Electrobes' K.I.S.S. 40Br Thread

[chrismunn]

cool rocks!

its funny, right now its saturday, and as i read that you are going to your first meeting, i realized that i too am supposed to be at my first ARC meeting.....RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND! :eek2:

dangit! first i washout of the AFD program, then i miss my first meeting! i also just learned that i have a little red house that leads to nowhere! :lol:

whats next???

good luck with the acylic tank build!

 

[Electrobes]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12366128#post12366128 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chrismunn
cool rocks!

its funny, right now its saturday, and as i read that you are going to your first meeting, i realized that i too am supposed to be at my first ARC meeting.....RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND! :eek2:

dangit! first i washout of the AFD program, then i miss my first meeting! i also just learned that i have a little red house that leads to nowhere! :lol:

whats next???

good luck with the acylic tank build!

:lol:

 

[chrismunn]

right when i read that its saturday and your going to your first meeting my freakin' heart jumped as i realized that it is saturday and im supposed to be attending a meeting right now!

the meeting is in a office building, and i was supposed to be there promptly at 1:45pm to get into the closed building....

 

[Electrobes]

So what ended up happening??

 

[chrismunn]

with what? we were supposed to meet up in a parking garage at 1:45 so that we could be let into a closed office building where one of the members tanks is at. i went out and did my normal saturday routine, shopping and such, and completely forgot about the meeting today. i got home from shopping and when i started reading your thread i realized that it was already 2:30, and that i missed the meeting!

 

[Electrobes]

Chrismunn: Doh! I was late to my own meeting my magical GPS decided it was more fun getting lost than taking me to the destination. Luckily I wasn't too late. I hadn't realized this meeting was the first for this newly made combo... (PMAC is a combo of a couple others).

My booster pump didn't show up yesterday like I was hoping but it was a stretch. I should see it on Monday, which means on Monday I'll have my rock soaking in vinegar water first, and then have them start cooking.

This week looks to be a busy one with work, wife, etc. That and the fact that nothing much happens when rock is cooking.. there may not be much to update about until I figure out what I will do with the tank.

After seriously looking at options I am still deciding between making an acrylic one of my own or buying one from some place like Glasscages with a starphire front panel (It's fairly cheap and 30 bucks for me to pick it up is VERY reasonable).

 

[chrismunn]

why are you going to cook your rocks in vinegar? wont the vinegar dissolve the calcium based rocks?

i say build your own!

 

[Electrobes]

Heh sorry, what I meant to say is that I am going to pre-clean the rocks with vinegar water THEN cook them in regular saltwater + corraline shavings and pods.

 

[chrismunn]

i think that is what you said and i just cant read

 

[Electrobes]

:lol:

It's Sunday, we're not supposed to think anyway

 

[Electrobes]

Update: I should have some pics up tonight, I finally got the booster pump in and cleaned off the rocks! Also a surprise and some news about my tank situation.

 

[Electrobes]

Rock Curing

Rock Curing

I finally got my Booster Pump... it's a little loud but it gets the job done. It also leaks a little but I'm fixing that AFTER I get the rocks part done:

Well the time has come... the rocks needed them some curing before they get to go into the tank. First they got to be dunked like crazy to get the excess debris off:

One tote had the rocks that needed to be dunked the other tote held the rocks that were done... here is the completed rock tote getting filled up:

And we're done!

This bucket was full, it leads me to think the job was a success:

The done pile:

More coming!

 

[Electrobes]

The Rock Curing Tank

The Rock Curing Tank

This part was a bit frustrating. The wires from the ballast to the hood was juuuuust a bit short, so I had to re-mount the ballast before my back passed-out in futility. But here are the shots of the fun!

I am only using the actinics on this tank and it gets a regular light schedule. There's also a heater and a Maxi-jet circulating the water. As of right now I'll be doing a water change once every 3 days or so. I still need to add more water to the tote.. there is currently 15 gallons in there now (with 60+ pounds of rock). I will probably add about 5 more gallons.

Let's hope I can find a tank in about a month!

 

[skey44]

I love the new tank! and the aquascape- just kidding, i'm sure you'll find a nice tank, but at least now you won't be tempted to put all that uncooked rock in the display.

The rock really looks great and this is looking like a great start to a really nice display.

Scott

 

[Electrobes]

Hey Scott! Thanks I am just happy my tank is moving along

I discovered that if I wanted Glasscages to make the tank and delivered it to Charlotte by May 1st I would have had to order immediately. I opted not to do that.. even if the next delivery would not have been until June something.

I am going to OF in Greenville today and will talk with the manager/owner about getting in a tank for me. I don't really see any other options at this point.. I am just hoping I don't get a tank with bad seams again... two is enough for me.

 

[Electrobes]

The Sand and the Sun

The Sand and the Sun

So the last couple of days have been eventful.. sorta. I finally got to visit some LFS in the big city of Greenville SC.. keep in mind I live in a smaller town of nowhere SC.

Anyway I picked up a bucket of I.O. salt from a PMAC member (Group buy). I browsed the LFS (Oceans Floor) while I waited and eventually got to meet some PMAC members. I then drove off after buying the salt (Great Deal), and my patient friend of whom I was doing errands with suggested that since we were in town that we should also visit the other LFS (Aquarium Oddities).

I really like A.O. the guys there were nice and they had, in stock, two bags of 30lbs Aragonite. I purchased that and Live Rock rubble to seed the base rock culturing tub. I must say that their shop looks very well together, especially since they had to rebuild from a fire.

I went home and put the LR rubble to use and also set up a tub for the sand.. to wash it out. Now I must admit.. I am trying to do everything as right as possible... so I used RO/DI water to wash out the sand which obviously was a complete PITA. After a couple wash outs I stuck a powerhead in there and saltwater to get it set up for culturing:

The water in the sand bin is still foggy (No big surprise) but I'm hoping with the water changes that it'll disappear. Time will tell I guess!

The culturing bin for the Base Rock is doing very well. I stuck in the Koralia #3 in there, with the heater, grounding probe, and LR rubble. I have the actinics on during a regular period of the day, but I don't use the day light bulb. My idea is to get the rock corralined (sp?) as well as cultured. We'll see how that works as I document the progress.

All that is left to complete the sand bin is a cup or so of Live Sand. I'll hopefully get this soon enough... I would have gotten it sooner but I forgot to pick some up. I'll prob get it from a member of PMAC or something. Maybe I'll just use a couple pieces of LR rubble.

 

[Electrobes]

The Sun Issue

The Sun Issue

As not to overfill my last post I seperated my Sun issue to post it here. When my wife and I first moved here she actually gave me a "Fish Room" and frankly it's the best room in the house. Score +1 for the wife who really had no interest in the hobby. But with this awesome room came some problems. Most of these problems got fixed but the big one loomed over.. literally. With the hint already in the title who can see what's wrong with this picture?

As you can guess it the top window, and even the bottom window, lets the Sun hit the tank a little too much for comfort. It's only for specific hours during the day but none the less it's an issue. After countless debates with the wife (She LOVES that open window) we've compromised to this :

It doesn'tlook like much in the pics, but it blocks out a lot of the Sun's beam via physical block and reflection (The stripes are made of metallic like fabric and it's all an off-white color.). After looking at what the direct beam looks like and what it looks like after the curtains I am pretty satisfied with the result. I should mention that the beam is never full (Full window) when hitting my tank area.. only part of the beam gets through. Maybe I'll take some pics of what I mean

The room is still pretty enough for the wife and the tank is safe from the sun, making me happy. I swear this 40Br is taking more work than most bigger tanks! :lol:

 

[chrismunn]

i wouldnt be comfortable with sun hitting my tank.

 

[Electrobes]

Yeah.. it was my only motivation to actually do something about it... I'm just glad it's done! It looks good, thank goodness the wife knows how to sow because I would've just cut the curtains with sissors and glued the ends.

 

[dwd5813]

question bomb:


how easy was installing the booster pump? did you need to do any wiring? i just set up my rodi the other day and i'm @ 30psi on a good day, so i definitely need one of those. how did you route it, and are you using a prefilter?