700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

[BlueCorn]

This thread has been split. The original thread is here:

700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

i am posting a link to my tank build thread here for any that want to follow. http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic70159-13-1.aspx?Update=1 it has one unique feature and that is a skylight over the tank that is the same footprint as the tank. the following is the first part of the thread. 700...

forums.reefcentral.com

 

[Reefski's]

the crab will die. Ron Shimek suggests the most humane way to kill it is in the freezer.

i have 5 overflows and made two of them into siphons, two into open channels, and one into an overlfow. it is quiet until both of the surges fire at the same time and 100 gallons goes into the tank in 30 seconds. then the overflow gets overwhelmed.
before i made one of the internal overflows a siphon.


the overflow one now has a Melev silencer on it and it is almost silent when both fire simultaneously.


with just one surge firing. wow, what a difference.

if i was building my tank again i would put in a longer external overflow and more open channels. if my tank did not have the surges it would be dead silent. there is a bit of bubbling sound just before the surges fire and water sounds from the surge rushing across the tank as you can hear in the above video.

now if only i could figure out why i can't grow any Acros i will be a happy guy.

Carl


thanks Bean

 

[Reefski's]

somehow this didn't get in the post above. software glitch with RC. i understand you will have to resubscribe to get updates.

you can only really hear it when they both fire simultaneously which is only a couple times an hour if that. thank you Marc and BeanAnimal. the camera mic makes it sound much louder than it is. and from outside the tank closet it is quieter yet. the water level rises about 2.5" in a few seconds, and as you can see touches the bottom of the cross bracing. i had to decrease the amount a few gallons to keep it from rising higher. less per firing, more frequent.



now if i can only figure out why i can't keep Acropora alive, at least most of them i'll be a happy reefer.

Carl

 

[Bax]

I've kept "bad" crabs in special returning parts of my sump where I want hem to eat everything they can grab. They do a pretty good job!

I feel you on wanting to see bid opportunities come in, I am in a home/commercial property sale driven business and it's very slow.

 

[Reefski's]

my wife and i were just talking and she said it's like i'm retired, work wise, only i have no pension and owe a lot of money every month. so i do all the errands, shopping etc. and i have time to work on the tank and worry .

 

[Ed Reef]

Congrat's on your yet another split...!!

 

[da5speed]

Love the surge system. One day i dream to have a room built around a tank like yours

 

[da5speed]

By the way it took me 5 days to read your thread from work (shows how hard i work lol) and I think my coworker thinks were all nuts with reef syndrome haha

 

[Reefski's]

Phosphate leaching experiment

Phosphate leaching experiment

has anyone ever done any experiments to see if PO4 really leaches from rock after being in systems with high PO4?

i have had several tanks that have had high PO4, like >3.0ppm and maybe much more.

i have also gotten rock from other reefers and don't know what their systems were like.

my PO4 continues to be high. my system has been set up for over a year now. i have a powerful skimmer, and a lot of macroalgae in one of the system tanks.

my nitrates have always been around 5ppm.

i use a Hanna C200 photometer to measure with.

i have a deep sand bed in the tank and in some of the sump tanks as well.

i am currently keeping it under 0.20ppm with daily or every other day dosing of lanthanum chloride.

it can rise 0.20 in a couple of days.

i can't believe that just feeding alone will do that.

since phosphates rise so quickly in my system i wonder if this idea would show what is happening.

drop PO4 to zero with Lanthanum Chloride.

don't feed for several days and measure PO4 daily.

what would that prove if levels keep rising or if they don't?

if it does leach out of the rock i imagine eventually it will reach an equilibrium where other export mechanisms will control it and i won't have to use LC.

Carl

 

[Reefski's]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15141396#post15141396 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by da5speed
By the way it took me 5 days to read your thread from work (shows how hard i work lol) and I think my coworker thinks were all nuts with reef syndrome haha

thanks, what kind of job do you have that you can read for five days?

other reefers use me as an example to show their significant others that they are not crazy.

Carl

 

[Reefski's]

i put the crab back in the sump. i figure it can't harm anything there and is obviously finding enough to eat.

i couldn't do it. i brought it upstairs to put in the freezer after showing it to the family and they were like oh, don't kill it. so i didn't.


Carl

 

[Mr. Brooks]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15163196#post15163196 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefski's
i put the crab back in the sump. i figure it can't harm anything there and is obviously finding enough to eat.

i couldn't do it. i brought it upstairs to put in the freezer after showing it to the family and they were like oh, don't kill it. so i didn't.


Carl

Good man.

 

[melev]

Sleep with one eye open, Carl. :lol:

 

[Reefski's]

i am more worried about the giant bristleworms in the display tank.

the crab is back in the first bin of the sumps. there is little likelyhood of it making its's way into the next bin and impossible to get to the display tank.

i wonder how big they can get. i will have to ask Ron Shimek.

Carl

 

[melev]

Any giant worms are pulled out of my display. Usually they go in the refugium, unless they are bright orange. Those go in the trash.

 

[Reefski's]

i have never seen any large orange ones in my system. only the smaller tan/orange ones and the ones like the one above. they are a blue in the middle and pink/red on the edges. the picture is crappy to show the colors.

i cleaned out 5 gallons of macro algae from the refugium today and there were a dozen or so of the ones above but they were only about 5-6". i left them in the tank.

 

[BigJay]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15167601#post15167601 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefski's

the crab is back in the first bin of the sumps. there is little likelyhood of it making its's way into the next bin and impossible to get to the display tank.

i wonder how big they can get. i will have to ask Ron Shimek.

Carl

Personally I wouldn't kill the crab or keep it in my sump for long. I would ask my local reef club if anyone keeps a pet mantis shrimp or a puffer fish and give it to them.

 

[Reefski's]

that might have been a good idea but it is too late now. i am a club member and we are having a meeting on saturday. i have no idea if anyone has a shrimp toi feed it to.

where it is in the sump is very inaccessible as the opening is only about 5" and the bin is filled with lots of live rock.

Carl

 

[Reefski's]

i may have gotten closer to solving my continuing problems with PO4 and not being able to keep most acros alive.

my top off water is made with a large Kati Ani DI unit. i have only started using a prefilter which consists of 25 micron, 1 micron, and Activated Carbon filters.

even after recharging my TDS levels were 6-10ppm PO4 in the newly made water were 0.08ppm.

well, i forgot i was filling the top off rubbermaid container and ran an unknown amount of water down the driveway from the water overflowing the rubbermaid. this little mistake exhausted the media.

i needed top off water so i thought how bad can it be putting 10-15 gallons into 1700 gallons and i used it for about three days until i had time to recharge the DI canisters.

PO4 levels in the tank shot up faster than normal and some acros that i had had for months died.

i reread the manual on recharging the DI unit and discovered i had been doing it wrong all along. i was only using half as much HCl as i should have been.

once i did it properly my TDS level out of the unit is 1ppm and PO4 is 0.00ppm for the first time ever.

another piece of the problem puzzle may be seen below.
After reading Eric's comments about metal in his tank http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic98745-9-1.aspx

i went to add MgCl for the first time in a few weeks and realized that although this scoop was not in the tank it was corroded from being stored in the MgCl. i have been using this scoop for a long time for all the additives and just recently got a plastic one for NaCO3 and CaCl.

i was still using this one below for the MgCl and MgSO4. i have no idea what it is made from but it is definitely leaching metal that would be going into the tank. the monticap bleaching episode happened just after changing sand, water and adding a lot of Mg using this scoop.

hmmm...

i just started running a polyfilter today. no doubt not enough for my water volume but still better than nothing. i am also changing out 3 pints of AC every 3-4 days. the water is very clear.

i hope changing these two things will make a difference. it is still too early to tell.

 

[melev]

I'm glad to hear that you may have found a couple of potential problems. So you're saying that reading the manual is a good idea?

The hardest part is making corrections on a huge system. Yours is very likely double or more what mine is (which I tend to think is around 400g gross) and it was really hard fixing PO4 problems in the past. The expense of solving these problems can be daunting, I know. Hang in there.