Update.......I am about to loose my mind!
Update.......I am about to loose my mind!
So, here we go...........Fish are doing wonderful. Water parameters are wonderful. Water is clear. Starting to see diatoms and some hair algae, I know this is to be expected.
Here is the problem list.....
Microbubbles galore! I have tried just about nearly everything:
1. I have siliconed around all threaded fittings and added more PVC cement around the other fittings, with the exception of the intake for the reeflo barracuda, it is about 3 inches beyond my reach and it would take hours to move everything out of my 70 square foot fish room to get to it. I did see some salt creap around one fitting, so this was probably contributing to the bubbles but this has been sealed and no further evidence of leak from this site. I was trying to find a sort of spray sealant w/ a nozzle so I could reach the last fitting that I fear may be contributing to my bubbles, but no such luck so far.
2. The sump is 75g (48x18x18). There are a lot of bubbles in the first chamber of the sump where the drain lines enter the sump. Here is a pic when first set up which doesn't show the bubbles, but you can see how it is set up.
there is no airsucking noted in the return portion of the fuge either. 2 drain lines feed the sump through two 7 inch 100 micron filter socks. The 3rd small line in the drain side of the sump is a return line from my fuge. the return lines have holes drilled into them, which I thought was the right thing to do, but I am beginning to wonder. So I replaced one of them w/ pvc without holes and did not notice much difference between the two. The sump has a total of 6 baffles, 3 at the drain side, 3 at the return side. The first baffle on the drain side is 11 inches high and water flows over it, then under the second baffle with is 1 inch off the bottom of the tank, then over a 9'' baffle which is the depth of the main area of tank where skimmer and biopellet reactor are. Flowing into tank about midway are a return line from the frag tank which is submerged fully and a return line from a BRS dual reactor running GFO and carbon. I did not run these 2 returns through a filter sock. I did inspect with a flash light at night and the bubbles do not appear to be coming from there. Finally the water flows over a 9 inch baffle, under another baffle 1 inch from bottom of tank and over a 8 inch baffle to the return area of the sump. I have a 2 inch bulkhead w/ a threaded pvc 90 attached, facing toward the bottom of sump. There is no sucking sounds or visible water being pulled from the surface of return section.
3. The skimmer was overflowing a bunch and i figured it was just breaking in, but today I broke down and elevated it 3 inches and it is no longer overflowing. It is a reef octopus 5000. I dont think the skimmer is the source.
4. Now for the last phase of my trouble shooting. There is about a 4-5 inch drop from the top of the overflows to the intake of the drain line. I DIY'd my own drain lines. You can see the overflow in this pic, it is the same minus the cap at the top of the "u" shaped portion of the drain line which I removed because it was not working correctly.
Now water flows smoothly however there are some bubbles I believe due to the 4-5 maybe more inches drop from overflow to drain. The problem is I used PVC cement to attach the top PVC fitting so I cannot simple unscrew the return line. I will have to cut the "u" shaped piece first, untwist, remove the drain line, attach a cuppling and attach a new "u" piece. I have no problem doing this, but I dont want to do it if this isn't the problem.
Any suggestions? I am at my witts end with these microbubbles. You can see what I am talking about in this video, with the MH on they are even more evident.
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And on to my next problem............ I have never used a calcium reactor before and set mine up today. I have dual gauges and a solenoid. I turned the CO2 on before plugging in the solenoid and when I did plug it in it blew the top of my reef octopus calcium reactor (brand new). It looks like I should be able to reseal it as the top separated at the seams. What should I use to reseal it with?
I have several other issues with the tank, and to complicate matters I have finals next week, so i really need to focus on school but am totally preoccupied with the tank. I dont have time to post more pics at this time, but I have set up a 10g and a 20g QT, hung lighting for display and frag tank, and I have a mimic tang in QT. Today I stayed home all day because a delivery of CUC, flame angel, and midas blenny, as well as some frags were supposed to arrive today, but they didn't for some reason. I ordered from reefs2go, mainly because their CUC are pretty cheap and shipping is free. I tried to call and they were closed. Hopefully my fish and CUC are OK, will keep you all posted. Now I must go study................
