600 gal display/900+ gal build thread in the Chicago 'burbs.

[Oldtimer]

Sounds great. What are you doing with the dead base rock? I've heard some others cycled it for months with saltwater and a skimmer and pulled a bunch of junk out of the water during that time. I was a bit surprised to hear that considering the rock is dead and a good RO/DI bath ought to rid it of the loose stuff.

Sorry to bug you about this again, but do you recall the length of Kreg fasteners you used to join the 2x4's in your utility shelf? I was hoping to order some along with the Kreg jig so I could get going on my shelves over the holidays.

 

[wmilas]

Forgot about the Kreg. Just pulled my fastener bin and checked. 2.5" course thread. They come in 100 packs which are worthless. For a few bucks more you can buy 250, 500 and I think 1k packs. I'd buy a 250 or a 500... I use em all the time I think the 100 packs are the "retail" packs because they come with slick see-through packaging. The larger packs are the ndustry packs cause they are white cardboard box with the kreg logo just printed on em

As far as the base rock, I'm going to give it a 2 bucket RO/DI dip and call it a day. If it sheds, so be it. I'll let the skimmer pull the gunk out.... its completely bored right now anyways

 

[wmilas]

Photoshop and my assorted plugins and scripts are back up and running! Pictures!

Here are some shots of 2-3 weeks ago when I was starting the tap water tests.

Front of tank as water is going in:

Side of Tank:

Sump. notice the bottom intake for the dart.

Loop and return for the fuge and Frag. A Mag pumps water up the left side and dumps into the fuge. The two separate returns allow me to return from either the fuge, frag, or both. Also notice the output on the far back. That's the exhaust from the automated salt mix/changer. Also you can see a bulkhead hiding to the back left. Thats the emergency overflow to drain. There is a second mag in the sump that pumps water out to that overflow/drain for water changes. The clear tube you see coming down from the ceiling is teh temporary? fresh water input for evap.

Top shot of the fuge plumbing

The Fuge tank.

 

[James Wright]

awesome!

 

[wmilas]

Frag tank and hospital tank below it. Notice the Frag tank has a input from the Fuge above it and a fresh water fill up along with a automated salt water fill up for when the frag tank goes into quarantine mode and is taken out of the main loop. Its got a overflow back to the sump. Above it you can see the overflow to the sump for the Fuge when I bypass the frag tank. It also has a mag to exhaust to drain when in quarantine mode.

The hospital tank. Notice again Fresh water input, Overflow input (But no output!!!!!... overflow input is jsut for initial tank saltwater fill) and mixed fresh salt input, along with dedicated mag dump to drain.

The plumbing to drain and behind that mess of cables (sorry) three small calves that control fresh salt water flow from mixing.

Plumbing magic and large valves for overflows.

Plumbing for the RO/DI dump to salt and the plumbing to either mix the salt or exhaust on over to the distribution manifold.

Thats where it was a few weeks ago. Its actually changed quite a bit in the last few weeks. I'll try to take some more shots of the sand and rock tomorrow along with the fishrrm. It looks like someone puked wires everywhere because I don't have the AC Pro set up yet

 

[Oldtimer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13957784#post13957784 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wmilas
Forgot about the Kreg. Just pulled my fastener bin and checked. 2.5" course thread. They come in 100 packs which are worthless. For a few bucks more you can buy 250, 500 and I think 1k packs. I'd buy a 250 or a 500... I use em all the time I think the 100 packs are the "retail" packs because they come with slick see-through packaging. The larger packs are the ndustry packs cause they are white cardboard box with the kreg logo just printed on em

As far as the base rock, I'm going to give it a 2 bucket RO/DI dip and call it a day. If it sheds, so be it. I'll let the skimmer pull the gunk out.... its completely bored right now anyways

Thanks for the response and tips with the Kreg. I suspected they were 2.5", but wanted to be sure - not having experience with this jig.

I hear ya with the skimmer... mine has been hibernating in a box for months now.

Awesome progress so far. Keep the pics flowing.

 

[bananaboat]

just curious how much does an acrlic tank cost this size im looking to upgrade from a 300gal and the tank looks amazing thanks for your time jim

 

[superedge88]

Just sent you a PM about the ball valves.

 

[EnglishRebel]

I know that you're not finished and have some tidying up to do, but don't forget to put drip loops on those electrical cords.

 

[wmilas]

Internet connection to my house decided to die last night. Cable company says its my modem but the modem specs out fine and shows its getting its connection and dhcp lease. Anways they can't come out till Saturday to "fix" my modem so no more photos till then

 

[Robb in Austin]

Is it a cable company modem? Can you just run it to the local office and swap it out?

The tank and room look great!

 

[EnglishRebel]

.....................................:hammer:
This is why I don't use Time Warner

 

[BigTuna321]

wow this is really sweet cant wait to see it with rock

 

[wmilas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13963730#post13963730 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Robb in Austin
Is it a cable company modem? Can you just run it to the local office and swap it out?

The tank and room look great!

Its my own modem since the one Comcast was going to rent me was a piece of crap. I have the "Faster" internet service which, although is a dhcp ip, has been the same IP for about 5 years. Last night it turns out they switched me to a dynamic pool. The problem is my firewall script was static... so that was the problem. Its fixed now

 

[victor90]

no pics of the cone

 

[wmilas]

Ah. Sorry. The cone wasn't in when I took those pics. I'll take some more tonight or tomorrow and you can see my sloppy mess in progress

 

[Dancing4raiin]

This thread needs to be nominated for thread of the month.

 

[wmilas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13965465#post13965465 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Dancing4raiin
This thread needs to be nominated for thread of the month.

Thanks. Maybe in a year or two.

I spent some time trying to figure out my generator status. I know I have to get something and after seeing that mess it the NE it just cements it.

I first started looking at gas generators but after figuring out the fuel consumption, it hit me that if the power is out in a wide area I'm not going to be able to pump gas and storing gas is a nightmare.

We have Natural gas for heating, cooking ect in my area and natural gas keeps working no mater what. So then I looked at portable NG/LP generators and realized they were really expensive. So I figured if I'm going to spend that kind of money I might as well go whole hog and outfit the whole house with an built in badboy. I came up with:

http://www.guardiangenerators.com/Products/Residential/Guardian/GUARDIAN20kW.aspx

Produces 200 amps of power and comes with an automated transfer switch to power your whole distribution panel. No messing with sub panels. It automatically switches on, is quiet. It powers up once a week to test itself. Uses NG so it just runs forever. I'm in love.

Come spring I'm installing one of these things. I can run my large AC's in the summer, run the theater, the whole nine yards if power goes out. Except for the 10-30 second automatic switch over its like the power never went out

My tank inhabitants will love me

 

[wmilas]

Cone pics for Victor

Cone in its new home:

Here you can see the pvc and eggcrate platform I built for it. Its slide a little too far right atm but you get the idea.

The pitiful amount of nog so far. The poor thing is bored to death. Its amazing how smelly the nog is though when the top comes off Oh and to put it in perspective that cup is larger around than the biggest salad bowl you've ever seen

 

[wmilas]

First aquascaping attempt. Disregard the little pile on the right. I'm going to stack live rock and more base in the right back most corner and try and make a wall that slopes back into the corner after there is enough water in the tank. Its going to take another 5 or 6 days to fill the tank up

I know these shots look small, but these aren't "small" rocks. Each one is huge.