Matt's Odyssey 230g System

[msderganc]

A couple more pics:

New Spaflex Piping. I've got some red and gloss Plasti-Dip that I'm going to try using to paint the pipe this weekend.


The custom case I made for all of my testing equipment. I was really tired of a bunch of different little boxes and stuff. Next step is to make a combined color chart and directions cheat sheet on one page so I don't need all of the different booklets




Oh and I got some new fans in for the sump cooling. The last set had issues with salt creep eating through the wiring, so I opened up these ones and coated the circuit board with silicone. Hopefully it will help.

 

[msderganc]

. Yes I would like to see the New Spa Flex Plumbing . I''m curious about the center overflow system they have. . I was concerned with the amount of area it takes up in the tank.

I'd agree with the concern around the center overflow. It takes up a lot more room than I thought it would. It's about 21 inches long (more than a third of the tank) at the back (it's a trapezoid shape) and about 7 inches deep. So it takes up a good amount of space. BUT, it does have three 1" drains and two 3/4" returns, which is nice. Again, if I did this again, I would have custom ordered the tank with a CTC overflow and used 1.5" piping.

 

[aquaenthusiast]

awesome case for the hanna checkers! Are custom cases like that easy to come by? And great idea about siliconing the circuitry on the fans, hadn't thought of that one before....:reading: sweet build!

 

[msderganc]

awesome case for the hanna checkers! Are custom cases like that easy to come by? And great idea about siliconing the circuitry on the fans, hadn't thought of that one before....:reading: sweet build!

Thanks, appreciate the compliments. I actually custom designed that case using a website (www.mycasebuilder.com) and I think it cost around $70 total. The top and bottom foams were both custom cut to my spec (they have a basic 3D design tool that you can use). It took me probably about an hour to design.

I hope the silicone works! The last fan was heavily corroded after just about a month.

 

[msderganc]

Ok, I dosed some live bacteria to the tank (like an idiot) and it ended up causing an algal bloom. So, that caused a spike in Ammonia (which I covered with Seachem Prime) and a now I'm dealing with the Nitrate spike. Hard, on a large tank, to do major water changes. Any suggestions to help mitigate the ~25ppm of Nitrate I'm seeing in addition to the smaller water changes I've been doing?

Strangely, my Phosphates are at 0. I remember reading something about how they're tied together and that if Phosphates were too low, Nitrates are hard to naturally process. Any suggestions?

 

[Psxerholic]

Regarding the fans, I changed my cooling on the tank to the canopy and ALWAYS blow air from ambient into the saline environment.
That means if I have to cool a refugium I have to cool the stand by blowing outside air through the stand but will have to have to install sufficient gaps or an outlet hole.
Some good solutions people did, they installed ducting from the fan in the stand wall directing to the surface of the refugium.

There is too much copper in the electronic of the fans to avoid corrosion.
The saline air is getting everywhere.
From the Offshore business the only way are industrial offshore electronic equipment fans that are quite expensive and those are resist the corrosion.
The bad things, those are very loud and require mostly 24VDC.

 

[msderganc]

Regarding the fans, I changed my cooling on the tank to the canopy and ALWAYS blow air from ambient into the saline environment.
That means if I have to cool a refugium I have to cool the stand by blowing outside air through the stand but will have to have to install sufficient gaps or an outlet hole.
Some good solutions people did, they installed ducting from the fan in the stand wall directing to the surface of the refugium.

There is too much copper in the electronic of the fans to avoid corrosion.
The saline air is getting everywhere.
From the Offshore business the only way are industrial offshore electronic equipment fans that are quite expensive and those are resist the corrosion.
The bad things, those are very loud and require mostly 24VDC.

Welcome fellow Houstonian! Yeah, I have to figure something out with regard to cooling. I might just balance my home AC to keep this room a bit cooler in the summer. So far though, the open top has been much more effective in cooling than the BioCube.

 

[msderganc]

I've been looking for some way to feed the fish effectively, and I just made a ton of coral food with a homebrewed concoction (clams, oysters, shrimp, roti-feast, phyto-feast, reef frenzy powder, Selcon, aminos) and then froze it in tiny ice cube trays. Probably not the most effective use of some of it, but it was approaching its shelf life, and I figured freezing it would be better.

I think I'm going to try making one of these: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1788888. ckoral has a pretty cool pvc system he made.

 

[Psxerholic]

Welcome fellow Houstonian! Yeah, I have to figure something out with regard to cooling. I might just balance my home AC to keep this room a bit cooler in the summer. So far though, the open top has been much more effective in cooling than the BioCube.

Lol, didn't see that you are from the same city.
I do use my canopy for cooling the entire tank.
Basically the light fixture is on top of the tank and surrounded by the canopy boards (1front and 2sides) that is open on the top and back.
Due to the gap between the front board and the fixture it makes a ducting and the fans are installed on the back horizontal and blow over the surface. The tank is 48 inch and I have 4 low noise fans from radioshack controlled by the Reefkeeper lite within 0.1 degree. This is running since 4 years and I only had one failure on one fan in which the bearings quit. So that's quite reliable from what I read so far.
I can post a picture if you want of the canopy.
Also I started a build thread and have posted a 3d picture of the new tank. On this I will go with the same canopy design.

 

[IUfan]

Love the testing equipment box! Every reefer should have one, I'm sure it's a common problem, I also hate all the different little boxes laying around.

 

[ClownsRCoo]

That case is an awesome idea!