor to pull out whatever i could. i have since struggled trying to keep diamonds (3) and lawnmowers (2) alive in my tank. i currently have a dragon goby instead of the diamond, and debating if i need an algae grazer like the lawnmower or will another kole, which is what i was planning on getting eventually, be enough. 3) though my parameters were always spot on, i eventually got a cyanobacteria outbreak. i didn't recover 3-4 fish bodies over this timeframe, so i'm guessing this lead to a spike in DOCs and nitrates though my skimmer was very productive and i could see the Purigen was working (changing color). at first i tried reducing the photoperiod, increasing the flow on my 2 vortechs, and routinely blowing off growth on the rocks, but it kept coming back. so next i tried lights off Chemiclean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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