400g system from scratch pictorial

This is a phenomenal read..I want to print it all out, pics and instructions..ours is up, but any enhancements in the years to come will be based on a lot of what you have done. As an fyi, we cured our 'cured' and 'uncured' rock for 6-8 weeks. We took tweezers every 2 days or so to look for naughty stuff and continued sponge die off. We rinsed in cold tap water huge numbers of times. After so much brute force on the rock, the critters that survived was staggering..not to mention many 1-2" crabs (probably undersirable ones) that also survived and now we have to get out of there somehow. Even little baby starfish survived this harrowing experience.

Also, I've seen advice about waiting to secure your rock together. I would definately wait. Once we added fish and corals, we have re-arranged 5-6 times to study the fish habits, and give them more space and larger hiding areas and swim areas between the rock. I don't think we'll ever glue/bolt them together for a number of reasons.

I am just so impressed!!

btw, Beverly, your tank is awesome!!
 
Originally posted by pclausen here was so much pressure that it popped one of the 90 elbows off the return pipe
Click to expand...

I would glue the connections and use 2 x 45 degree connections rather than a 90 degree elbow to smooth out the curve. Alternatively there are curved pipes.
 
Highlands, the problem is that there is very little room to work with since the locline returns screw into the 90 elbows and immediately leave through cut-outs in the megaflows. I did glue everything and everything is nice and tight now. I've even had to throttle the return pump back some since the overflows can't flow much more than 700-800 gph each. So I got all the flow that I want, despite the 90 elbows.

Amy, I surprised to hear of all the hitchhikers surviving multiple cold water rinses! I had some gorilla crabs, but they didn't survive the night in a rubble bucket after I rinsed it in cold tap water and let the rubble sit overnight (after pouring out the water). That bucket was so nasty since I dumped the remains of the plastic bags the rock shipped in there. I didn't even know they were in there until I put the rubble in the sump the next morning. In hindsight, perhaps I should have emptied the entire content of the rubble bucket into the sump, but I really didn't want to introduce unknowns into my system, so I decided to rinse everything well first. I never exposed any of my large rock pieces to fresh water at all, and I didn't know you could do that.

The only hitchhikers I'm aware of right now are some tiny feather dusters and maybe an isopod although I think I might have gotten rid of him. But who knows, it has only been a week, so I might discover something new over the coming weeks and perhaps even months.
 
pclausen said:
Thanks Mike. Yes, I have read (and re-read) Ron's article a couple of times now. I have been looking at both of the kits you reference above and do indeed plan to get one or both, in addition to a couple of cups of live sand from other tanks. The more diversity the better. My thought is to use most of the seeding kit(s) contents in the 7-8" DSB in the fuge, and use perhaps 1/3 of them in the 2-3" SB in the display. Not sure if it matters a whole lot since I'm hoping the critters will migrate between the beds anyway to some extent.
Click to expand...

I figured you had read all of those articles already. However I'm still concerned that a 2-3" SB in your main tank won't do what it's supposed to do. Dr Ron recommends 4" minimum for a DSB to work properly. By going with a shallow sand bed in your main tank you may end up having to maintain it on a regular basis. Which IMO defeats the purpose of a Sand bed.

Have you asked Dr. Ron about your setup? He probably would be able to tell you if you are going to have problems or not. I'd hate to see you have this awesome setup only to have to Vacuum your sand in the main tank 2 times a week.
 
pclausen said:
My overflows dumps into both my fuge and skimmer, so I think the DSB in the fuge will be able to stay fed. Those bubbles you see on the water surface in the fuge are coming from the overflows from the main tank (outlets on the left). I would say that I'm feeding the fuge about 800 gph and the skimmer another 800 gph from my overflows.
Click to expand...

I just saw this post of yours. The only problem I see with this is that most of the detritus will sink to the bottem in your shallow sand bed and never make it to your remote DSB through the overflows. Basically the only thing making it to your DSB will be the film on the top of the water. I see two possible issues with this.

#1: your remote DSB won't get enough food as most of it will probably sink to the bottem of your main tank. If the critters in you remote DSB starve to death you remote DSB may crash.

#2: your shallow Sand bed in the main tank will need to be cleaned on a regular basis because your shallow sand bed won't work like a DSB.

I'm not 100% sure these would occur but it may be worth investigating
 
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I can't begin to tell you how much survived. The stench, die off, everything from the rock that we cured in tons of bins with skimmers, water changes, etc, mandated brute force on our part before putting in the tank. We have at least 5 good size, unidentified crabs, who knows how many in the amount of rock we CAN'T see; tons and tons of pods, (at night, it is like an ant hill, bazillions in action), at least one 1/8" starfish, and lots of pretty little dusters, and lots of polyps. Once in the tank, the polyps totally rebounded. I know I'm forgetting some things. AND, we even took scrub brushes, toothbrushes, tube brushes to get in cracks, etc.. Sometimes weeks without light, in freezing buckets. I'm telling you, this stuff and these critters are really hardy. Exploring every nook and cranny of the several hundred pounds was really exciting for us, btw.

Also, all this greyish/brown fuzzy scuzz started showing a few weeks ago on a lot of the rock. I finally realized it is more critters digging out of the rock like crazy, even some pieces that are very NON pourous.

Ok, enough said...
 
Thanks for your comments Mike. I did a search on remote DSBs and there sure are a lot of opinions both ways as far as their usefulness!

I read how Northside Reef is running a remote DSB that is being feed via a bleed off from his return to the tank, which is probably the worst way. And he has tons of pods, mysis and worms. I believe his tank has been running for about a year. He also theorize that a remote DSB would not need to be recharged as often as the critters there are not subject to the predators that they would in the display.

Another member POMPANO has been running remote DSBs for years with a shallow display bed. His most recent one for 3 years. He feeds the display tank plenty and a lot of the excess flows through the rest of the system, thereby feeding the remote DSB.

In another thread, Ron is asked about remote DSBs and their usefulness if not directly fed and Ron's answer is that they are probably not useful in that case.

Maybe it would be safer to go with a 4" bed in both the display and fuge, or maybe no sand at all in the fuge would be an even safer bet? Or perhaps stick w/ the original plan and go with a full 6" in the fuge and drop a dozen damsels in there (not all at once of course) to ensure the critters have plenty to eat, but that might mean it will not help the display out at all, not to mention the need to feed those fish on a regular basis as well. This sure is turning out to be a really tough decision! I guess its a good thing I don't have my sand yet.

Amazing story Amy! My rock appears to be more "docile", but maybe my critters haven't come around just yet. When I last took my rocks out 2 nights ago for their swishing, only 1 or 2 still had any smell to them. The rest actually smelled nice!

Ammonia was at 0.0 this morning and so were nitrites. Ammonia spiked at 0.5 or so 4 days ago. Nitrites never registered at all. Is it possible that my cycle is over already? I'll test for nitrates tonight. If it registers, I take it that would be proof that the cycle is over?

Diatoms are definitely on the decline and the green hair algae doesn't seem to be spreading. I'm still running a 12 on/12 off light cycle. I'm skimming wet and pulling out a full cup about every other day.

Now if I can just make a decision about how much sand to put where, I might be able to move forward!
 
I guees my biggest concern is the shallow sand bed in the main tank. It may become more of a headache than it's worth. vacuuming the sand a coulpe times a week doesn't sound fun to me. Then agian I'm lazy.

:beer:

I really recommend going to Dr Rons forum and asking him about your proposed setup. He answered all of my questions on the subject. I'd trust him over me anyday.

:wildone:
 
pclausen said:
I read how Northside Reef is running a remote DSB that is being feed via a bleed off from his return to the tank, which is probably the worst way. And he has tons of pods, mysis and worms. I believe his tank has been running for about a year. He also theorize that a remote DSB would not need to be recharged as often as the critters there are not subject to the predators that they would in the display.
Click to expand...

For a DSB to run properly you should limit the amount of predators that consume the infauna in your DSB. Things such as crabs and sand sifting organisms that eat the infauna life in the sand. So I guess if you have those critters in your main tank a remote DSB would be an alternative assuming you could provide it food.

IMO the real reason a DSB needs to be recharged is that very often not all of the infauna living in our DSB can reproduce or complete their life cycle in our tanks. Therefore you need to artificially reintroduce them into you DSB to maintain the infauna diversity.
 
Thanks again Mike. I went ahead and posted over in Ron's forum. I agree w/ you that critters that feed on infauna will deplete your population quicker. I also heard that the size of sandbeds that we typically keep in our tanks are no where near large enough for the infauna population to be self-sustaining.

Just got off the phone w/ Home Depot about my sand. The shipment finally came in yesterday but all 15 bags were destroyed, so they refused the shipment. They called the store it came from and of course they don't have any left and don't know if they are going to be getting it again since it supposedly is very hard to come by this year.

I did locate another HD in Jersey that had 10 bags left, but they say they are not allowed to do transfers. This really blows. I originally placed the order for the transfer 5 weeks ago, and I still don't have any. Looks like I might just have to go with the quickcrete silica sand from Lowes.

Before I do that though, I plan to stop by all the other places in town I can think of with my vinegar bottle and test all their sand. Maybe I'll get lucky and found some fine white stuff that will fizz.

I never would have thought the sand was going to be one of my major challenges with setting up this tank!
 
You may want to call local nurseries. They may have the sand you are looking for. I know that here locally where I live, a local nursery carries aragonite sand. It worked great for me.

You really shouldn't use silica sand. I have heard (read) negative things about it.

Albert
 
Ya know, this sand thing is really starting to pizz me off. I know the damn stuff is out there, why is HD and all the other stores being so hard about supplying it? Supposed I was building a sandbox for Mini-me?

This is getting annoying! Why wont hardcastle, youngcastle, oldcastle, whatever their name is just distribute the stuff to idiot reefers like us via internet orders? Geez! It's like a friggin illegal drug or something!!!:mad2: :mad2:
 
jarhed said:
Ya know, this sand thing is really starting to pizz me off. I know the damn stuff is out there, why is HD and all the other stores being so hard about supplying it? Supposed I was building a sandbox for Mini-me?

This is getting annoying! Why wont hardcastle, youngcastle, oldcastle, whatever their name is just distribute the stuff to idiot reefers like us via internet orders? Geez! It's like a friggin illegal drug or something!!!:mad2: :mad2:
Click to expand...

They do but its 10 times the price under a different name. They are not stupid. They know there is high demand for this type of sand so they change the name and raise the price....

All reefers are obviously looking for Southdown because its cheaper.

Albert
 
I hear you jarhed. I'm pretty pizzed off myself. I mean HD dragged their feet for weeks and when they 1st tried to put in the transfer request, the store was out. So when they finally got some in, it got busted in shipping and now they aren't getting anymore.

I definitely want to do everything I can to stick w/ arragonite. The one thing I won't do, however, is pay close to what I have in my live rock and buy it from the lfs @ $1+ per pound. That is just plain stupid unless you're running a nano reef or something. I mean, I could buy a chiller for that kind of money!
 
If you are ever in south florida, let me know.....I will let you know where to buy some aragonite for cheap...

Albert
 
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