470g inwall construction thread

[cseeton]

Well, I read this thread from start to finish last night and I am jealous. You are going to have a wonderful system once you work your bugs out.

Everyone is so negative to bare bottoms... to that I say "to each their own" you design your tank your way and let curthendrix do it his way. Just my opinion.

On your low returns... I must say be very careful if you decide to trust your check valves... Another way to pipe that and get way from the check valve while still giving yourself the appearance you would like is to run the pipe from the pump up along the top of the tank and then down to the inlets. Drill and tap a small hole in the top of the now loop above the tank water line. Insert a john guest fitting and 1/4 inch plastic line and run that to your overflow, but do not submerge the line. Now if the power goes out the plastic line will act as a siphon breaker and your tank will only drain to the overflow level. This will provide you the same flow arrangement, same bulkhead placement, etc... and now, best of all, you do not need a checkvalve.

Great work so far! I love the bookshelves and woodwork framing the tank! And as a mechanical engineer, I love the steel tank support.

 

[mikeo1210]

The idea with sand is to process the detritus naturally

"Sandbeds operate like wormholes and the excess nutrients and detritus are transported to a sister galaxy"

 

[fishman805]

My tank was featured in the Fossa & Nilsen "Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" series, Sprung & Delbeek's "The Reef Aquarium Vol 2," Mike Paletta's recent "Ultimate Marine Aquarium" book, Borneman's "Corals" (back cover), as well as numerous other books and articles over the past 10 years.

If you're happy with your rockwork, that's great. I was just offering my opinion. Perhaps the picture you posted was somewhat of an optical illusion.

Greg

I too would like to see a picture of your tank(s).... I do not have any of the books that your refering to and think that you owe it to all of us here to see how you stack up ( so to speak.... no pun intended... rock layout... stack up ... "I crack myself up sometimes" )......What do you say GSchiemer..???

 

[curthendrix]

Pic of the chiller...a 3/4hp 220v Tradewind. Tank room is on the other side of the wall.

 

[mikeo1210]

I too would like to see a picture of your tank

I personally like the "FOWLR aquascape" look. The sandbed is kind of in the way of the nice corraline growth though.

 

[curthendrix]

Ordered some pods to jumpstart my tank and keep my manderin happy while the tank matures. Pods arrive and my wife and kids add them to the tank. The find the following little guy as a stowaway and, being the animal lovers they are, add him to the tank. Anybody have any idea what he is and how big he'll get?

 

[sixxer]

It's nice to see you spared no expense on this masterpiece!

 

[bassman57]

i'm not sure what that is. He's neat though .

Do you have any updated Full Tank pictures?

 

[GSchiemer]

I too would like to see a picture of your tank(s).... I do not have any of the books that your refering to and think that you owe it to all of us here to see how you stack up ( so to speak.... no pun intended... rock layout... stack up ... "I crack myself up sometimes" )......What do you say GSchiemer..???

I find it incredible that any serious reef aquarist wouldn't have at least one of the books that I've mentioned.

I usually don't post pics on RC because they have to be compressed to less than 50kb and they look terrible. I don't have a web site to host my pics. I apologize in advance for the quality. Anyway, here are a few representative pictures and then we'll see yours.

 

[GSchiemer]

Ordered some pods to jumpstart my tank and keep my manderin happy while the tank matures. Pods arrive and my wife and kids add them to the tank. The find the following little guy as a stowaway and, being the animal lovers they are, add him to the tank. Anybody have any idea what he is and how big he'll get?

Was this fish a hitchhiker on the rocks or did it come with the pods?

It's tough to tell what it is from the picture but that's very cool.

Greg

 

[cseeton]

I thought maybe a picture would do better than my convoluted description. I modified your last picture on the low returns to show what I was talking about. The red dot in the upper left is where I would drill & tap for a vent line that drains into the overflow (you could also do it with fittings and not drill/tap). Again donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t submerge this line because in the event of power outage it will draw air and break the siphon.

Not only will a power outage with check valve stickage be avoided, but also the pressure losses incurred by two check valves will allow for more flow!

 

[curthendrix]

GSchiemer.....its hard to tell a lot about your tank without a full tank shot but I am absolutely envious of your fish!! Would you mind giving me some details about your c. interruptus (sp?)..ie...temperment, habits, feeding, etc. I can only learn so much from books. I was hoping on adding a pair this fall. I also see a Regal Angel and anthias....right? Very nice! If you have the time, a short livestock list and your experiences with the same would be appreciated.

Yes, the fish was a hitchhiker that came in with the pods from Florida. He's swimming around the tank eating mysis as I type.

CSeeton...thanks for the pic. That looks like a fairly easy modifcation to the existing plumbing. Hoping to set the calcium reactor up this weekend and start sealing the room off.

 

[mikeo1210]

Cseeton-Good idea there. You could also use spaflex and cut out those 90s'. Just be sure to go above the water level.

 

[cseeton]

As long as there is at least one fitting for the siphon breaker, yes, you could also use spaflex. But, judging from the rest of the connections, I don't think there is a fear of 90s.

 

[GSchiemer]

GSchiemer.....its hard to tell a lot about your tank without a full tank shot but I am absolutely envious of your fish!! Would you mind giving me some details about your c. interruptus (sp?)..ie...temperment, habits, feeding, etc. I can only learn so much from books. I was hoping on adding a pair this fall. I also see a Regal Angel and anthias....right? Very nice! If you have the time, a short livestock list and your experiences with the same would be appreciated.

I literally have too many fish to count, but yes I do have a Regal Angel. The last one died after 10 years and the current Regal is 3 years old. Both were/are well-behaved in the reef tank.

The Centropyge interruptus is almost a year old. It is a captive-bred specimen. You can obtain pairs, or better yet harems, by purchasing 3 or more juvenile specimens. They are protogynous hermaphrodites, meaning that all juveniles are females. The most dominant female will change into a male and lead a harem of 3 to 5 females. This fish has never bothered corals, neither SPS nor soft corals.

My other major large group of fish are tangs. I have a Powder Blue, Chevron, Clown, Sailfin, Purple, Yellow and Scopas tang. I also have two Fiji Rabbitfish (Siganus uspi). The oldest tangs are the Sailfin and Purple, which are 10 years old. Some other interesting fish inhabitants include an Australian Tuskfish, a Crosshatch Triggerfish, and pairs of flame and long-nose hawkfish. I attached some pictures for reference. Again the 50kb max size limits the quality.

BTW, my rockwork is no longer visible in any shot because everything is overgrown with corals. That's what happens over time.

Greg

 

[29reef]

Is it jsut me or does your crosshatch look alot like a female blue jaw. It is prob. just the photo quality. and the fact they are very close as far as appearance.

Greg you have a very nice tank and it has been running for a while. It goes to show that these animals do grow and our tiny tanks can not come close to replicating a reef. some of those staghorn look to be well over 24'' around. I have seen a few shots of the tank in its earlier days and i have to say you have done a great job just letting everything grow. Your approach seems to be "keep it simple" and it works great.

5 stars

 

[GSchiemer]

Is it jsut me or does your crosshatch look alot like a female blue jaw. It is prob. just the photo quality. and the fact they are very close as far as appearance.

Greg you have a very nice tank and it has been running for a while. It goes to show that these animals do grow and our tiny tanks can not come close to replicating a reef. some of those staghorn look to be well over 24'' around. I have seen a few shots of the tank in its earlier days and i have to say you have done a great job just letting everything grow. Your approach seems to be "keep it simple" and it works great.

5 stars

It's definitely a crosshatch trigger. The picture does it no justice because I didn't use a flash and it's greatly compressed. Both the crosshatch and blue-jaw belong to the genus Xanthichthys, so they are similar in appearance, but the crosshatch is more colorful, and more expensive .

Thanks for the nice words. Yes, I do like to keep things simple and natural. IMO, it's the best approach. The staghorns are 24" and greater in length, as well as 1" around at the base. I had to use a pick-axe to frag my Acropora formosa.

Greg

 

[TheBimbo]

Wow... Beautiful fish and corals... Wish I could help ya out with the id on the hitch-hiker... But hey let's just say that it was a BONUS!!! Try to snap a good picture, I'm sure somebody will ID it with a better shot...


TheBimbo

 

[curthendrix]

Here's a better pic of the hitchhiker fish. I'm either paranoid or he's doubled in size in the past few days!!

 

[curthendrix]

He's mostly transparent in his body with some red as you see. His face is blue around his beady eyes!