How not to build a 750/1500 gallon build thread-Khaosinc 3/5/71-8/30/11

Khoas, from what I remember, you work on Mopars too.
Think of the seals on the aquarium being analogous to the seals on your cars. Over-tightening any seal leads to deformation and leaking. I learned this by screwing up a copper ring on some calipers, and by screwing up a rubber ring on some injectors (I'm sure you can relate). From my experience with the injector seals, I would say it is very important to lube any o-rings that you have for your bulkheads before installation.
 
Khoas, from what I remember, you work on Mopars too.
Think of the seals on the aquarium being analogous to the seals on your cars. Over-tightening any seal leads to deformation and leaking. I learned this by screwing up a copper ring on some calipers, and by screwing up a rubber ring on some injectors (I'm sure you can relate). From my experience with the injector seals, I would say it is very important to lube any o-rings that you have for your bulkheads before installation.

Definitely DO NOT lube the gaskets on your bulkheads... it makes them much more prone to slipping, even with normal and appropriate tightening. I learned that one the hard way, and had to de-lube them.

DO lube the o-rings on plumbing unions, or anything else that has a channel to retain the o-ring and prevent it from slipping.

Also lube the rubber gaskets on your waterproof endcaps. It makes the IceCap T5 endcaps on my system sooo much easier to deal with. I used Wet Platinum, but I'm sure melev would argue for Astroglide.

Cheers,
-Matt
 
The I was using water, but the bits I have are pretty old, and might not be up to the job anymore.

I think that may be your problem right there. I do not drill tanks, but the people that I know say that the bits are only good for 3 or 4 tanks.
 
I ordered a new set of diamond hole saws through work today so hopefully this friday I'll see how nice new ones work. Not sure how old mine are as I don't actually recall even buying them.

Almost finished the frame of the second half of the hood and scrounged enough sheet metal for the end door as well. I should finish welding it up tommorow and then bring it home for paint and mounting the wood doors on the front, and the panals on the back. Then comes the fun part, figuring out how to get them on top of my tank without breaking me, or scratching the tank.

Also finally got motivated enough to clean out the canister filter that I will be using on the quarantine tank. That was nasty. It had beensitting disconnected from the cichlid tank for about 3 months, and it was long overdue for a cleaning when I took it off. Its up and running off my sump to get it nice and seeded. I still need to scrub out the tank as well, then get a day off so I can order fish.
 
Hey Khaos,

Sorry I lost track of this thread for a while. Quit getting notification emails. Just had a few pages to read to catch up though.

Glad you are making progress - both with your health and that monster tank. I hope you are done with doctors for a very long time.

Looking forward to seeing what happens next!
 
Hey Khaos,

Sorry I lost track of this thread for a while. Quit getting notification emails. Just had a few pages to read to catch up though.

Glad you are making progress - both with your health and that monster tank. I hope you are done with doctors for a very long time!

I hope so as well. NOthing left to do but pay the doctor bills for the moment. They seem to keep coming. LOL

The hood is coming along slowly. Not alot of free time to work on it at work, and my shop is to much of a disaster to do much of anything at home at the moment. The second 1/2 is sitting in the back of my truck painted, but I seem to be lacking the motivation to get it out of my truck. I did end up making the side door out of steel as I found enough. Its a bolt on to help with weight getting it up there. Haven't had the time/motivation to cut the side panals, but the plywood is sitting in my living room.

I test fired my LED project... not overly impressed. I'm just hoping to get enough blue out of it that I can have mostly 10K bulbs over my tank. I fear I might give up and go MH yet.
 
Recommend a foxface

Recommend a foxface

A few pages back you were struggling with grape calerpa.

A foxface will make short work of it. They are also very cool, with tons of personality. Change colors on a dime. Scare them and their fins spike out, and they get all brown striped and mottled. 5' later he's bright yellow and running around cleaning rocks. Bit schizophrenic perhaps, but cool fish none the less.
 
I second the foxface. I have one, got rid of grape calerpa, but it is best friends with my yellow tang. It is a pretty fish with a great personality.
 
A few pages back you were struggling with grape calerpa.

A foxface will make short work of it. They are also very cool, with tons of personality. Change colors on a dime. Scare them and their fins spike out, and they get all brown striped and mottled. 5' later he's bright yellow and running around cleaning rocks. Bit schizophrenic perhaps, but cool fish none the less.

My hippo tang has finally discovered it, so I've been letting some of it grow just to encourage him. Its already in lots of annoying places so I figure it can't get to much worse. Unfortunetly, he also appears to have a taste for zoas. As I no longer have any left I guess I just won't add anymore making a foxface more of a possibility.

I've been holding off on adding fish until I can add several at once, and that unfortunetly just has to wait for the time being, mostly because I can't really have a planned day off for a while having missed way to many days this summer. I refuse to shop at the only (non chain) LFS anymore, and I just don't know that I want to face the headaches of trying to get a petco fish healthy enough to put in my tank. Unless I get some time to take a trip down to Seattle it will just have to wait until I can mail order some.
 
A few pages back you were struggling with grape calerpa.

A foxface will make short work of it. They are also very cool, with tons of personality. Change colors on a dime. Scare them and their fins spike out, and they get all brown striped and mottled. 5' later he's bright yellow and running around cleaning rocks. Bit schizophrenic perhaps, but cool fish none the less.


Hahahah Yeah this is so true sort of like this: One second their like "la la la la la" and the next "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG" and seconds later "la la la la"
 
Well, against my better judgement, I was picking up some fish/dog/cat/ferret food at petco and I do have a weekness for sales...

guess we shall see how a foxface does...

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and I couldn't resist another hippo..

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And I'm stocked up on my basics for another month or so. Always a good thing.

While I was acclimating them to the quarantene tank, I even was motivated enough to take some linemans plyers to the vermitid snails. Cut/smashed them off the one LPS that they seem to have infested. There were crabs on the shredded remains in seconds. Might have to attack the other rock tonight as well. But first I suppose I should make it so I can see in to the tank

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Natural sunlight has many advantages I'm sure, but I do hate scraping the tank...
 
In all honesty I haven't tested anything besides salinity in a while. That was one of the things I meant to do tonight, but I'm easily distracted. Maybe tommorow. My guess would be that it would tell me I'm overdue for a water change, and a little high on nitates.

I did find out that there was a fish tank behind all that yuck....

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I remember adding a cute little black bristle star.... Not sure how well it shows up in the pic, but this guy has to be 14" across now.

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the mystery accedental frag is doing well, as is the clam/molusc thing with it. can even see little polyps off of it.

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No idea where this came from... I haven't added anything new in ages. I'm trying to believe its not a manjo for the moment... tommorow it goes away.

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out of curiosity, I took a peak behind my rock wall. Amazing what grows with vitrually no light or flow...

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The hood has gotten as far as now both halves are in my living room. So is the plywood I need to cut and paint. I try and inforce a rule about alcohol and powertools and the drinking started early today.

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I also learned that if you clean out your really nasty skimmer. Don't leave the pile of goo and rags where this dog can get to it. Even after the bath you can still smell her. YUCK

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Man I can't wait till you get some good lighting on that puppy, your rock work is amazing. I think people are going to be blown away when you get your lighting done.

Advise: Once you get the lighting in place, ask for reefcentral volunteers to find someone with a weekend, a really good camera and some good reef tank photography skills to really do a "pro" job on a spread of photos (to post on RC of course!)
 
i am running my tank with some vho lighting with ice cap ballasts . it would be pretty economical to go that route . the ic 660 are always up for sale on r/c thread for alittle over a hundo and there is a study if you use ic ballasts the bulbs last 2 years . they have to be cheaper to run than metal halides . just a thought for you ...........
 
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