Building My 375gal Glass Reef

[Carlos Arouche]

Alan, I just got how to make it works:

1- Expanded the vertical tube 10 inches more and got lot of space to compress air.
2- I Used a air valve (the one we use at the CO2 Cilinder)

So I tested 10 times and do not fail... even with no air valve... it simply works... (but is ugly)

Regards.

 

[brucem]

I got norprene from cole parmer when I bought it was 38 dollars for 50 feet

 

[GlassReef]

Carlos Arouche - great! Glad to hear you got it working. I'd still love to see a pic of it, someday.

brucem - thanks, Bruce. I just picked up 25ft of Cole-Parmer's "PharMed" tubing off eBay for $15 (plus $9 shipping, of course ). It's the L/S 24 stuff. I think it's Norprene also, but a special grade. Supposed to have a time to failure of 4000 hours. That would be great, if true.

 

[StevieK]

Fantastic build !!!

Wonderful ideas and great way of thinking about each move. Only problem is you have me thinking

Steve

 

[StevieK]

Fantastic build !!!

Wonderful ideas and great way of thinking about each move. Only problem is you have me thinking

Steve

 

[EnglishRebel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14352922#post14352922 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GlassReef
Carlos Arouche - great! Glad to hear you got it working. I'd still love to see a pic of it, someday.

brucem - thanks, Bruce. I just picked up 25ft of Cole-Parmer's "PharMed" tubing off eBay for $15 (plus $9 shipping, of course ). It's the L/S 24 stuff. I think it's Norprene also, but a special grade. Supposed to have a time to failure of 4000 hours. That would be great, if true.

Tom
Did I miss something here, but what is the significant of the CP PharMed tubing? Is this for your peristaltic pump and you're afraid of tubing failure?

 

[GlassReef]

StevieK - thank you for the kind words, Sir.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14392911#post14392911 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EnglishRebel
... what is the significant of the CP PharMed tubing? Is this for your peristaltic pump and you're afraid of tubing failure?

Mornin', Alan. Yup, it's for the new pump I got on eBay that I'll be using for daily water changes. My experience is, tubing is the weak point with peristaltic pumps - tends to wear out rather quickly. The PharmMed tubing from Cole-Parmer is rated with a mean failure time of 4000 hours. Just one less thing to worry about.

BTW: I saw the pic of the coral you're babysitting. Guess you brought your tank to life before I, mine. I'm having a bit of trouble getting mine cycled correctly. It's been 4 weeks and I still have .5ppm nitrite. I think it's the base rocks I'm using. Guess I'll just have to wait.

 

[Kaiden]

That's sort of correct. What this gives you is friction loss. What you end up with after calculating the elbows, tees, and valves is linear pipe equivalent to which you need to add the length of pipe in the run for a total run of pipe. You have two 90s and 4' of pipe. The two 90s add up to 17 linear pipe equivalent (2x8.5) which, added to the 4' of pipe, gives you a total length of 21'. You have to look up what the friction loss is for 2" PVC so you go to this table Head Loss. You have to know what your flow rate is. For 2" pipe with say 4000 GPH the head loss is 4.3 feet for every 100 feet of pipe. So for 21' the head loss would be 4.3/100X21 which equals 0.903 feet. This is only the friction loss to which you need to add your vertical head (in your case 4') so your total loss is 4.903' (say 5').

Wow! Impressive…Good Work..

Please forgive me for simplifying this for us idiots!

Here we go! If x/y=3 x a + Ahh who am I kidding…

Bigger pump + Ball Valve + Flow Meter = DONE!

 

[EnglishRebel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14393100#post14393100 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GlassReef
BTW: I saw the pic of the coral you're babysitting. Guess you brought your tank to life before I, mine. I'm having a bit of trouble getting mine cycled correctly. It's been 4 weeks and I still have .5ppm nitrite. I think it's the base rocks I'm using. Guess I'll just have to wait.

Don't worry Tom -- you're still ahead of me. That frag was in my fuge. My tank is still not here (glass is supposed to be at the manufacturers next week -- I hope).

 

[bbehring]

Tom, I heard those Marco Rocks leech nitrate. I seem to recall a thread here on RC about them?

 

[mflamb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14406944#post14406944 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bbehring
Tom, I heard those Marco Rocks leech nitrate. I seem to recall a thread here on RC about them?

Only if you don't "cure" them as Tom is doing. I skimmed and water changed a tank of about 100 lbs of Marco shelf rock that was used in the 390 build for over a month before using it. The NO3 was high for a few weeks, but came down to zero before I put it in the tank. I skimmed and changed water on a rubbermaid tub with a large piece of Marco that I got from Tom. After only a week, the NO3 was down, so I put it in the display. NO3 in the display was 2 ppm yesterday.

 

[bbehring]

mflamb, I recall a thread some time ago, I believe it was in regards to heavy hair algae break out? where someone with Marco rocks had a nitrate leeching issue. Rocks had been cured, tank was about a year old. All nutrients and parameters were checked, nutrient issues reduced/addressed and yet still he was getting high nitrate readings. He pulled his rocks out, placed them in another tank, put in new cycled LR and the nitrates came down into check. Just trying to recall, I think it was in an Fauna Marin AlgaeX thread?

 

[GlassReef]

Hey, guys. My current params:

NH3 = 0.0 (API)
NO2 = 0.5 (Salifert)
NO3 = 1.1 (LaMotte)
PO4 = 0.09 (Hanna)

It's the NO2 that's bugging me. I would have thought that after 4 weeks, nitrite would be at 0.0. Evidently the rocks are continuing to leach gunk. Just a matter of patience on my side, I guess.

NO3 doesn't seem to be a problem, so far. Of course, I've been skimming like crazy with my 250s. PO4 hit 0.7, but it's on the way down. The tank is pretty sterile with only the Marco Rock. I've got a friend in Ocala that offered me 6 or 7 Chromis. I might take him up on it - I was going to get some anyway.

I've heard the stories about Marco Rock and hair algae. Probably true, but as long as I keep the PO4/NO3 under control, shouldn't be too big a problem.

I'd hate to have to start from zero with the rock - but I will , if I have to. I'll give it another 2 or 3 weeks to see where it goes.

 

[EnglishRebel]

I have the Eco Rox from BRS in my fuge and QT tank (all being seeded by cured LR). They have been in there for about four weeks now and nitrates are around 2.5. I'm not sure what the difference is between Marco rock and Eco Rox but BRS guarantees that they have no aptaisa or majanos anemones. You don't have to cure Eco Rox.

 

[GlassReef]

Permanently wired up my four 6205 streams to the 7095 controller. I placed the 7095 on the back of the tank. It's very convenient there, and it's not in the way because it's under the overflow box. Worked out real well (pardon the lousy quality on the pics - had to use a real old P&S):

I used industrial Velcro to mount it to the glass:

This is a pic under the stand - looking up. It shows the four stream power adapters and the necessary wiring:

You can see the wiring leading to the individual streams mounted to the glass using little cable mounts I found at one of the Big Boxes. They mount with double sided tape and work very well.

I slit a piece if 4" PVC sewer pipe - the thin walled type - and mounted it directly under the tank. It holds all the wiring for the streams - quite a bit, as the newer streams each have a 15ft cable.

 

[plyr58]

Dude, I am going to have to hire you to come organize my build. What do you get an hour?

 

[bbehring]

Tom, I don't have Marco rocks, but battled a huge outbreak of hair algae sometime back. I worked hard to mitigate all my high nutrient issues, including blasting off my rock with a turkey baster, almost daily, feeding less, thawing my food and skimming off the enriched water, performing larger, more frequent WC's, cleaning out my sump, as well as removing the sand and rock from my fuge (they were a nutrient sink). I then used 1 treatment of fauna marin algaex, changed my p04 media in my reactor and did some good size water changes. The HA has since disappeared. Keep up with your regimen, it will take time but will pay off I'm sure!

 

[edandsandy]

Nice job on the Tunzes Tom!
How do you have them placed in the tank?
Do you know what cycle you are going to use?

 

[jnarowe]

Looking good Tom.

 

[mflamb]

Tom I'm sure that your NO2 is slow to come down due to lack of notorsomones bacteria. It is the slowest reproducing of the nitrogen cycle bacteria.