Kurt03's 220 Build

[Kurt03]

I know I'm a geek but, is anyone else super excited that RC has finally moved the forums to some decent hardware? Everything is loading so much faster, im loving it! I know most people dont care, but does anyone know what type of hardware or is it AWS RC has moved to? Whats it take to keep this beast of a forum running fast?


Time to make up my mind on lighting. Im really close to pulling the trigger on two reefbreeders IT2080's. Im not sure on the LED layout yet. Any recommendations?

Heres some specs and pics, I would link directly to the page but not sure If im allowed.

this is the default layout, but you can customize the number and placement of each led.
channel 1; 24 4500K neutral whites, 4 480nm blues, 4 520nm greens, 4 450nm royal blues, 4 660nm reds, and 8 410-420nm violets.
Channel 2; 48 450nm royal blue,
Channel 3; 3 480nm blue moonlights,
for a total of 99 3 watt LEDs.
Each unit measures about 32" long x 8" wide x 2.75" tall.

 

[Cuddlefish69]

Awesome setup.

 

[Kurt03]

Hi everyone! I haven't posted for quite while, thought about just starting a new thread but why not just revive this one? Tank is still up and running, has been mostly auto pilot with a few fish the last several years as life took over etc. Im making some changes now since my sump started leaking, going to plumb to the basement finally like originally planned. old sump is removed, temp sump installed with skimmer etc.

Currently combining 2 1 inch drains into 1 1.5 inch drain. I also want to quiet down the drain so converting to a bean animal drain. Only issue is i only have 2 1 inch drians, not 3 as recommended. I think i can still make it safe enough by having the second drains air hole just above the normal overflow water height, if water hits it, it will turn into a full siphon drain. This combined with a smartthings water sensor that can shutdown the return pump if the level gets too high should let me sleep at night pics to follow !

 

[Kurt03]

Some recent pickups from frag swaps around the area. Tank has been mostly fish only the past several years, it's nice to be back into coral!
Sorry for the cell phone pics..

 

[ShawnLeary]

Nice work, look forward to new pics of your tank!

 

[Kurt03]

I decided to try the Reefbreeders LEDs, 2 photon 32" fixtures. So far I'm happy with them, but we will see what the coral think. If they don't work out, I'll probably go back to t5's.

 

[Kurt03]

I have some red turf and bubble algae that I have been fighting. It's going away but very slowly. I'm gearing up to do some peroxide dips on the rock as nothing seems to eat the red turf algae. It started taking a foothold after my sump leaked forcing me to stop running my skimmer for a while. I rely heavily on my skimmer for export and it took a while to get a temp sump back in place because of course it happened during our kitchen renovation.

Mexican Turbos look like about the only predator of the red turf and they are hit or miss. I bought a couple to try, not sure if they are making a difference. Wet skimming, carbon dosing, lanthanum chloride, and manual removal of the bubble does seem to be helping, albeit slowly. Po4 was .009 on the Hannah ulr checker about a month ago, a few weeks ago it tested 0. I have corals etc that seem to be doing OK, so I'm sure it's not truly 0, only testing that way as the algae consumes it as it becomes available. Nitrate was also 0 which has me thinking my system might be N limited, so I've increased feedings and also purchased some nitrate to dose and see if I can use the bacteria to help fight po4 which I feel is the fuel to my algae issues.
Here's the red algae I'm fighting,

And some corals in holding for now

Excited to see how these two continue to color up.

 

[Kurt03]

One of the goals with my current re-plumb is to make it as quite as possible. With this in mind it looks like a modified bean animal is the best route. Does anyone think this design will be loud? The straight through pipe is going to be the syphon, the 45 side of the y will be the emergency overflow. It is two 1" drains into a single 1.5" drain that runs the rest of the way to the basement sump.

A couple concerns with this is either it will cause a venturi type effect or just be loud in general going from the 1" into 1.5". I have the option to put this y above or under the floor, I'm thinking under, but downside is I will then have 2 holes in my floor instead of 1....

 

[Kurt03]

Any thoughts on the plumbing question? Thanks!

 

[Kurt03]

Guess we will run with it and see what happens.

New pipes to the basement.

 

[Kurt03]

Pipes pipes and more pipes.. Getting closer!

 

[Kurt03]

Good morning!

 

[anarchyx914]

I followed rocket engineers template, pretty sure for this span I needed a center support. So I did two cause I didn't want 2 huge doors and this makes it easy for 3 doors.

Do you think for the span I don't need any brace? Would the single 2x6 be enough to hold that?

I have a 96x24x24 tank and I used 2x6s' for the horizontal supports. My tank has been up for 2+ years with no problems, those center braces are overkill

 

[Kurt03]

I have a 96x24x24 tank and I used 2x6s' for the horizontal supports. My tank has been up for 2+ years with no problems, those center braces are overkill

Yea, I knew 2 was overkill but it gave me easy places to put 3 doors. Do you have no braces on that span?

 

[Kurt03]

Nice work, look forward to new pics of your tank!

Thanks! I will try and get some better pictures, my bubble algae is a little embarrassing

Im having a hard time getting good shots using my camera. I just cant get it to white balance under leds, the blues just overtake everything GRRRR

 

[Kurt03]

Any tips on shooting pics under LED's? I bought a Nikon D3200 a while ago and just cant get decent pictures anymore. Non tank shots are fine. I had a cannon dslr before this and was able to get decent shots, is everyone shooting through yellow gel filters?

Arg frustrating!

 

[ezerasurfr]

You don't need any filters with a DSLR like you would with a film camera. Digital can manipulate the spectrum after the fact if you like. Pickup an editing program like Photoshop or Lightroom if you're having difficulty white balancing from your spectrum.

 

[Bdial]

Any thoughts on the plumbing question? Thanks!

I don't think you should run that wye. The main drain requires a full siphon. I just see water hitting that wye and causing it to break siphon. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you would be safer running two separate pipes.

The more I look at it. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm curious though. Good luck. It all looks good.

 

[Kurt03]

I don't think you should run that wye. The main drain requires a full siphon. I just see water hitting that wye and causing it to break siphon. Maybe I'm wrong. I think you would be safer running two separate pipes.

The more I look at it. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm curious though. Good luck. It all looks good.

Yea, it will break the siphon. I'm not planning on pushing the limits of the 1.5" pipe so I'm hoping it will be OK. Likely around 800-1000gph and I think a 1.5" non siphon can do 1500+? Let me know if I'm wrong.

Ideally should have ran two separate 1" drains all the way back, but it's a pretty long run and this made it significantly easier. If it doesn't work I'll run the 2 1 inch drains all the way instead of converting to 1.5 like I did. Crossing my fingers!

Sump and return pump! Pump is used but seems in good shape.

 

[Kurt03]

Freebie x 2! They held peppers so soaking with oxyclean, will do a few rounds of that and see how it smells.