180 build from scratch!

[michika]

That sounds about right for me. I have a running list for things to potentially bring back with me, unless they show up for sale for considerably cheaper on my home forum. I'm thinking I'll pack considerably less so I can fit all the stuff in my carryon bag for the way back. I'll try not to pull a Pookie and bring 5 outfits for each day.

 

[melev]

 

[michika]

Something is wrong in my tank.

The lights just came on and my imperator angel is dead. Crabs haven't gotten to it yet, so it was a recent death. No cutes, sores, or wounds on the corpse. Imperator ate yesterday, and everything was normal. What should i be looking at to try and determine a COD?

Ozonizer should be here any day now, and I hope that day is sooner then later. I'm not adding any more fish to this system until its here and running. I probably won't add any fish for the next 5-6 months anyways while the SPS grows out. I do however want to add additional clean up crew members.

 

[jnarowe]

sorry to hear about that.

 

[michika]

Today's readings, I'm just including the red flag ones from yesterday;
dKH 5, dropped by 1pt
Ca 350, went up 5ppm
Nitrate 11/10 went down by 10 or 11 pts with the WC, tested with monitor
phosphates; 1st test 0.01, second test 0.17. I'm taking the second reading as valid.

I dosed for Ca yesterday, and dKH today, but I guess its not doing much so far. I am going to go ahead and do that other 25g WC tomorrow. The water change we did yesterday was about 1/8 of the total water volume.

I've never really battled nitrates before. I've read some serious accounts of some brutal battles, but I've never had one myself. I think the highest I've ever had for nitrates is about 30ppm in any tank I've had.

I'm hoping one more WC will bring phosphates and nitrates quite close to 0. With the Ca reactor online I'm hoping dKH will slowly start to rise to the 8/9 dKH I like to see. Once I start to have to top off again via my kalk. reactor I'll start to see the Ca. rise to the 400/420 mark I tend to keep my tanks at.

 

[jnarowe]

once the nitrate battle begins, it's really tough to get down with water changes.

 

[michika]

That sounds about right for what I've read in the past. Either way I don't want to have to go to war with nitrates ever. I read Melev's thread and just sigh, I can't imagine having to do all the things he has tried.

Anyways, more "good" news here. If I had anymore towels I would be considering throwing them in...

The power went out about 30 minutes ago. So I watched the rubbermaid sump almost overflow. Then I shut the gate valve to keep most of the water in tank and to prevent the aformentioned overflow. It worked and was working when I was called to the manager's office about a problem in our condo. I came back and the sump overflowed, its all over the carpet, and in the bottom of the stand. This is not my day! Oh yes, and I argued very strongly for sealing the bottom of the stand, but was told to just put it off until we put the glass sump in...should have gone with my gut instinct.

I can't figure out why in our trial runs the sump never overflowed, yet today it did. That new sump is going in next Friday!

 

[jnarowe]

probably have a siphon somewhere.

 

[michika]

Post mess photo;
- most of the water on the ground has been soaked up
- dried out the stand as much as possible, I think there is water under the rubbermaid.
- have the fan blowing on the carpet and the stand.

Found out why it overflowed;
- too much water in the system, overtopped off from the water change.
- I thought the gate valve was shut, but I guess it has a sticky point about 3/4s of the way closed. It felt tight and closed, but it wasn't.

Good things! (This is my favorite part!)
- Emergency back up worked great, koralia 1 kicked on with no problems.
- Lights and everything else came back online automatically (except the pump which I shut off manually)
- Everything in the tank looks no worse for wear.
- Power was out for a total of 45 minutes, and aside from my error, and the fact that the tank was over filled with water, I think an extended power outtage would be quite easy to handle for the tank.

I couldn't find the flashlight in the dark in our catchall drawer so I had to use the flash of the camera to tell me how full the sump was.

After the clean up;

Another positive thing is this is the new lid for the Calcium reactor. The reactor needs to be washed and prepped, but its done I think. It requires assembly after its wash, but that is pretty minor.

 

[melev]

Both alkalinity and calcium levels are too low, but your fish may have died for unknown reasons. I don't think you had it that long, did you? It could have been going to die all along, similar to how Flame Angels seem perfectly fine and die on Day 14 or Day 60. That tends to happen because of the way they are caught, it seems.

You need to drill anti-siphon holes in your returns 1/2" beneath the normal water level when the tank is running. That will reduce how much drains so you don't have to be there to close any valves. If power came back on and the valve was closed, the display would probably overflow.

 

[AngeloM3]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12813722#post12813722 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev

You need to drill anti-siphon holes in your returns 1/2" beneath the normal water level when the tank is running.

+1 on the anti-siphon holes... they've saved my carpet on multiple occasions.

 

[michika]

I do have anti-siphon holes. The problem was the tank was too full with water from the water change, then to prevent a flood a shut the gate valve between the overflow and sump. However, I thought the gate valve was closed, but it was not fully closed, and the remaining water in the overflow caused the flood. I shut the main pump off once the power went off to prevent a flood when the power returned.

The flood was caused by two things too much water in the system, and me failing to close the gate valve fully to keep the extra water in the overflow chamber. The system works fine when its not overfilled, we've tested it about three times. Make sense?

 

[melev]

Yep, I read that and forgot while I was typing that.

 

[michika]

Carpet is still drying out, its wet in a few spots still, but everything else has dried out. We also removed another couple of gallons of water after re-starting the system to get the levels all balanced back out.

I don't have enough Ca. powder to keep dosing, particularly if its only moving the levels about 5ppm upwards. I dosed what I have left, and then we'll have to leave it to reactors. I'm also looking for a new salt brand that I can find available in town, and can stick with. Until we started this system up I've used Red Sea Coral Pro for the last 3 years. I never had any issues with it, however I can't get it here. We are using IO now, but I'm still iffy on it.

I hear good things about Reefer's Best Salt for non zeovit users, however it wasn't included in the AWT's salt analysis (http://www.aquariumwatertesting.com/AWT_Salt_Analysis_0208.pdf) so its hard to make a semi-informed decision. Are there any websites like Sanjay's Lighting site, or AquariumControllers.com that deal with salt? Even any other or similar studies like the AWT analysis.

 

[Slakker]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the AWT testing anyways. They mixed the samples by mass, not by specific gravity. Far more accurate results would have been achieved by mixing a sample of each brand to the proper specific gravity.

It is interesting to see what salinity equivalent masses of salt mixes get you, but IMO to not compensate for the difference in later tests is just unfair. For instance, Tropic Marin Pro Reef is shown as having calcium levels of 335, which is wildly different from the ~450 that most people report from mixing it to full potency.

 

[maroun.c]

Sorry to hear about your problems.
hope it all settles soon.

 

[psteeleb]

I hate it when overflows happen. My liner has saved my flooring from getting soaked a couple times. The same thing use to happen to me; if I put to much water in during a water change, when it shut down the sump couldn't handle the extra volume and would overflow. I probably did this about 5 times (maybe more but with smaller amounts) so eventually lowered the water level in the sump by cutting down the weirs. No real issues since

 

[michika]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12816930#post12816930 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Slakker
I wouldn't put too much stock into the AWT testing anyways. They mixed the samples by mass, not by specific gravity. Far more accurate results would have been achieved by mixing a sample of each brand to the proper specific gravity.

That was one of the big flags for me not to put too much stock into their testing. I wish they would have been able to obtain two samples of some of the salts they said they couldn't get. I also wish they would do a new set of tests by SG and with a few more of the new brands now out and becoming pretty popular.

We put a piece of acrylic into the sump so you have a physical guide on the inside as to what the proper water level should be. So provided we don't over fill the sump again we'll be fine.

We had another outtage last night, probably from about 2am until about 4:30am. I was up, like Melev, I almost never sleep. No flood, everything worked much better this time around.

 

[Slakker]

Glad to hear it.

I've had a few messes so far...I was cleaning out the skimmer chamber and when I moved the skimmer back into place the hose pulled off of the pump somehow...so naturally when I turned everything back on the Mag9.5 started shooting water full force straight up, which, of course, got me and everything else around the tank soaked.

 

[michika]

Hahaha! I would be laughing on the floor if I saw it happen.

Alright so we now have a moratorium on tank related spending for June and July. Things I've bought recently;
- Ozonizer
- Lighting, MH bulb + T5 set up
- Oceans Motions 4 way
- 6 colonies of SPS
- Netting for a lid

We finally decided on the Oceans Motions 4-way for our return. While I loved the idea of the Wavy Sea, Kevin won me over with logic about the cost. One 4-Way is considerably cheaper then 3 Wavy Seas. We've found a fantastic deal through an online vendor, who is shipping it to us this week.

Lots of progress either this Friday or early next week, whenever all my packages arrive.