700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

Status
Not open for further replies.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13704186#post13704186 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ransomed4ever
Hope you're wearing eye protection. Wouldn't take much for trapped moisture in the rock to boil and basically blow that section of the rock up.
Click to expand...

eye protection is just my glasses. so far i have done about 20 without any explosions.

it is an interesting idea. future experiment with a rock out of the tank and the torch left on the rock and me at a safe distance. i could leave the torch on the rock until the whole rock was red hot.

it seems to me that the water would heat up from the outside in and vaporize that way withour pressure build up.


i guess i won't be burning it off. i have a tank that i am raising some Berghia Nudibranchs in that i will be putting in the system soon.

my water storage tank had a lot of debris in the bottom after 8-9 months of use. the NSW is filtered to 20 microns before i get it. it has been recommended by Eric Borneman to further filter to 1 micron prior to use which i will start doing now.
DSC08589.jpg


DSC08594.jpg


no drop in PO4 yet, still 0.5-0.6

last sunday i was oot for the day and my wife called me to say there was water running down the driveway. she traced it to the skimmer which has now been off line since. the problem is water coming out of the air intakes. i have cleaned it but no resolution yet. i will be talking to Tim at my reef creations later today. great guy btw. i am sure we can get to the bottom of the problem.

finally cleaned the screens yesterday. a bit overdue. i won't wait so long next time.
DSC08649.jpg


a little cyano on the water. i plan to drop the water level below the edge of the glass and get some more circulation in the center. the cheato is still alive under the cyano.
DSC08651.jpg


i am making a trip for water today with new 1 micron filter socks to prestrain water with.
 
Very interesting stuff. So the sediment was in the freshwater storage container? I see you in the reflection - neat shot. :)

The algae screens look like you are going to make your own Nori. Let us know how hard it was to clean off.

The stagnant zone in the light chimney is one of those things you just don't anticipate, until you've done it and see the results. If you lift it 1/2" above the water level, that should suffice.

If water is coming out of the venturi tubes, the pumps may be too powerful for the body or the water level is too high in the body (or neighboring vessel even). I'd like to hear what the solution ends up being.
 
If you lift it, will the chaeto stay in position? I'm assuming it would tend to grow where the light is so if you just anchored a piece under a rock or something, it should stay and you would also have flow.
 
i have reset the level of the overflow to be lower than the edge of the glass surround and put a Tunze pump blowing through the bottom screen. yes, the Chaeto is enclosed with screen so it can not escape.

here are a couple photos just after cleaning the screen. it seems like it should grow back pretty quickly now that it has pretty good coverage on the screen.
ATSscreen1stcleaning1.jpg


ATSscreen1stcleaning2.jpg

i won't wait so long next time.

i also made a NSW run saturday and filtered the water to 1 micron. i was surprised how little was strained from 1100 gallons.
1micronfiltersockafter1100gallonsof.jpg

the NSW PO4 levels are 0.06 ppm. not perfect but lots better than my system at 0.61 ppm

NSW nitrate 0.0 ppm
tank 6 ppm
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the pics. How easy were you able to clean off the algae? did you have to scrub vigorously to get it that clean or did it easily wipe off?

When I clean my scrubber I'm leaving much more algae still on the wheel. Would be intesting if you could post another photo after a 1 week growth period. Would like to see the growth rate per week on your panels.

Thanks.

Matt
 
I know this was brought up way earlier in the thread but how did your daughter like UCSC?

what was her major?

Just wondering because I'm a freshman at UCSC and any info would be nice.
 
she really loved it. she expanded her horizons and decided she didn't want to be a psycholgist but rather a social worker.

the campus and Santa Cruz are beautiful. it is by far the largest UC campus, 3,000 acres i think.

she loves the rain, unlike me, who gets stressed when it rains. and it rains a lot more there than it does here.

she rewrote the manual for the local womens shelter for pregnant girls. Kim got a few honors and a scholarship from the school for her community service.

she was the Resident Advisor, RA, in the dorm for two years. she was the one busting the other kids for smoking pot and underage drinking in the dorms. it gave her a lot of experience with authority, hers. she has a strong sense of right and wrong. i was one of the kids she would have busted.

now she back here at home and going to UCLA grad school studying to be a Social worker. she has made a commitment to work for LA Social Services Dept for at least a year after graduation.

i barely see her as she has three 8 hour or more days a week of field work and then 2 full days of classes. most of the rest of the time is spent studying.

when she was about ten she said she loved the VW beetle. i told her she could get one when she turned 16 if she kept her grades up. she got straight A's in middle school and had nearly perfect attendance. in high school she got a couple of B's and mostly A's. again nearly perfect attendance. the only days she missed in those years was to attend two funerals.

again not like me.

i found a nice used Beetle that she got for her 16th bday. she still has it today and she is 23.

she took after my wife who was 3rd in her class and is one of the kindest smartest people i know.

needless to say i am very proud of her.

i think she likes what i have done with her inheritance, at least the house part.

we are taking a vacation soon to go to Hawaii for a week staying in a friends condo. the first vacation we have had since starting the house two years ago. i am looking forward to snorkeling every day, the big island.

kim will be taking care of the tanks and koi while we are gone.

Carl
 
no other corals were affected this time.

weekend quiz.

about ten days ago the skimmer started overflowing out the air injectors. i took it all apart and cleaned and still the problem persisted.

here is a little video of the problem.

with the help of Tim from MyReefCreations it is up and running again.

after two days it has collected a lot of skimmate, about 6" in the collecting container of dark green skimmate. the skimmer is working better than ever.

what do you think is/was the problem?


Carl
 
Is that a towel in there. Your pump had to have sucked something up for the level to be that low. What kind of pump are using to feed yours. I have a Marlin. I have a mr4 with riser and 2 injectors and it took me a little to get it going but it is going great now..
 
no towel inside, that is just the pvc pipe you see. the pump is a Sequence Hammerhead which Tim says is the right pump and is being used on many of these skimmers.

here is the collector after less than two days of operation again.
DSC08684.jpg
 
prostaff, you were right.

there was an obstruction to the air flow out of the skimmers collection cup. the only part of the collection system i didn't clean when i cleaned the skimmer was the overflow from the collection cup to the external collector. it had accumulated a thick plug of skimmate and was only allowing a small passage of air out of the system. this depressed the foam production and raised the pressure in the system forcing water out the air intakes of the injectors.

Tim at My Reef Creations pinpointed the problem and now it is working better than ever. thanks Tim.

now i can hear the air intakes of the injectors sucking from across the room.

it seems like this could still be a future problem if the collector fills up, the air is shut off as is supposed to occur and the problem reoccurs. a future modification when i have time is to put the whole skimmer in a tray of some sort that would collect any overflow and direct it back to the sump.

i will have to test this out by putting my finger over the exit from the collection cup on the skimmer.

i am going on vacation wednesday and will be nervous while i am gone. first real vacation since before we started the house remodel. one week in Hawaii, snorkeling around the big island.

my daughter will be in charge of fish feeding while i am gone. i will show her how to unplug the skimmer if it gets too full. it would be too much to ask her to clean it.

i had better show her where the generator is and how to connect it to the system and koi pond if needed. and of course those emergency phone numbers.
 
That is the exact reason why I moved mine to sit in my sump. I was tired of mopping the floor and extra water changes. hhaha.. It looked real cool sitting external with the extra pluming but I had some other problems with it. Now it just sits in my sump. I have 2 drains going to my fuge and 2 to my sump that feeds the skimmer pump. I just might try and make some baffles in the rubber maid sump down the road..
 
this is mostly a test to see if the thread is broken. i got an email about a new post from eeorrandy that did not show up. did anyone else get that email?

IMG_6476.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

M
Iam about to build my forever tank. Any advice? I want to migrate my current two ranks
Replies
5
Views
245
Paul B
Paul B
Old Newbie
What size? What tank?
Replies
2
Views
208
griss
griss
M
How everything change and keeps changing
Replies
19
Views
432
MCReef1420
M
U
New build
Replies
3
Views
311
griss
griss
K
Mandarin acting strange
Replies
3
Views
103
leebca
L
Back
Top