dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Honestly, I have no idea... I would guess somewhere around 4/5 but I never measured.
dmorel's 220 Round & Shallow reef build
- Thread starter dmorel
- Start date
Honestly, I have no idea... I would guess somewhere around 4/5 but I never measured.
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Tomorrow is a big day for the round and shallow reef.
We'll be pulling all rock, fish, coral, water and sand from the tank.
Drilling for and installing a closed loop.
Using a reeflo super dart gold with four 1" returns each with a flow accelerator.
Probably going to keep the tunze's in place as well for just massive flow.
Already upgraded the return pump to a Sicee Syncra 5.
Will scrub the rock and do a heavy dip on the SPS while it's out of the tank.
We've already made up 300 gallons of new water to replace and it's been circulating in my garage for the last few days.
Dosed some chemi clean on Saturday morning, just for kicks to help clean things up before the big day (haven't really noticed it doing anything but...)
Will obviously be doing a new rock stack, might try to get a little more open this time around and consolidating the coral in the tank into "zones" which should make both flow manipulation and lighting placement a lot of fun. (well fun is probably an overstatement).
Pics documenting the process TBD, but definitely will at least take a few shots post rebuild.
I've spent the day cleaning the skimmer, the carbon and GFO reactors (since they are both offline for the chemi clean anyway) and generally "getting ready"
Should be a fun day.
We'll be pulling all rock, fish, coral, water and sand from the tank.
Drilling for and installing a closed loop.
Using a reeflo super dart gold with four 1" returns each with a flow accelerator.
Probably going to keep the tunze's in place as well for just massive flow.
Already upgraded the return pump to a Sicee Syncra 5.
Will scrub the rock and do a heavy dip on the SPS while it's out of the tank.
We've already made up 300 gallons of new water to replace and it's been circulating in my garage for the last few days.
Dosed some chemi clean on Saturday morning, just for kicks to help clean things up before the big day (haven't really noticed it doing anything but...)
Will obviously be doing a new rock stack, might try to get a little more open this time around and consolidating the coral in the tank into "zones" which should make both flow manipulation and lighting placement a lot of fun. (well fun is probably an overstatement).
Pics documenting the process TBD, but definitely will at least take a few shots post rebuild.
I've spent the day cleaning the skimmer, the carbon and GFO reactors (since they are both offline for the chemi clean anyway) and generally "getting ready"
Should be a fun day.
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
The flow is pretty great, so good in fact I was able to get rid of the tunze's completely, nothing but the closed loop and the return.
I didn't get rid of the Won Bros, but I haven't fired them up in probably 9 months. Just don't need that much light. They were "OK" but nothing like the SuperKaru's.
Thanks, it came out good enough for now. I have a lot more room available. Removed a ton of stuff to let things grow out and get to about as minimal a rock stack as I could. Haven't taken any "good" pictures yet, but a quick snap after we finished moving rock around that shows the closed loop in action. (You can sort of see the crazy water motion on the surface, and that I need to take the recycling out).
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
They look like Darth Maul's...
Nice!
Another nice source of Zoa is www.exoticfrag.us I picked up some very nice Zoa's there just recently....
Nick
Nice!
Another nice source of Zoa is www.exoticfrag.us I picked up some very nice Zoa's there just recently....
Nick
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
My thoughts on the new closed loop.
When we were first planning this tank, we talked about a closed loop and decided it was a bad idea. Now that it's actually in, I can say that I wish we had decided to do it way back then.
Flow has been a major issue in this tank, even with four tunze 6055's. Now that I've got the closed loop in, even way dialed back, the flow is orders of magnitude better.
I think we probably should have gone with four outlets instead of three, since I have one area that is a tiny bit of a dead spot, though I'm pretty sure if I simply change out the single flow accelerator for a dual headed piece of locline and shoot one in each direction, that will solve for it.
At the moment however, I have most excellent water flow for my SPS, and have been able to adjust things to have several different flow zones (my ORA goni for instance likes very low flow, and I've been able to achieve creating a section like that).
Overall, I'm much happier with the flow in the tank since we did the move, and despite the number of pieces we lost during the change over, I'm glad we did it anyway.
Thoughts on the changeover
I'm absolutely convinced there was a bad bacterial infection in the tank.
Both myself and one of the guys who worked on the tank with me because fairly ill the evening we completed the swap. I had a fever in excess of 101, and for a few days after the cuts on my hands were swollen and infected. It was frankly pretty scary. We are both fine now. A third guy who helped out was fine. Dunno... I believe removing the sand completely was necessary, and I'm glad we did and replaced it with something fresh.
We were very aggressive with dipping everything while it was out of the tank. Too aggressive I think. I lost a number of very nice pieces and I'm sad about that. Fortunately nothing that is not replaceable. Most everything is starting to color back up now, except the pearlberry and a common rose milli. Both are growing, but not coloring up yet. It's only been a few weeks though, I expect they will both recover very nicely.
The red planet growth I am getting is now phenomenal, though I've noticed that I'm loosing some of the green. It was BRIGHT green before, but starting to become hard to see now. I wonder if it's just related to the massive growth spurt it's on. Don't really know for sure. Still a beautiful piece.
The one thing I can say for sure is I have yet to see the random STN return. I'm not saying it won't, I just haven't seen it yet so that's great news.
thoughts on MH spotlights
I love my superkaru's, but it's about time for another bulb replacement. I probably have another 2-3 months tops left on the current set of bulbs. That's 200 bucks a bulb at 5 bulbs, plus shipping for 6 months. Really I have to order 10 to make it even worth doing. You do the math. I'm thinking about replacing most of the MH spotlights with LED's. My LFS Reef Culture has been running their entire store on LED's and with their success and the success of other folks I'm seeing with LED's it might be time to make the switch. I'm not sure yet, but if I do it's coming soon...
Thoughts on new pictures
my dog ate the little thing that attaches the camera to the tripod so I can only shoot point and shoots instead of RAW which means the colors are never right, but I'll take some more soon, maybe even this afternoon depending on how good the football games are...
When we were first planning this tank, we talked about a closed loop and decided it was a bad idea. Now that it's actually in, I can say that I wish we had decided to do it way back then.
Flow has been a major issue in this tank, even with four tunze 6055's. Now that I've got the closed loop in, even way dialed back, the flow is orders of magnitude better.
I think we probably should have gone with four outlets instead of three, since I have one area that is a tiny bit of a dead spot, though I'm pretty sure if I simply change out the single flow accelerator for a dual headed piece of locline and shoot one in each direction, that will solve for it.
At the moment however, I have most excellent water flow for my SPS, and have been able to adjust things to have several different flow zones (my ORA goni for instance likes very low flow, and I've been able to achieve creating a section like that).
Overall, I'm much happier with the flow in the tank since we did the move, and despite the number of pieces we lost during the change over, I'm glad we did it anyway.
Thoughts on the changeover
I'm absolutely convinced there was a bad bacterial infection in the tank.
Both myself and one of the guys who worked on the tank with me because fairly ill the evening we completed the swap. I had a fever in excess of 101, and for a few days after the cuts on my hands were swollen and infected. It was frankly pretty scary. We are both fine now. A third guy who helped out was fine. Dunno... I believe removing the sand completely was necessary, and I'm glad we did and replaced it with something fresh.
We were very aggressive with dipping everything while it was out of the tank. Too aggressive I think. I lost a number of very nice pieces and I'm sad about that. Fortunately nothing that is not replaceable. Most everything is starting to color back up now, except the pearlberry and a common rose milli. Both are growing, but not coloring up yet. It's only been a few weeks though, I expect they will both recover very nicely.
The red planet growth I am getting is now phenomenal, though I've noticed that I'm loosing some of the green. It was BRIGHT green before, but starting to become hard to see now. I wonder if it's just related to the massive growth spurt it's on. Don't really know for sure. Still a beautiful piece.
The one thing I can say for sure is I have yet to see the random STN return. I'm not saying it won't, I just haven't seen it yet so that's great news.
thoughts on MH spotlights
I love my superkaru's, but it's about time for another bulb replacement. I probably have another 2-3 months tops left on the current set of bulbs. That's 200 bucks a bulb at 5 bulbs, plus shipping for 6 months. Really I have to order 10 to make it even worth doing. You do the math. I'm thinking about replacing most of the MH spotlights with LED's. My LFS Reef Culture has been running their entire store on LED's and with their success and the success of other folks I'm seeing with LED's it might be time to make the switch. I'm not sure yet, but if I do it's coming soon...
Thoughts on new pictures
my dog ate the little thing that attaches the camera to the tripod so I can only shoot point and shoots instead of RAW which means the colors are never right, but I'll take some more soon, maybe even this afternoon depending on how good the football games are...
interesting regarding your cutaneous infections and fever, the timing of fever really doesn't make sense though as it would probably take a minimum of a few days before manifesting into symptoms, more likely a human derived viral infection causing the fever and swollen cuts from contaminated water you were working in
good news about your flow, I've been using closed loop/eductors for some time now, with a VFD, and really happy both from a flow perspective and little/no maintenance. I'm planning a similar set up for a larger display. one unique advantage you have is a circular inertia which takes little energy to keep going, look forward to seeing pics, thanks
good news about your flow, I've been using closed loop/eductors for some time now, with a VFD, and really happy both from a flow perspective and little/no maintenance. I'm planning a similar set up for a larger display. one unique advantage you have is a circular inertia which takes little energy to keep going, look forward to seeing pics, thanks
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Things are still a bit nutty. Had to cut way back on the SPS in my tank.
Still trying to figure out exactly what's what. Everything still measures correctly, great paramaters, excellent water flow blah blah blah, but still having some issues.
Starting to remove most of the MH lighting at this point and get to an LED lit tank. Running a half dozen par 38 spots at the moment and still have a few MH lights running but will probably replace those with some SOL Blue's pretty soon. Hoping to avoid a complete reboot, but trust me, it's crossed my mind a few times.
As to the tank, it was actually a remnant from one of the tanks put in at a local rain-forest cafe. A local acrylic builder than took the leftover cylinder and turned it into a complete tank and it sat at one of the local shops for a few years. After I bought it the same acrylic guy was used to drill it and put in the overflow.
block head
New member
congrats on escaping rochester,and a great tank
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