Hey all. Thanks for keeping up the interest. Sorry for the delay (and for your jones, todd). The hum of life has gotten very loud the last month or so and several higher priority things had to be taken care of, but I'll get to that later.
Yep, I'm still alive and my head didn't actually explode...heehee
The diatoms are, except for a few traces, gone. There is some fine short hair algae growing but that is starting to turn pale and go away thanks to diligent water changes and decent skimmers.
After giving the topic much discussion and thought, I talked to the folks at Precision Punch and Plastics in Minnesota to see if they had leftover strips they could give to me instead of paying someone to pick them up for recycling, then made an offer to pay for them if they couldn't give them away. They assured me that they didn't keep remnants so I ordered what I needed and some wider strips to eventually make internal overflow boxes for the tanks. Then ordered a bunch of the 90 degree angle pvc and some square stock from USP for the reinforcing. While all of the new parts were being delivered, there were a few issues that needed to be addressed.
There was the leaking bulkhead losing about 50 gallons per day which is now replaced. The second pair of skimmers have been fired up. All of the skimmer collection cups were trimmed down because the foam would come out so large that it spilled out over the sides. (Can be seen back a few pics where the silencer for the blower is shown). After they were trimmed down, the skimmers started to spatter salt creep all over the greenhouse plastic which had to be wiped off every couple of days. Shrouds were placed on all the skimmer collection cups (milk jugs) to keep the spatter off of the plastic. The shrouds are just two sides of another milk jug. For future skimmers, the jugs will be cut to include the collection cup and shroud as a single unit.
The bucket that was off to the side of the live rock vat to act as an overflow/sump was very difficult to maintain a constant water level in, although the free flowing drains did an excellent job at pulling water from the surface of the vat. If the water rose too high in the barrel, it spilled out of the holes that the drains went through. The pump had to be set on the gravel to be plumbed from the bottom of the barrel and the water ran down the pipe which put the pump in jeopardy.
If the water level got too low, the pump would suck air like a draining sink. Allot of that difficulty probably came from the need to frequently adjust the flow rates on the skimmers to keep maximum production. With small tweaks of the valves, the water level in the barrel would rise or fall in a few minutes, then the surface drains from the vat would have to be adjusted to pull more or less water and at times, one might even have to be capped off. It was very difficult to get it all to balance out. Plus with the plumbing free flowing from the surface of the vat, there was the ominous toilet flushing sound every few seconds...over and over and over. That idea was scrapped and the drain pipes were plumbed to the pump just like the first two skimmers.
The mutilated 3" pvc 90's were tried out on the surface plumbing but didn't perform as expected and were really no different than the intact 90's were. 2" 90's were tried when the surface drains were still free flowing into the barrel and seemed to perform a little better after they were plumed into the pump, but still not as good as I wanted. Then I tried 1" 90's and they seem to pull water from the surface better since there is less of an area of the fitting under water and the pump pulls a better suction through the smaller fittings which pulls water from the surface more efficiently. The 2" and 3" just sat too deep and the surface water would just sit...well, on the surface, while the water under the surface ran into the plumbing.
Once all of the additional plastic arrived, I started to build the first tank. One long side and the two short sides were together when the build stalled. For one, I ran out of glue and the local stores only carry the small cans of "all purpose" glue. I prefer to use solvents that are specific for the kind of plastic. Then my D.O.N. resigned her position under some secretive circumstances which dumped the load of her job in my and one of my co-workers laps since we are the only two R.N.'s there. I had oral surgery and some bone reconstruction in my upper jaw. There just seems to be something going on of a higher priority when I do have a day off so the three-sided tank sat there for about three weeks or so until I could get to Champaign and get the glue.
I did manage to get a second stand built and am using the first stand as a jig to build the tanks since it already had one of the wooden support walls on it. The wall helps to hold the long side square to the bottom while the glue dries.
Anyway, enough talk. The stands would have looked something like this, except with the support wall going all the way around the perimeter of the stand, if I would have stuck with the wooden support idea.
The first tank complete.
An inside view of the tank.
Tommorow, (actually, I guess it's today now), it gets filled. Hold your breath(s).
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