150 Redux

[Ah64av8tor]

The swap

The swap

First I moved a lot of corals from the 65 to its prop tank. And then placed most of the softies in a bucket with tank water and drip acclimated them to the 150.

I got out the 32 gal Brute and pumped water from the 65 into it, rolled it over to the 150 and filled the 150s prop tank.

Then I started to transfer the corals from the 65 to the prop tank.

After all the corals were out of the 65 I started to move the rock.
These rocks were all over 40lbs a piece and the largest was around 70lbs and was a real bear to lift out of the 65 and hoist up and into the 150.

The softies go in on the bottom of the display tank along the glass

 

[Ah64av8tor]

Corals and Cocktails

Corals and Cocktails

Friday night I had a little cocktail party with several reefers coming over to help Aquascape the reef.

The First to show up was Bryan (WarDaddy) at 5:00 I gave him a quick tour of the setup and we headed off to Aquarium Architecture to pick up some corals I had on hold. We met Agu (Agu) there and started to collect and bag my stuff. I really need to stop going in that shop because I buy way to much stuff in there. I got an insane Monti (it might be a superman but it is more purple than blue with red polyps) a Derasa clam, (it was dirt cheap and I could not resist) a frag of the original Organ tort, a lime green Monti cap, a purple Monti digi a pink w/ blur tip Acropora effluorescens a pink Acro an aquacultured fungia green w/ orange mouths it has 18 heads on it and a pair of queen conchs. Also a pair of flatworm eating nudibranch (Chelidonura varians) had just come in and Chris didn’t have any flatworms to feed them so I took them for the little Flat worms I have (I hope there are enough flat worms to keep them) I looked at my watch and it was almost 6:30 pm and we all had better get out of there because there was going to people arriving at my house any minute

The tank is ready for some more corals, and we are getting ready to be creative.

The Box of goodies from Aquarium Architecture. Andrew (musicawal) and I going through it like kids at Christmass.

The prop tank full of corals.

musicawal nd WarDaddy aquascaping the reef.

Full shot of the side

I would like to say thanks to all that came and helped out, I had a real good time and hope you did too.

 

[boydx6]

Looks great! Sorry I couldn't make it. When are you open for business?
LOL

 

[Ah64av8tor]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9676207#post9676207 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by boydx6
Looks great! Sorry I couldn't make it. When are you open for business?
LOL

Stephen, It was a great time! I'm still recovering and cleaning up the place.

The tank looks better each day and I'm real happy with how it is progressing. I hope to have the frag tank full of frags soon and will be open for business a few weeks after that.


The fish are in the 65 going into hypo salinity with the SG at 1.019 and I will take it down to 1.010 over the next week.

Its late on sunday, I finally got around to doing the water tests on the 150 the #s are:

SG 1.026
Ca 470
Alk 3.66 meq/l 10.2 Dkh
Mg 1380

 

[Ah64av8tor]

Here is a brief update.

The 65 is now the QT going into Hypo Salinity at 1.017 I might add a few more fish tomorrow then drop the salinity some more, all the fish are looking good and eating like pigs. It looks like the skunks will bee the only victims of the dreaded Ich.

The 150 is looking good except the RBTA has walked for the last few nights. I don’t know if I can take much more of moving corals out of its way.

The ER 12-1 has been troublesome it works great with a 90 elbow and the gate valve turned way down but whenever I install the T and gate valve it blows the top off the cup. I talked with Chip at Euro Reef and he had me run a drill bit through the venturies to make sure that they drew enough air, and double checked that I was putting it all together right. The only thing he could come up with was that there was just a lot of crap in the water and to add a few cups of activated carbon and if that didn’t help to call him back,

I drug out an old Eheim canister and filled it with 4 cups of Acid Washed Activated Carbon and 4 tbs. of Phoslock. I then hooked up a MJ 404 to it and dropped it in the sump; it sure is nice to have a big sump.

The HQI pendants fire about 70% of the time so they will go back to Ice cap later this week along with the defective 660 ballast.

I would take a few pics for you but I lost the Mag Float somewhere between the living room and the fish room and I got a real nice growth of Diatoms going.

 

[musicawal]

I would like to say thanks to all that came and helped out, I had a real good time and hope you did too. [/B][/QUOTE]

I had an awesome time! It was nice to meet some new people too. Glad to see this project finally come together. I got some free time Thursday so I'll shoot you a PM.
Andrew

 

[o2zen]

Let me know what happens with your ER issues Greg. I am having the same problems.

 

[Ah64av8tor]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9697111#post9697111 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by o2zen
Let me know what happens with your ER issues Greg. I am having the same problems.

Eric, Ill let you know what ER has to say.

It’s been 36 hours running on carbon and the skimmer has pulled out an inch of medium to dark skimmate.

I emptied the cup and hooked up the waste gate as prescribed by ER and it blew off the top again so it is time to call chip back.

 

[o2zen]

I picked up a slip 1.5 gate Valve today but I like your grey one better I just wish it was slip as I do not have the room for the adapters.

I started out with this tonight and you can see where the water level is and the top of the bubble line. I am still getting black bubbles in the cup.

I added the gate valve and dialed it down alittle and this is where it stands now. The bubble line is breaking on the top of the cup with the water line under the neck.

Let me know how your talk goes Greg. I am interested in his answers. I need to call or email them as well due to my bubble issue on start up. Can you PM me the contact info.

Damn I need to clean the thing again because of the low water level.

 

[Ah64av8tor]

Eric,

Here is the ER contact page.

After atleast 6 calls and 3 messages I still haven't gotten an answer from ER.

I hooked it up as shown here but it still blew the top off the skimmer.

Ill try again tomorrow. The problem I see is that the minimum size I can make it with the gate valve and T is taller than max height shown in the pdf.

 

[o2zen]

Both links go to the same place Greg.

 

[Ah64av8tor]

http://www.euro-reef.com/downloads.shtml

Then click on the Gate Valve Outlet Assembly PDF

 

[o2zen]

Thanks

 

[o2zen]

It looks like since I have a 24" model that the middle of my "T" should be level with the transition seam. Mine is about 1/4" to high right now but as low as it can go to get into the sock. I might need to slip a piece or two of EggCrate into my sump to raise my skimmer up an inch which will allow me to cut down the pipe a tad bit so it is level in the right spot.

Greg do you have the room under your stand to raise your skimmer up at all?

 

[Ah64av8tor]

If I just use the gate valve and T the without any pipe showing between the coupling gate valve and T, the T is 1/2 above the transition seam on my skimmer.

It blows the top off with just the gate valve directly on the coupling before I install the T I would have to put the elbo on first then the gate valve then the T for it to work and raise the skimmer 6" to get it over the partition into the sock.

I could raise the skimmer as much as a foot but then I would have to raise the water level and then I would overflow the sump in power outages.

I might have to do the Recirculate mod to get it to work.

 

[Ah64av8tor]

It’s Sunday and all the normal stuff on the 150 is done.
The water tests for the 150 are in the recommended ranges but not quite where I like them, the #s were:
Sg 1.026
Ca 440
Alk 3.09 meq/l 8.6Dkh
Mg 1300

I adjusted my levels with 2 part to bring them back to where I like them, the #s are now:

Ca 470
Alk 4.4 meq/l 12.2Dkh
Mg 1350

I haven’t gotten much work done on the rest of the setup, I have been working on the design of my Auto top off / Calk reactor system, the layout of the electrical closet and the design for the fuge.

I have spent too much time with the ER 12-1 skimmer and Euro Reef trying to get it fixed, I as of Friday they couldn’t figure out what was wrong and the measurements weren’t quite right so they had me take a bunch of pics to see if it wasn’t build right.

I got the MJ mod for the prop tank working on a timer that runs for 15 minutes an hour for 8 hours, and when it kicks in it completely reverses the flow in the raceway.

The anemone has been walking every evening this week and last night when I got home it was in the overflow so I shut the system down and pulled the egg crate and freed the little rascal, it is doing ok now in the prop tank but only time will tell.

 

[CMcNeil]

hey greg i was able to gate valve mod my rs-80.i might have some compact 1 1/2"gate valves at work.i had to machine the gatevalve to fit the euro pipe size but it works very well.did you make the back rock walls you have?did you do sand casts for them?were they easy to make?

 

[CMcNeil]

btw way my tee's centerline is at the transition seam of my skimmer.

 

[Ah64av8tor]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9730895#post9730895 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by checkinhawk
btw way my tee's centerline is at the transition seam of my skimmer.

You can see that I have 1.5 inches above the transition and I just cant get it any shorter without cutting the T or gate valve.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9730884#post9730884 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by checkinhawk
hey greg i was able to gate valve mod my rs-80.i might have some compact 1 1/2"gate valves at work.i had to machine the gatevalve to fit the euro pipe size but it works very well.

it would have to be 1.5 inches shorter than the stock gate valve.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9730884#post9730884 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by checkinhawk
did you make the back rock walls you have?did you do sand casts for them?were they easy to make?

Yes they were real easy to make. I used broaken 24 X 24 Travertine Tiles laid them out flat on a sheet of plywood in the patern I liked. Then mixed up the Aragacreat the same as I would for plugs and and filled in the gaps and left them alone for a few weeks then cured them.

 

[jeffbrig]

Greg, here's a shot of my skimmer (12-2 RC / RC500 equiv).

The center of the tee is right at the transition on mine, and i've never had a problem with overflowing. I suspect the added backpressure for that extra 1.5" is contributing to your problem. Are you running recirculating pumps or traditional? If you go recirculating, you could reduce the feed rate a little bit and that would probably help resolve your issue.