JapanReef - 450 gallon In-Wall system

[alpine]

heres a guy on ebay selling them for cheap

http://cgi.ebay.com/Filter-Sock-100...ryZ46310QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

HTH
Alpine

 

[mpcart]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6599810#post6599810 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NexDog
I'm going to try MrSandman's idea:

If there are still microbubbles after that then I'll go over the joints on the return with PVC glue again.

Good news! My rock is almost ready. They are diving today and tomorrow and wiull be sending me on Sunday! I'm really excited about this because my tank looks dull and uninteresting at the moment.

My flame angel and powder blue or exhibiting the outwards signs of Ich so I've started the drop to hypo. I was holding out for Matt's cardinals but I can always put them in a little 20g to drop down to hypo and then put them in. It would be a bit crowded in there but there's no aggression (right now anyway). Those 2 fish are very skittish so I hope they can hold on the 2 weeks it takes to kill off the parasite. I feed with selcon soaked flake, BBS and blood worms and nori twice a week so there diet is good and they are all eating.

I did something similar but added a 45 deg elbow at the top - it keeps the salt spray down and lets the water gently flow back into the tank.

Here is a pic.

 

[NexDog]

Nice idea! Might try and do this today if I can find time.

Well, the copperband is dead. Can't understand it. It was eating the shellfish all the time but last night I found it lying on the bottom of the tank dying. This morning it is dead.

On a brighter note I have my rock. Need to go get some salt for some dump 'n' swishing.

 

[agarza]

That's terrible news, but I guess copperbands are like that, one day they are doing fine, next day are gone without even saying good bye.

On the other hand is great to hear about your rock, I just canÃ"šÃ‚´t wait to see it in the tank.

Keep the good work, it's been a learning experience, thanks

 

[grallster]

Might as well mix up the new saltwater for a water change and use old tank water for the swishing.

 

[pcpm75]

This is the first time i have posted on this site. I have been enjoying just reading through all these threads and learning tons of new things and laughing my @#$ off at the same time. This thread and others have enlightened me everyday! Please keep the wonderful work coming and i Know this project is my favorite one to watch on this site! Thank you all...

 

[NexDog]

Thanks for the kind words. I took some pics on Sunday when I sorted the rock out and will scan and upload later today. I got 3 huge boxes and in each one was a suprise. One had a 8" Deresa clam, one had a yellow and orange sun coral and another had some small acro colony. I put them all in the prop area of the fuge which has the PFO mini-pendant with the 10k XM bulb.

Found the booklet for the Calcium Dispenser that goes with the osmolat finaly and hooked that up. Works great.

I have the rock in 2 large platic boxes and I have to say that 24 hours later - it stinks! Have them in the spare room with a heater, small light and powerhead in each. Did a 50% water change on the larger box yesterday. Also, I took about 5-6 large chunks out and put them in the skimmer section of the sump. My plan is to add some every few days so the biofilter on the tank can keep up and putting in the skimmer section will hopefully mean that more die-off is pulled out quickly. I set the skimmer to skim a bit wet in the meantime too.

Still battling microbubbles. I put Ts on both drains in the sump like this:

I had to put 10" of PVC on top otherwise teh water just boiled over. I put elbows on top too like mpcart posted:

I no longer have a bubbling cauldron but I STILL have the microbubbles!

I found teh 6-line wrasse this morning behind teh mag3 pump that powers the remora and thought it was dead as it was a bit curled up and on its side and covered in a stringy white substance like a spiders web. I put my hand in to scoop it out and it swam away. Bizarre....

 

[NexDog]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6626097#post6626097 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pcpm75
This is the first time i have posted on this site. I have been enjoying just reading through all these threads and learning tons of new things and laughing my @#$ off at the same time. This thread and others have enlightened me everyday! Please keep the wonderful work coming and i Know this project is my favorite one to watch on this site! Thank you all...

pcpm75!
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To POSTING On Reef Central</b></i></big></big> :dance: :bounce1:

 

[melev]

Remember that new plumbing will make microbubbles for up to 14 days. Where do you see them most? In the sump? In the tank? Everywhere? Do you see any in the return section of your sump, where they can be sucked in by the return pump?

 

[NexDog]

In the sump 75% of the microbubbles are being created in the intake chamber and 25% via the skimmer. I add that mod and all it did was get rid of 90% of the large bubbles - microbubble production is still the same. I have 3 sets of baffles in the sump, flow through is 1400gph. I have one baffle out of the intake chamber and one from skimmer > fuge. As this is at the front and the fuge is lit 24/7 I can really see the stream of microbubbles coming from the bottom of the baffle (from teh skimmer section) rising up the baffle and 80% of them just whip over the top baffle and into the fuge.

Alot of the microbubbles get lost in the fuge due to this vortex effect that is happening there. Because the baffle stretches across the one side of the fuge the cascading water makes the caulerpa ntumble round and round so the microbubbles tumble with it and hit the surface before going through the teeth into the prop section.

Then there's another baffle from prop > return section but the return is at the back and I can't really get in there to see how many microbubbles are ending up there. But I see lots in the prop section and if that baffles is working like the one in skimmer > fuge then about 80% of those microbubbles I see must be making it back into the display.

Basically I'm pretty ****ed that the 3 baffles aren't doing their job on a comparaitively low 1400gph.

I'd like to eradicate microbubbles in the sump before I start looking elsewhere.....Any ideas?

 

[melev]

Well, that is the layout you wanted, and if I recall correctly the return section was long and narrow, correct? Point me to some pictures of your sump and/or diagrams and I'll see what I can do to help solve the problem.

 

[NexDog]

This was last diagram that I gave to James and is pretty close to what it is....

 

[melev]

So the water is going over a single baffle into the next compartment? Is each compartment 1" shallower than the one previous to it?

 

[NexDog]

There is a 1" or 2" drop from Intake to Skimmer then a 1" drop from Skimmer to Fuge. Fuge to Prop is level through teeth. Prop to Return is a 1" drop......

 

[melev]

So you never have a triple baffle anywhere with an over-under-over system, correct? Just a cascading waterfall system from section to section?

 

[NexDog]

They're all triple baffles. So the water travels down one baflle on section 1, enters section 2 via a 1" gap at the bottom, travels up the baffle on section 2 and cascades into section 2.

Problem is that the baffles are just whipping over with the cascading water rather than hitting the surface and dispersing. I know this can happen with lots of flow through the sump but with my mediocre 1400gph it shouldn't be an issue?

 

[melev]

How wide are the gaps between those baffles? 1"? How wide is each section? 6" or more?

Is this with saltwater currently, or are you water testing with fresh water? How long has it been running?

 

[NexDog]

Gaps are 1" wide - section sizes are in the diagram above.

Definitely saltwater and it's been running for 2 months......

 

[melev]

Okay, so the first section is 10 wide as it pours into the next section, with a 1" gap on each side of the center baffle, correct? And then it falls 2"? At 1400gph, that should be just fine. Especially since you have the same again after the refugium.

Since it has had time to slime coat and it is saltwater, I'm guessing you still have it falling too far in the return section, or you have a leak in your plumbing perhaps. The return section may be hard to get do, but I imagine it is virtually bubble free. Is the water being drawn from the bottom inch of water of the return section? Do you have a bulkhead with an elbow pointing down?

 

[NexDog]

Yep, so a baffle out the intake section and then the other 2 so 3 in total.

The bulkhead for the return pump is at the very bottom at the far end of the return section. No elbow pointing down though. I'll have a good look in that section tomorrow.....