To add to Nola's updates... we got the last mantis out awhile back, and then a couple of weeks ago we got the bad crabs out too (well, the big ones anyways). Along the way we've had a lot of fish simply go missing. Some were due to predation I'm sure, and some were likely scared/killed by other aggressive fish (we had a bottom-dwelling goby of some sort that we discovered was harassing other fish at night). Most of the sponges had died off along with the sea fans. So it was time to put some color in the tank again.
I built an ATO that's fed from our RODI barrel automatically, so water top-off is truly hands-off. Drilled a hole in the wall to the bathroom behind the tank and put a pump with hose into the drain there... and have a pipe from the SW barrel in the closet. So water changes are only a couple of switches (OK, I do it more often than I did with the buckets and our old tank, but still not as often as I likely should).
The tri-zone refugium experiment hasn't really turned out the way that I had hoped; there aren't sponges and tunicates growing in the low-flow zone beneath the LRR as hoped... possibly due to the amount of light, possibly not. But on the upside it's growing pods like crazy, so it's not all bad.
I really hate the internal weir that I did. Hate it. Protrudes too far into the tank and is obnoxious and in general ugly. Did I mention that I hate it. I'll try to do an external on the next tank. To keep jumpers / etc in the tank we siliconed in some gutter guard. It's an ugly hack but with the weir and the way I did the plumbing, it was the only reasonable option. Next time it'll be slits in the back of the tank with a removable guard of some sort.
The closed loops gives some interesting flow patterns, but I get a shake/vibration if I turn the pump up above about 22% (it's a jet pump, so it goes up to double standard RPM) with the VFD. I think that the intake is just too restrictive, but that's just a working theory. My friend's tank with wave boxes has a ton more flow. I'm up in the air about doing that instead of a closed loop, but leaning towards some sort of a wave box/pump design instead of the closed loop. I really like the flow from that wavebox. The pump I have is also audible, though not as bad as the Dart. The dart isn't bad per-se, but it's louder than I'd like. I guess I'm after an extremely quiet tank...
Things that I'd still like to do with this tank:
1) Build/get a controller. I'm thinking about trying to do something with the raspberry pi. Also been following the DIY controller thread for quite awhile.
2) Build a surge device. Seen some interesting ideas out there. Tank is way too noisy already, so it would have to be a completely silent device. I have an electrically controlled ball valve; that might work if it isn't too noisy itself. I will experiment.
3) Modify / replace my lighting. While the pacsun fixture is cool, the 1W LEDs just don't have the punch that I want. I might try some optics to see if I can get better penetration. I will post up some PAR readings this weekend when I get my meter back.
