400g system from scratch pictorial

[AcroSteve]

Hmm, sounds like I'll have to use AquaNotes exclusively for manually overriding settings during water changes and other maintenance. I suppose I could put a relay in-line with the ACII X10 interface to take it "off-line" anytime I have a need to manually control a X10 device. Even cheaper would be to just unplug the X10 controller when doing maintenance.

Get some "bathroom" timers. These are the twist type timers that typically operate the exhaust fan for a while and then shut off. Most are normally open type switches, but Intermatic makes a model that has both NC and NO contacts.

The best part is they reset themselves, so you do not have to remember to turn the device back on when you are done.

 

[AcroSteve]

btw, I vote for a chiller. They can definitely reduce evaporaton requirements which is a good thing with a system this size.

 

[aiber]

Aiber,
Not sure what you were asking, but if you're asking how to wire one up, I have no idea as mine came with the house. Turn your house ac on to about 70 during the day, leave it for about 24 hours that way and see what your tank runs at then. I have always done things this way and it seems to work for me.

Sorry I only read about half of your post before..... I would like to find out how to have my cooling fans turn on when my tank gets to a certain temp like 82 deg.....Reason is that when I turn on my light 3x250 hallides temp temp in the tank increases rapidly...

Thanks

 

[jarhed]

Awesome question, I'd love to know how to do that as well!

 

[Bax]

An HD attic fan T-stat, $16 works for me

 

[pclausen]

Thanks for the tip on the bathroom timers Steve! That sounds like just the ticket.

Finally got the call around 3:30 this afternoon that the rock was sitting at the airport. Jumped in the truck and made the round trip in 3 hours. There were all kinds of shapes and sizes. I first dipped and shock in one container, then deposited the pieces in another big vat that could hold all the pieces. Then I smelled each piece and scraped off the bad smelling sponges and what I assume was some sort of algae growth on some pieces. Kinda looked like some of the weed I got in the garden. Nice coraline algae coloring in different shades on most of the pieces, although nothing too bright.

Gave them a final rinse and dropped them in the tank. Given the very different shapes, I couldn't really use the PVC rack that I made, so I ended up just sitting all the pieces on the glass bottom. No aqua scaping at all, I just wanted to get them in the tank asap. I also ended up with a bucket full of fist size and smaller pieces. I tossed those in the fuge.

I just took a couple of pics (MH lights off, just the living room lights lit and no flash).

CL and skimmer are both running but so far nothing is being skimmed out. I assume it will kick in after a day or so?

I added about 40g of pre-mixed sw as that was how much I pulled out of the tank to clean/rinse the rocks before putting them in. The rocks were pretty dry when I opened the boxes. The plastic bags they were in weren't sealed. There were stickers on the boxes indicating that they had been "screened pursuant to TSA directive" so I guess that's why the bags weren't sealed.

Since I've never handled a piece of live rock before, I have no idea who much stuff will survive or how long it will take to cure. I got another 44g of saltwater mixing as we speak and I will begin testing the water tomorrow for ammonia.

Been a long day, so I'm calling it a night!

 

[xtrstangx]

Sweet! Not sure if I've commented on this thread yet but I've been following it for a while. Very good job and well planned out.

I'm getting rock for my 40g tomorrow. I'd love to see your aquascaping. I still need ideas for mine D:

 

[tsquad]

WOW
You are my new reefer idol. This tank is incredible, and is exactly what I have been imagining for myself when I'm older. AMAZING!!

 

[pclausen]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm learning as I go.

The MH lights are on, so I'm able to take some better pictures now. The guy I got the rock from recommended running the regular light cycle during the curing process to keep as much stuff as possible alive.

Ok, here is a shot of those "algae things" I mentioned. Should I try to remove the ones I missed or just leave them?

And here is what I guess is a small feather duster sticking his "collectors" out. Sorry about the bad focus, I'm still trying to learn how to take pictures with my Digital Rebel, let alone how to process the images in Photoshop.

Should I be feeding the tank already?

A shot showing some of the coloring of the rock:

Here are a couple of shots of the different sections of the tank. Unlike the images above, the Photoshop "autocolor" didn't fix the colors, so they don't look quite right. Yet something else to learn how to do! I gather that I need to be using the "raw" format and then correct for whitebalance and what not using Photoshop. But one thing at a time!

The water is remaining nice and clear and there is no odor at all in the living room. The fishroom, on the other hand, smells pretty bad. The skimmer has begun to pull out some runny stuff.

 

[aiber]

Hello,

Is that all the rock you plan on having? Also, how many pounds is it?

Albert

 

[tsquad]

I think you need to have a little aquascaping fun today
With that algae, looks like some sort of macro. I'd remove it just to make sure. Might want to wait for some more experienced folks to chime in here.

 

[Carl_in_Florida]

Looks like calurpa to me. I hate calurpa, that stuff is harder to kill than aptasia. The good news is that when you stock a tank this size, you are sure to have something that finds that a delicacy.

That looks like nice rock to me. Congrats on finally graduating to "Box o rocks."

Now the joy of fine tuning that skimmer.

I would not feed the tank anything.

Carl

 

[WILDTHING]

glad you were able to get the rock yesterday, it looks really nice and holey; good for frag placement. IMO the algae looks like grape calerpa which will eventually take over your tank if you leave it. I would take that rock out and remove the algae, being sure that you get all of it even the holdfasts then throw the algae in your sump.If you try to do it in the tank and a piece breaks off it will regrow.
colleen

 

[scotty1234]

You got some pretty good live rock from what I can tell. You can either a) leave the algae on the rock and let it grow until you get some sort of tang or something that will eat it, or b) pull the rock out and scrub it real good which will still leave a 50/50 chance of it coming back. I would leave it for now then get a Tang which would have it pruned within a day.

Can't tell if that skimmer has a drain valve on the collection cup, something you're probably going to want later on when that skimmer starts pulling out lots of nasty stuff.

 

[pedropsk]

I'm very impressed with your setup and process. Amazing! Keep them pics coming!

 

[pclausen]

Water chemistry

Water chemistry

Thanks guys, I'll see about plucking some of the algae that I can get at easily and monitor it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand until I get my first tang. In either case, I plan to get the tarp back out and doing some aqua-scaping.

Water parameters right now are as follows:

Temp 80.5
pH 8.14
sg 1.026
Ammonia 0.4 ppm

I'm diluting the water a little as I'd like to shoot for a sg of 1.024 as my target.

My test kit arsenal consists of the following:

Should I be testing anything other than ammonia right now (in addition to of course monitoring sg and pH)?

I plan on doing a water change once Ammonia hits 0.8, which is the limit of my FasTest kit.

Well, I'm off to the lfs for another 5g bucket of IO. Went through 3 buckets already! My pH has dropped slightly, so I'll likely pick up some kalk as well.

Scotty, I definitely plan to add a drain to the collection cup. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to go check on the skimmer. Thankfully, it was only 50% full. But I might go crazy all of a sudden so I'd rather have the drain. Plus it is skimming very wet right now, so I'll have to play with that as well.

 

[scotty1234]

Just drill a hole in the bottom of the skimmer cup, and run the same size tubing into a gallon milk jug.

 

[pclausen]

Right on Scott.

I went ahead and tried my hand at arranging the rocks into a reef look structure. The rocks are interlocked pretty well by themselves, but I think I'm going to secure some of them together if I decide to go with this arrangement for now.

My more permanent auto top-off/kalk controller also showed up today. Only problem is that there is only 1 control input, so I can only run the float switch and if pH gets too high, my ACII can't turn it off although I'll investigate the possibility of running both in parallel.

I also got my ACII working properly. Turns out I was getting interference from the A/C unit which I started running the same night the skimmer X10 module started to act up.

Finally, I swung by Lowes after the lfs and picked up this bag of lime. Will it be fine for a kalk reactor?

 

[pclausen]

Aiber, yes I think I'll stick w/ this amount of rock. Turned out to be 207 pounds.

 

[tsquad]

I'm more a fan of the mountain peaks look, but this looks nice as well.