700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance
- Thread starter BlueCorn
- Start date
Sardaukar
Premium Member
...it sounds like the cause of death was jumping out of the tank...
salty joe
Active member
Reefski's
Active member
what Joe said. something had been wrong for almost a week before my daughter found him on the floor.
i have not seen him yet. i won't be home until sunday night. i had her put him in the freezer. she said there were no external indications anything was wrong with him.
i have had koi die before from fatty liver tumors. they were always very bloated from the tumor before they died. nothing like that with him.
i don't think i have the heart to cut him open. i do have a dissecting kit.
i have not seen him yet. i won't be home until sunday night. i had her put him in the freezer. she said there were no external indications anything was wrong with him.
i have had koi die before from fatty liver tumors. they were always very bloated from the tumor before they died. nothing like that with him.
i don't think i have the heart to cut him open. i do have a dissecting kit.
crsandoval
Active member
That is terrible news on both fronts. I do have a male Bluejaw that I really cherish, although he started eating my chromis... He is about 6-7 inches and I think of him at T-Rex... Just he king of the tank. I have tried to pair him up with a female to no avail.
Borge
New member
Hi, I was wondering about piping and sizes in the surge tanks.
What size of pipes are you using? I clearly see you got alot of flow in a ... large tank
The only siphon break you got is the one from top of the siphon down to the wanted waterlevel, meaning you never reach the bottom of the siphon tube itself
Myself, I cannot seem to suck enough air before my pump is starting to fill up again past the air relief tube and prematurely start off my siphon to a equilibrium of my fill pump. Then I see that you use a much smaller relief pipe, witch may help siphon further past the air pipe?
Now I can see the head pressure is changed somewhat if you still use the "P" piping you showed earlier while still trying the borneman thing, feel a little confused on what your piping looks like right now.
I also see that you only go a a few inches below the surface of the tank with the endpipe; why not further down? I can see from my own tests that 2 feet below the surface my surge does almost nothing, not even stiring my sand a little (3' deep my tank), I think it is the head pressure working against my drop witch is close to 3 inches (box ontop my tank bracing), but maybe you can enlighten me some more on why you decided to go so shallow.
And lastly and the more important why not only use surges instead of your OM (witch is fair enought cool in themselves, but got nothing on the surges buckets). Seems like a lot of holes, pipes, pumps un-needed if one were to make flow without anything else but a couple of lifting pumps straight from the sump. You got some perspective on that by now I believe to me it is to much I dont know of yet and some education would be in place.
best regards
What size of pipes are you using? I clearly see you got alot of flow in a ... large tank
The only siphon break you got is the one from top of the siphon down to the wanted waterlevel, meaning you never reach the bottom of the siphon tube itself
Myself, I cannot seem to suck enough air before my pump is starting to fill up again past the air relief tube and prematurely start off my siphon to a equilibrium of my fill pump. Then I see that you use a much smaller relief pipe, witch may help siphon further past the air pipe?
Now I can see the head pressure is changed somewhat if you still use the "P" piping you showed earlier while still trying the borneman thing, feel a little confused on what your piping looks like right now.
I also see that you only go a a few inches below the surface of the tank with the endpipe; why not further down? I can see from my own tests that 2 feet below the surface my surge does almost nothing, not even stiring my sand a little (3' deep my tank), I think it is the head pressure working against my drop witch is close to 3 inches (box ontop my tank bracing), but maybe you can enlighten me some more on why you decided to go so shallow.
And lastly and the more important
why not only use surges instead of your OM (witch is fair enought cool in themselves, but got nothing on the surges buckets). Seems like a lot of holes, pipes, pumps un-needed if one were to make flow without anything else but a couple of lifting pumps straight from the sump. You got some perspective on that by now I believe to me it is to much I dont know of yet and some education would be in place. best regards
Reefski's
Active member
Hi, I was wondering about piping and sizes in the surge tanks.
What size of pipes are you using? I clearly see you got alot of flow in a ... large tank
The only siphon break you got is the one from top of the siphon down to the wanted waterlevel, meaning you never reach the bottom of the siphon tube itself
Myself, I cannot seem to suck enough air before my pump is starting to fill up again past the air relief tube and prematurely start off my siphon to a equilibrium of my fill pump. Then I see that you use a much smaller relief pipe, witch may help siphon further past the air pipe?
Now I can see the head pressure is changed somewhat if you still use the "P" piping you showed earlier while still trying the borneman thing, feel a little confused on what your piping looks like right now.
I also see that you only go a a few inches below the surface of the tank with the endpipe; why not further down? I can see from my own tests that 2 feet below the surface my surge does almost nothing, not even stiring my sand a little (3' deep my tank), I think it is the head pressure working against my drop witch is close to 3 inches (box ontop my tank bracing), but maybe you can enlighten me some more on why you decided to go so shallow.
And lastly and the more important
best regards
the pipes from the surge tanks are 2".
the fall from the surge tanks is 5-7 feet. are you using the Borneman flapper or Carlson surge method? the 3" may be the problem. put it up a bit higher.
finally, all surges would be cool but even with two firing simultaneously sometimes there is a lot of water coming into the tank in a few seconds. you have to have a lot of space in the tank for that. i made the teeth of the overflows 3" tall and sometimes it is not enough and a little water overflows the tank.
look at the video from the top with the surges. it is back a few pages.
Borge
New member
I started off using carlson, see here on Norway we got a lack of cool joints like homedepot
, but hey, I just ordered 4 fluidmasters and floaters to play with, so now I just wait for some shipping to occur.I really like the non moving deal with carlsons but I cannot seem to make it work ok with my low ceiling. 3" is max, I made a high steel stand, and is paying for it now. About any bucket of decent size have to sit ontop my aquarium.
As asked earlier, why do you put your output pipes so shallow, what were to happen if you put them halfway down your tank?
I to can make quite the stir at the surface but my problems is when going 2' below the surface with the output, but with your head pressure pushing down, that would in my mind make it work... or?
Yes, I can clearly see that the tank got to be higher than the waterlevel, but I had to try my latest fixture, overflowed everything, heh, my skimmer is tankfed ;D now imagine that. I had to test it!
But what do you think were to happen if you turned off your OMs now and just ran it with the Surges?
Reefski's
Active member
Hi, I was wondering about piping and sizes in the surge tanks.
What size of pipes are you using? I clearly see you got alot of flow in a ... large tank
The only siphon break you got is the one from top of the siphon down to the wanted waterlevel, meaning you never reach the bottom of the siphon tube itself
Myself, I cannot seem to suck enough air before my pump is starting to fill up again past the air relief tube and prematurely start off my siphon to a equilibrium of my fill pump. Then I see that you use a much smaller relief pipe, witch may help siphon further past the air pipe?
Now I can see the head pressure is changed somewhat if you still use the "P" piping you showed earlier while still trying the borneman thing, feel a little confused on what your piping looks like right now.
I also see that you only go a a few inches below the surface of the tank with the endpipe; why not further down? I can see from my own tests that 2 feet below the surface my surge does almost nothing, not even stiring my sand a little (3' deep my tank), I think it is the head pressure working against my drop witch is close to 3 inches (box ontop my tank bracing), but maybe you can enlighten me some more on why you decided to go so shallow.
And lastly and the more important
best regards
the pipes from the surge tanks are 2".
the fall from the surge tanks is 5-7 feet. are you using the Borneman flapper or Carlson surge method? the 3" may be the problem. put it up a bit higher.
finally, all surges would be cool but even with two firing simultaneously sometimes there is a lot of water coming into the tank in a few seconds. you have to have a lot of space in the tank for that. i made the teeth of the overflows 3" tall and sometimes it is not enough and a little water overflows the tank.
look at the video from the top with the surges. it is back a few pages.
Reefski's
Active member
I am breaking my tank down but I am not quitting!
I have been depressed the last few months. John dying, my business dying, my tank dying. The first two I can't really do anything about but the tank I can.
As we all know the economy has been brutal the last couple of years. My roofing business has been struggling to survive the poor economy and high Work Comp rates. Work Comp makes more on my business than I do, by far. I pay 127% of payroll to work comp. I have a couple of the crew that have been injured over the last few years. Roofing is the 7th most dangerous job in America.
One just had a work related injury and knee surgery a couple weeks ago and will be out for a couple of months if not longer. It is hard to compete when I have to charge so much more on every job than other contractors, even licensed contractors. I just lost a job I bid for $11,000. the other licensed contractors bid was $10,000. the unlicensed guy was $8,000. guess who she hired? And I am making the least profit of the three.
We have been trying to decide if we have to sell our house and downsize. We may still have to do that but for now we will try to hang on. We love the house and it is very unlikely any buyer would love the reef tank and (now empty) koi pond and want to keep them. The pond can pretty easily become a pool so that is not a big deal. The reef system is another thing. If/when we do sell the house I will have to make the garage back into a garage. At least mostly if not totally dismantle all aquarium equipment in the garage. Some have suggested to empty the tank too and make it a terrarium or something like that which would be much easier to take care of. It could be a great terrarium with the skylight above. That is a future discussion.
However, I can't give up yet. we are going to dismantle the tank, take out the quartz sand, all hydroid covered rocks and reaquascape the system. Now is the time when there are no corals to speak of in the tank.
My newest problem.
here is something else to think about besides the energy use and aesthetics with the CL vs PH debate.
SERVICING
i have just noticed that both of the closed loops in my tank which are connected to OceansMotions 4 ways have stopped rotating the Om 4 ways. now i have some low flow areas that are accumulating cyano.
In turning the pumps off and back on to get the OM's working again one of the Hammerhead pumps has now gotten jammed and stopped working too!
There are six valves to shut off for each pump. Five turned off easily, one won't budge. I am afraid to force it and break the seal with the bottom of the tank and that nightmare.
in my case they are plumbed through the bottom of the tank they all have valves so they can be serviced but it is a major pain to disassemble them, an all day project for someone that is good at plumbing and that guy for me is not available any more.
for now i have connected a couple of Tunze pumps in the tank to help somewhat while i decide what to do. The one CL is still working but in a fixed position.
i think they may have gotten jammed about 3-4 weeks ago when i turned off the pumps for a while to work in the tank and the OM4W did not come back on.
after working in the tank I flipped the switch and saw there was water flow but didn't notice if the OM's were not revolving as they should have.
So half of the pipes have no or very little water flow through them. What kind of die off and pollution is waiting in the pipes?
i am not sure what i am going to do about that.
One of my goals is to make the tank more energy efficient. I am thinking of eliminating the Closed loops and going with the ugliness and energy efficiency of power heads in the tank.
I could use one of the closed loop pumps just under the tank to pump to the surges. That would save about 8 feet of head to overcome and give much more flow to the surges.
I turned on the pump that was feeding the surge tanks to just go into the DT. However that much more water pumping through the sumps caused the water level to drop. The pass throughs between the bins can't handle that much flow. So I have turned off the skimmer pump which was pumping water through that same loop through the sumps.
Here are some photos from my old tank. It wasn't perfect but all corals weren't dying either.
In this tank I had never tested PO4 until just about the end when I got a Hanna C200 colorimeter. PO4 levels were above the range of the colorimeter which is 2.75 ppm.
Nitrates were about 20 ppm
I also used NSW exclusively for years as well as the CaCl and MgCl and MgSO4, and CaOH that I have used in the 700 gallon.
This tank also had the concrete blocks that some have questioned.
I still have this sand from this tank. It is in trash cans awaiting its fate. If it is contaminated with CaPO4 can I test for that by dissolving some of the sand in HCL and testing for PO4? Will this leach back into the system at tank pH?
I have been depressed the last few months. John dying, my business dying, my tank dying. The first two I can't really do anything about but the tank I can.
As we all know the economy has been brutal the last couple of years. My roofing business has been struggling to survive the poor economy and high Work Comp rates. Work Comp makes more on my business than I do, by far. I pay 127% of payroll to work comp. I have a couple of the crew that have been injured over the last few years. Roofing is the 7th most dangerous job in America.
One just had a work related injury and knee surgery a couple weeks ago and will be out for a couple of months if not longer. It is hard to compete when I have to charge so much more on every job than other contractors, even licensed contractors. I just lost a job I bid for $11,000. the other licensed contractors bid was $10,000. the unlicensed guy was $8,000. guess who she hired? And I am making the least profit of the three.
We have been trying to decide if we have to sell our house and downsize. We may still have to do that but for now we will try to hang on. We love the house and it is very unlikely any buyer would love the reef tank and (now empty) koi pond and want to keep them. The pond can pretty easily become a pool so that is not a big deal. The reef system is another thing. If/when we do sell the house I will have to make the garage back into a garage. At least mostly if not totally dismantle all aquarium equipment in the garage. Some have suggested to empty the tank too and make it a terrarium or something like that which would be much easier to take care of. It could be a great terrarium with the skylight above. That is a future discussion.
However, I can't give up yet. we are going to dismantle the tank, take out the quartz sand, all hydroid covered rocks and reaquascape the system. Now is the time when there are no corals to speak of in the tank.
My newest problem.
here is something else to think about besides the energy use and aesthetics with the CL vs PH debate.
SERVICING
i have just noticed that both of the closed loops in my tank which are connected to OceansMotions 4 ways have stopped rotating the Om 4 ways. now i have some low flow areas that are accumulating cyano.
In turning the pumps off and back on to get the OM's working again one of the Hammerhead pumps has now gotten jammed and stopped working too!
There are six valves to shut off for each pump. Five turned off easily, one won't budge. I am afraid to force it and break the seal with the bottom of the tank and that nightmare.
in my case they are plumbed through the bottom of the tank they all have valves so they can be serviced but it is a major pain to disassemble them, an all day project for someone that is good at plumbing and that guy for me is not available any more.
for now i have connected a couple of Tunze pumps in the tank to help somewhat while i decide what to do. The one CL is still working but in a fixed position.
i think they may have gotten jammed about 3-4 weeks ago when i turned off the pumps for a while to work in the tank and the OM4W did not come back on.
after working in the tank I flipped the switch and saw there was water flow but didn't notice if the OM's were not revolving as they should have.
So half of the pipes have no or very little water flow through them. What kind of die off and pollution is waiting in the pipes?
i am not sure what i am going to do about that.
One of my goals is to make the tank more energy efficient. I am thinking of eliminating the Closed loops and going with the ugliness and energy efficiency of power heads in the tank.
I could use one of the closed loop pumps just under the tank to pump to the surges. That would save about 8 feet of head to overcome and give much more flow to the surges.
I turned on the pump that was feeding the surge tanks to just go into the DT. However that much more water pumping through the sumps caused the water level to drop. The pass throughs between the bins can't handle that much flow. So I have turned off the skimmer pump which was pumping water through that same loop through the sumps.
Here are some photos from my old tank. It wasn't perfect but all corals weren't dying either.
In this tank I had never tested PO4 until just about the end when I got a Hanna C200 colorimeter. PO4 levels were above the range of the colorimeter which is 2.75 ppm.
Nitrates were about 20 ppm
I also used NSW exclusively for years as well as the CaCl and MgCl and MgSO4, and CaOH that I have used in the 700 gallon.
This tank also had the concrete blocks that some have questioned.
I still have this sand from this tank. It is in trash cans awaiting its fate. If it is contaminated with CaPO4 can I test for that by dissolving some of the sand in HCL and testing for PO4? Will this leach back into the system at tank pH?
Reefski's
Active member
I sold my PAR meter and am getting the new MQ-200 model which has data logging.
Each meter can store up to 99 manually recorded measurements. In automatic mode, measurements are made every 30 seconds and averages are stored every 30 minutes. Daily totals are also calculated and the past 99 days are recorded.
These meters still feature our innovative blue lens for improved spectral response along with our cosine-corrected head, self-cleaning characteristics, and long-term stability.
It will be interesting to see the amount of light over time with the data logging. I haven’t gotten the new meter yet.
Jaki and Mudslinger-thank you for the info about Daniel Knops tank issues with the mold paint. That is the type of paint I have in the garage and surge closet. These rooms have been largely closed up for the last few months of winter too.
I had my painter come by yesterday and like Daniel Knop we are going to repaint with a latex paint, I hope it is the tuning point for me as well.
I am going to get 2000 gallons of water from Catalina Water. That way I will have whatever I need to use to work on the tank and do a complete water change over a short time which hopefully will remove any toxic contaminants.
I just changed the carbon yesterday too. I took out the GFO from one and have both large fluidized filters full of AC.
I am going to put one or two of these in the living room while we do this work.
While the tank is empty I will get the scratches buffed out.
Input needed!
I really want to reconsider if the closed loops are the best.
Ease of maintenance, water flow, esthetics, and energy efficiency are all part of the equation.
Also the hydroids problem. What do you think of this idea? Take out the rocks, inspect each one and torch the hydroids. Leave this rock in the sumps for filtration or? I have quite a bit of rock in the sumps that doesn’t have the hydroids that can go into the DT as well. Not all DT rocks have hydroids but a lot do.
Remove the limestone rock from the tank. This rock was given to me by a tank maintenance guy that I did a roof job for. It was dry and sitting in his backyard in a pile. Who knows what kind of contamination they might have had. They are very dense.
The sand- remove the quartz sand and replace with a less deep sand bed of larger size that won’t move with surges. The surges are off now but after I paint the closet and if stuff starts to grow again I will turn them back on.
Pam would like to go bare bottom for the ease of cleaning the tank without worrying so much about scratching the tank. I don’t think so. She says we have enough sand and filtration in the other parts of the system. Thoughts? I just don’t think it looks right and then there is the ecology thing too!
That’s all for now.
Each meter can store up to 99 manually recorded measurements. In automatic mode, measurements are made every 30 seconds and averages are stored every 30 minutes. Daily totals are also calculated and the past 99 days are recorded.
These meters still feature our innovative blue lens for improved spectral response along with our cosine-corrected head, self-cleaning characteristics, and long-term stability.
It will be interesting to see the amount of light over time with the data logging. I haven’t gotten the new meter yet.
Jaki and Mudslinger-thank you for the info about Daniel Knops tank issues with the mold paint. That is the type of paint I have in the garage and surge closet. These rooms have been largely closed up for the last few months of winter too.
I had my painter come by yesterday and like Daniel Knop we are going to repaint with a latex paint, I hope it is the tuning point for me as well.
I am going to get 2000 gallons of water from Catalina Water. That way I will have whatever I need to use to work on the tank and do a complete water change over a short time which hopefully will remove any toxic contaminants.
I just changed the carbon yesterday too. I took out the GFO from one and have both large fluidized filters full of AC.
I am going to put one or two of these in the living room while we do this work.
While the tank is empty I will get the scratches buffed out.
Input needed!
I really want to reconsider if the closed loops are the best.
Ease of maintenance, water flow, esthetics, and energy efficiency are all part of the equation.
Also the hydroids problem. What do you think of this idea? Take out the rocks, inspect each one and torch the hydroids. Leave this rock in the sumps for filtration or? I have quite a bit of rock in the sumps that doesn’t have the hydroids that can go into the DT as well. Not all DT rocks have hydroids but a lot do.
Remove the limestone rock from the tank. This rock was given to me by a tank maintenance guy that I did a roof job for. It was dry and sitting in his backyard in a pile. Who knows what kind of contamination they might have had. They are very dense.
The sand- remove the quartz sand and replace with a less deep sand bed of larger size that won’t move with surges. The surges are off now but after I paint the closet and if stuff starts to grow again I will turn them back on.
Pam would like to go bare bottom for the ease of cleaning the tank without worrying so much about scratching the tank. I don’t think so. She says we have enough sand and filtration in the other parts of the system. Thoughts? I just don’t think it looks right and then there is the ecology thing too!
That’s all for now.
Reefski's
Active member
while out cycling today i was thinking about what could have killed the fish.
is this a possibility?
i feed all sorts of stuff from the fish market i grind up and freeze. one of the elements is whole fresh shrimp, 4-5" shrimp put through a food processor including the tails. big pieces of the tail remain in the mix. in the feeding frenzy could he have eaten one of these pieces that hurt him in some way?
can fish vomit? of course i have seen them take a piece of feces or something else that wasn't food and then spit it out.
he was the most aggressive feeder and got pretty much whatever he wanted.
i have the fish in the freezer where my daughter put it when she found it. it had not eaten in six days when it jumped out.
i have a scalpel and could do a crude autopsy. weird, i just don't want to cut it up. my little buddy. weird because i have taken several anatomy classes with humans that we cut up for months. while i didn't relish it i don't remember being particularly squeamish either. i never knew these people that had donated their bodies so that we could learn.
might there be something to learn by doing it?
what would i look for examining the liver?
jc-reef
New member
I am rather new to the hobby...I have been buried in many of these threads over the course of the past several months. I must say that the journey of your build has been quite inspiring....the success's and the heartaches. I have thorougly enjoyed reading your build...from the techincal aspect all the way to the personal side as well. I have been bitten by the 'reef' bug to say the least and hope someday I will be able to contribute back to the hobby like you, along with many others, have. Thank you! :beer:
jc
jc
salty joe
Active member
I just looked at Jay Hemdal's book Avanced Marine Aquarium Techniques and it looks like you need to perform a fish necropsy almost immediately after death to get much info. You might still be able to tell if it had fatty liver disease. First you would need to know what a healthy liver looks like. I've never done a necropsy-it seems like good practice though. From Hemdal's book it seems you have to be prepared for a necropsy before a fish dies. If you suspect the fish went mad and jumped because something was lodged in its throat, that should be easy to confirm or discount.
Reeftanks6
Active member
Wow beautiful tank! How big was your old tank in the above pictures?
