Addiction wins, 450 gallon system begins

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hey, I only begged you to not do it...oh yeah, and asked about the rock.:D

Sounds like you are in a better mood regarding the tank which is great to hear. I posted a pic of my painted fish room today on my thread. Those fumes really put my oxycodone to shame!

if you want to talk, PM me. I would love to talk through issues and see if I couldn't help you reduce your load. One thing that would help with the extra moisture in the house is covering any open water tanks. Even if you can't get them completely covered it will still help quite a bit to keep evaporation and condensation down. Pallet wrap, taped on plastic sheeting, whatever.
 
hop,
I didn't realize you were so close to grand junction, I go to moab occaisionally, not really that far from you....I will be off work from the 20th through the 3rd.....I'd be happy to come give you a hand if you decide to break it down, or need help with it..seriously.

Damon
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6281145#post6281145 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Damon1
hop,
I didn't realize you were so close to grand junction, I go to moab occasionally, not really that far from you....I will be off work from the 20th through the 3rd.....I'd be happy to come give you a hand if you decide to break it down, or need help with it..seriously.

Damon
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LOL, still 90 miles from the Utah border, but pretty close. I'm going to keep trying to do some tweaking before I take it down. If the right person wanted it, then I would certainly help them out, but otherwise I'm going to keep marching on with it:)

No, I have friends that have...I do more road cycling.....I'm kind of a pansie....
Click to expand...

Me too, I used to go to the Easter Jeep Safari and 4-wheel, but never biked there. I always said that when I quit seeing the look of panic on the mountain bikers face and saw them smiling, I would hop on board with it:D
 
Panic?? LOL...how about hallucinations? That's when it really gets fun. Moab is great. I rode in the Cactus cup some years ago and passed a stone during the race. Over 100 in my class DNF'd, and I wasn't one of them! No pain, no gain right? I know, I know, that's total BS, but it's fun to say.

I am getting some minor electrical work done while I wait for the floor stripper to do its thing. I just ordered a boatload of plumbing parts and that was a nightmare. Can't get much of it at HD etc. so I had to order online, but I am nervous about not being able to fit stuff together before I throw it in the basket.

I got two 3" bulkheads for the air injection on my DIY skimmer, and the cheapest I could find were $50 each! Ouch.
 
My wife and I used to go to the easter jeep safari every year....Loved it, I kind of avoided the pucker factor trails, but loved the scenery! Now it's a little tough with 4 kids...Half the time the minivan can't get out of the driveway, let alone make it to a trail, can't stuff em' in a jeep, so gave up. I don't think my kids could stand to be in the car with me for more than an hour anyway....teenagers.....

jnarowe,
are you building an airstone skimmer?
 
I agree with you about the pucker factor trails in that my first MTB rides were really just to get out of the city. But I am somewhat of a techno-weenie 3rd Class and that of course built it into epic rides and freak-out danger. Once the kids come along, it's all over anyway, and trying to get them to take part is mostly a mind numbing excercise in futility. And then I had a stroke of all things.

yes, I am building an air stone skimmer. Approximate specs. are:

--in sump gravity fed 1-1/2" inlet
--18 x 18 x 12 air stone chamber
--12 x 12 x 48 main chamber
--1 - 1-1/2 exit gate valve
--2 bulkheads (3") with cap/manifold (snailman) for 4 stones each
--driven by 2 Luft pumps
 
D: I don't have any pics. It will be a combination of one off snailman's DIY and Herbert T Kornfeld's. I will be making it out of 3/8" acrylic sheet and it will essentially be square, not round. PM to share ideas!

Really, anyone looking at your house plans knows you are full of crap with that "325 gal set up on a budget!!" :D Are you not counting the custom room build?? LOL...

Sounds like you got a good deal. I got a 1000g, sequence pump, sump, 200lbs. MI rock, plumbing pieces for $2,200. Not a bad deal either.
 
p.s.,
thanks for the comments on the corral.....most of them are 2 years old...I'll post more pics in my thread when I get a chance.

Hop,
how are ya man, still planning on working on the humidity thing this weekend? Or are you burned out.......

D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6280453#post6280453 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Hop
The humidity I'm working on this weekend. I'm going to do some more sealing around the tank just to keep the moisture contained. As far as the electric goes, I'm swapping out the barracuda and playing with some other ideas.
Click to expand...

Nice tank and LOTS of time/work invested (don't back off on it). I haven't read EVERY post but I did read quite a few. What a sucky story twist near the end of the thread :(.

Have you considered one of these for the humidity issue? (didn't notice it if this was already suggested)
Dehumidifier

Some can be hard plumbed to drain to the outside and some can be set to keep a constant humidity (like 30%).

With regard to overhead reduction, can the photoperiod be reduced with the tanks' inhabitants? (lights seem like around 13 kW hrs/day). Think the pumps are the big hit, the Barracuda is 325 W (or 7.8 kW hrs/day, over half the light power). Electric cost is probably around 10 cents per kW hr. Cutting the photoperiod, dumping a pump (if possible) and perhaps not skimming 24/7 (cutting the skimmer pump time in half) would likely drop the elec. overhead by around $40 /month. Borneman goes skimmerless except in emergencies.

However, one way to get a savings is to make it a business. Don't know what tax bracket you're in, but, you may be able to get 15% of the costs back in tax savings (not to mention perhaps capitalizing). Get a DBA (or bus entity), a bus checking account, and when possible frag some zoa's or mushrooms and sell em (or breed something). I'm in the process of doing that myself (even looking into resale of some dry goods). A thought anyway.
 
Damon1: Yeah I did see that thread in one of yuor other posts, and I have not been able to read it yet. (Get AWAY from me WIFE!!)

Tom_Nev" Dehumidifiers do work, but do not solve the underlying problem. They add to the overhead also. I would only use one as a last resort. It may also not be effective until you get to the whole house sized ones either. HOP could be having a systemic problem with his house heating system too, like filters clogged, or maybe he is heating with propane (which oddly enough, is a "wet" heat) and unknowingly contributing to the problem.
 
Hop,
I ran into this electricity cost calculator that I think is the most useful tool yet to determine electrical cost associated with our tanks. It's something that I guess we can plug in the numbers based on electrical ratings for the equipment we want to use, and determine the associated monthly or yearly cost. I'm grateful for your candidness in explaining the realities of the increase in your electrical bill, it's stimulated me to check that out a little more than I had planned.

Thanks!!

Electricity Calculator

Damon
 
Damon,

Thanks, I tried a few of those. the problem is that I need something to measure the actual wattage used by the equipment. What they tell you on their product descriptions, I'm afraid is WAY WAY off. It was estimated that I should have a total bill increase of $60 over last year (keeping in mind that I had a total of five smaller tanks last year). Unfortunately I was off by nearly $100 without knowing the exact amount that the equipment is drawing. :)

Hopefully if I every get through the holidays and actually work on reducing some take issues it'll get lower:D
 
Hop, I ordered a Kill-A-Watt device recently. It should arrive pretty soon I guess. It cost $27 plus shipping (total $36), and will let me find out what each piece of equipment is drawing power-wise.
 
melev,
do you have a link? Too bad we don't have a list of common items used by reefers and actual wattage used in real life situations!!

Damon
 
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