meschaefer's 225g inwall

[SVTour]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11029306#post11029306 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by meschaefer
What you don't like what i have done with the front?

Well, I think the drywall, wood, and pink styrofoam look has been played a little much...not that you didn't pull it off well though

BTW, I see you stated you have a Glass Cages 120 skimmer...where did you get that? I looked on there website and saw nothing (could be my blindness though).

EDIT: oh, dumba$$ me...I get it now. :lol:

 

[yoboyjdizz]

Rock islands look good. Can't wait to see what they look like in a few months with coral and color growth on them!

 

[meschaefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11029419#post11029419 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SVTour
Well, I think the drywall, wood, and pink styrofoam look has been played a little much...not that you didn't pull it off well though

BTW, I see you stated you have a Glass Cages 120 skimmer...where did you get that? I looked on there website and saw nothing (could be my blindness though).

EDIT: oh, dumba$$ me...I get it now. :lol:

At least you got it.

I think your right on the drywall, wood and pink styrofoam look, I pulled it off good, but need to move on.

 

[meschaefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11030147#post11030147 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yoboyjdizz
Rock islands look good. Can't wait to see what they look like in a few months with coral and color growth on them!

Neither can I. At least now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, as opposed to looking at an empty glass box.

 

[Felix1021]

nice rock work

 

[meschaefer]

After 48+ hours - the newest round of tests:

Ammonia: 2.0 (1.0 yesterday)
Nitrate: 0.0 (no change)

The water is pretty cloudy and has a yellow tint to it, although I didn't get my phosban reactor up and running, I did get my carbon reactor going. That should help with the yellow tint. My skimmer is going nuts too.

 

[SVTour]

The rock from your old tank...did it had a ton of dead stuff in it?

 

[meschaefer]

The rock from my old tank was "cooked, i.e. kept submerged in saltwater without light and a pump to provide circulation. That rock should be fully cured. Whatever ammonia I am seeing has to be from the Marco rock.

While the Marco rock, is absolutely fantastic, it does need to be cured and cycled. Others I know who have used Marco rock have had to go through the same process. If I had, had the time and the wherewithal I would have "cooked" the marco rock as well.

 

[meschaefer]

Another 24 hours, for a total of 72 hours and ...

Ammonia is at 2.0 (same as yesterday)
Nitrate is at .25 (.00 yesterday)


The carbon has really helped to pull out some of the yellow in the water and my skimmer has calmed down a bit. I had to open the air valves a little bit, but not allot and it is still pulling allot skimmate out of the tank. I still need to get that phosban reactor online.

 

[Bax]

Very nice work so far. Your planning is paying off.

It's too bad about the fire that started this project off, but in the end great that nothing more serious happened. And kudos to your wife for allowing another fire hazard in that house after the first incident!

 

[meschaefer]

I don't know to what extent anybody cares about my daily water tests during the cycle, but this is a good place for me to keep track of it.

After 96+ hours,

Ammonia about 1.5 (2.0 yesterday)
Nitrite .5 (.25 yesterday)
Phosphate .96 (.71 3 days ago)

The ammonia is coming down, while the nitrite is on its way up which tells my that the cycle is well on its way, which makes sense because half the rock was fully cured to begin with. It does appear that phosphates are increasing, and I don't know if that is leeching from the rock or due to the breakdown of organic matter. Either way I need to get my phosban reactor up and running. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[meschaefer]

I was kind of busy the last few days and didn't get much done until today, and even then what I got done was minor.

The first thing I did was to build durso standpipes. I would have had them done last week, but I was short one 1.5 inch T. I picked that up today and then it was just a matter of fine tuning them a bit.

I also needed to get my Phosban reactor up and running. I had two problems; I didn't have the right size hose to go from the plumbing manifold to the reactor, and I had no way to support the reactor in the sump. The hose was easy enough, took care of that at HD. I also picked up some misc. PVC fittings and made a rack to hod my phosban and carbon reactors. I am using PhoSar from Warner marine, and I am starting out with a 125g. I am not worried about starting out at full strength as I don't have any corals to bother. If the tank was established I would start out with a quarter that amount and slowly work up the dosage. I changed out my carbon as it seems to have exhausted itself (water is still yellow and has not cleared up anymore in the last few days).

Finally, I also removed a small amount of live rock from my display tank and put into the sump with the rest of my rock. The columns where two tall so I removed the top layer of rock. This gives me broad flat areas with plenty of room to mount corals to. The way it was before cut down on allot of usable space. Here is a before and after shot.

Water tests after one week since the introduction of the rock are as follows:

Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 5.0 (top limit of test)
Nitrate 100 (top limit of test)
Phosphate 1.07
Salinity 1.021

 

[jrcastro]

Nice looking setup so far.
I have some questions:
What is the pink layer of material under the tank?
& what is it used for? Leveling possibly?

 

[meschaefer]

The pink material is Styrofoam type insulation. It is not really used for leveling, but rather is there to prevent any pressure points on the bottom of the glass.

By example, if a piece of sand got under the tank when it was being installed, between the glass and the wood of the stand, it would create a significant amount of "point" pressure on the bottom of the tank which could lead to cracking. With the Styrofoam between the tank and the stand, that same grain of sand would be pushed into the Styrofoam alleviating the point pressure.

 

[jrcastro]

Ok i get it.
Do you have a plastic trim on the bottom of your tank?

 

[meschaefer]

There is a thin plastic trim that runs along the bottom edge.

 

[meschaefer]

I got just a little bit more done last night. After running 125g of PhoSar from Warner Marine for twenty four hours, my phosphate level dropped from 1.07 to .76.

Aside from doing the phosphate test, I added 150lbs of ESV coarse grade sand to the tank. I would love to have a picture for you, but even with rinsing it off the tank clouded completely over.

It was no better this morning, and it seems to have completely killed off my skimmer as it is pulling nothing out. The only mechanical filtration is some filter floss in my carbon reactor. If it is not much better when I get home, I will fill my carbon and phosphate reactors with filter floss and let them run for a few days.

 

[meschaefer]

Tank was still cloudy, so I pulled out both the carbon and the phosphate reactor and filled them with filter floss and increased the flow through them.

I also noticed that the amount of water coming out of my skimmer had slowed to a trickle, so I closed the ball valve where it is t'd off from the overflow and disconnected the skimmer. I cleaned out the hose running to the skimmer, there was a big chunk of crap in it that was slowing the flow to the skimmer.

I was impressed with my own planning as all this took me no more than 10 minutes. It is so nice not to have to work bent over with my head in a small cabinet, and to have all of the plumbing easily accessible. To do the same thing on my old 65g would have taken at least 1/2 hour if not much longer and I would have made a mess doing it.

 

[meschaefer]

I was away for a week or so, so not much has been done on the tank. At this point the tank has been cycling for three weeks, and it was almost done when I left for Las Vegas. I didn't test it today, but expect the levels should be fine.

I was at Pets Warehouse this morning and couldn't resist picking up two female Genicanthus Lamarck (Lamarck's Angel). I want to stock a number of angels from this group and this seemed like a good place to start.

As with many fish, in the absence of a male one should turn into a female whether I can get them to pair is another story. I will give the sales guy credit, he thought I might have trouble with the two in one tank fighting and wanted to know about my tank. I had done aloft of research into Genicanthus Angels, and have come across many good stories of people pairing them up, and not allot of negative ones. Hopefully this will work out for me, as I feel that I have done my homework on them.

Right now they are in quarantine (20 L), with allot of supervision in case it I do have troubles, at which point the quarantine will be divided.

The one to the upper right is much larger than the other, has been much more active than the smaller fish. I don't think this is due to aggression as I have kept a close eye on them. They will stay in quarantine for 1 -2 weeks.

 

[meschaefer]

This is a close up of the tail of the larger one, I really like the poka dot markings on the tails. This is the same picture as above but cropped and at full resolution, its hard to get a pic of this guy as he is really active.