Its about time! 265g build started.

[spinnerbayt]

I did some work to the skimmer and modified it with a needle wheel pump. Man does this thing kick now!

I used the old water from a water change on the 110 then added a 1/4 cup of nog from a coralife SS65. This is after about 10 min.

15min.

Tons of micro bubbles!

The Vid.
http://s48.photobucket.com/albums/f238/spinnerbayt/?action=view&current=100_1478.flv

 

[carb850]

Does the pump connect to the skimmer body?

It really is frothing up nicely.

 

[spinnerbayt]

Its connected with a short piece of hose. I wanted to connect it like my Euro reef but I would have to do a lot more modding and it would have to be done in a machine shop. I won't get into what all that consists of but lets just say its not worth it.

 

[spinnerbayt]

Looks like its been a while sense I updated last. Its time for some big changes. The drywall is finished and the basement is painted. I'm now waiting on the carpet guy to come. I'm shooting for this weekend. If he can get the carpet down then comes the fun. The big screen TV moves to the basement and I have a large sectional couch going in plus my other toys.

Its still going to be a while before the 265 gets running and I need to get the 110 out of the upstairs living room. I also need to clean out the fish room so that I can plumb the master bath that is over top of it. Problem with the fish room is it holds my frag tank and 100g stock tank that now has about 75 pounds of rock and 5 fish and some other livestock that I've picked up a long the way. So to get this stuff out of the way I'm going to setup the 135g that I picked up from Mary a while back and combine the contents of the 100g stock tank and the 110g into the 135g. I'll post pic's as things change.

Here is where I stand at the moment.

 

[spinnerbayt]

Update time again. The carpet has been installed, TV moved in, and the sectional couch is in. Oh and the pool table is not stacked to the ceiling with boxes.

I know this doesn't look the greatest but it is what it is, for now. This is the 135 that I picked up from Mary. It came with a metal stand but my brother liked the way the 265 is turning out so he is building his 125 into his basement wall so I took his oak stand. The stand isn't tall enough to hold the bigger skimmer so I built a 2x6 frame that sets down inside of the oak stand to give it the extra height need to house the skimmer. If I keep it this way later I'll get some nice trim for it but for now I'm not worried about looks as its just temporary. As I said before everything is going into the 135 till the 265 is up and running then the 135 will be taken back down till it goes to its final location.

The move starts today after work so big updates to come this weekend!

 

[carb850]

Your basement is shaping up nicely. How will you be doing the lighting on the 135g? It's a 6' tank while your 110 was 5', right?

 

[spinnerbayt]

yeah, its going to be a pain. I'm going to have to take everything out of the canopy of the 110 and reconstruct something over the 135. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it yet but I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possable. Maybe just keep the higher light corals under the halides and not worry so much about the ends of the tank or add some 65w PC to the combo to help out.

 

[spinnerbayt]

Well I spent the weekend moving both systems into the 135g. It took a lot of time but it was worth it. I also had a lot more rock then I thought. I couldn't even fit it all in the tank so I guess I'll just have to put the rest in a bin. I also decided to go bare bottom. Anyway here are the pic's.

Left side

Center

Left side

Full tank

Not the best pic's but you get the idea.

 

[carb850]

Looking good! So, I suppose you were able to remove the problem fish. How do you like the bare bottom so far? Did you notice much muck in your old sandbed? As I see stuff collect on the bottom of my 120BB it makes me think twice about putting a sandbed in the 30G cube.

 

[spinnerbayt]

I have not removed the sand from the old system yet. I never had problems with nitrates or anything. Only problem I've had with the sand is it wouldn't stay in place after I added the seio PH's.

 

[carb850]

Any updates on the 135G or 265G?

 

[spinnerbayt]

Still fighting some ich in the 135. I should have some updates on the 265 at some point this weekend or early next week. I won't say just what yet but I think everyone will like it.

 

[spinnerbayt]

This update isn't going to happen the way I had hoped but still may turn out alright. I found a used Euro Reef 12-4 skimmer I got a killer deal on, only problem is it got busted in shipping. One of my good buddies works at Moldagraph and has access to acrylic so he is going to try and fix it for me. Here are a couple pic's of the busted skimmer and a couple of it as if it wasn't busted. I'll give a new update as soon as I get the skimmer back....good or bad.

 

[rnhrtfan]

holly s*%$t!!!!! that thing is huge!!!!!

 

[carb850]

Geez, I hate to hear about the damage. Now, what pumps will you be feeding this monster with? Will it be a venturi, needlewheel, or other style?

 

[coralreefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15324022#post15324022 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by carb850
Geez, I hate to hear about the damage. Now, what pumps will you be feeding this monster with? Will it be a venturi, needlewheel, or other style?

Ouch the damage bites...it's a fine skimmer if you can fix it though and I think you can.

Unless he mods it a euro-reef is a needle wheel skimmer and at the time the finest skimmer of it's type around. The ASM is a euro-reef under a different name.

 

[spinnerbayt]

The skimmer came with 3 sedra 5000's ran as a standard needle wheel. My buddy has some good ideas on how to fix it but I'm still working on getting some money back from UPS. Anyway, when I give the orders to fix it it will be modified to a recirculating skimmer.

 

[carb850]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15326378#post15326378 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by coralreefer
Unless he mods it a euro-reef is a needle wheel skimmer...

I had a lapse of concentration or something as I knew that.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15326378#post15326378 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by coralreefer
The ASM is a euro-reef under a different name.

This I didn't know. Seems like I read at some point that one uses an extruded body and the other a cast, but I didn't know they were essentially the same skimmer otherwise.

 

[carb850]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15327222#post15327222 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spinnerbayt
The skimmer came with 3 sedra 5000's ran as a standard needle wheel. My buddy has some good ideas on how to fix it but I'm still working on getting some money back from UPS. Anyway, when I give the orders to fix it it will be modified to a recirculating skimmer.

I did a search on your new skimmer just trying to learn more about it. I found one site saying they came with 3 Sendra 9000's. Much difference between the 5000 and 9000? Other than 4000 that is

 

[spinnerbayt]

I spoke to the previous owner yesterday and he told me this skimmer was a prototype and had the pumps from the 12-3 but the body of the 12-4. He said the skimmer could handle much more air then what the pumps could give but if I recirculate it with the pumps it has then it should be no big deal. He said it was running a 1200g grow out system with no problems without any mods. and the only reason it was sold was because they wanted to get an external skimmer so they could get it out of the sump.