Mike's 300 Double-D
- Thread starter prop-frags
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prop-frags
SPS Slave
Thanks Dan. We always enjoy hosting the RRC events!
Rich - Appreciate the kind words. We really like the planning aspects as well as the execution. There's just something about putting a good plan together and then seeing it come to life...literally! This hobby can be very tedious at times, but it is just so addicting - brings out the artist in all of us :artist:
Alex, you made our day! That's quite a complement... you are such an active member here and such a dedicated reefer. I was sick to my stomach to read about your air freight issues, but will be sub'd to your new build!! Great to have you along on ours.
Yes, we put some careful attention to ensuring I had "proper" rise-over-run for the drain lines (1/4" rise per linear foot is the best rule of thumb we could find in our research), but in hindsight there is so much flow going down through there, we're not sure that it matters much to be honest.
We agree John! We like the look of it, and it resists blowing around which is very important for this build since we have so much flow going on in there.
Thank you very much Boegie for the nice words! It's great to have you along and hope that it helps other even a little bit. We have gotten so many good ideas and good advice here that putting the effort in to our build thread seems like the right thing to do...give back a bit, you know?
patrick1234
New member
OK, We've been just incredibly busy but thought we drop a few quick updates in so you guys can see how things are unfolding.
Once we started kicking back and watching the tank, we became increasingly dissatisfied with the aquascaping on the left side. The right side had turned out so well, that it "raised the bar". So we burned a couple of weekends between chores and errands just trying to improve it some. Finally, Terry said "you know that the whole thing has to come out." Groan. Yes, she was right.
So, we pulled out the left side and went to work on rebuilding the left "tree". The design principles haven't changed - we still wanted interesting textures and the bonsai tree look with multiple levels. We ordered a couple more pieces of live rock, and shopped all the LFS's. Problem was, we just couldn't find the pieces that we needed. Thus came the research on what method to use to fabricate the branches that have that look we wanted.
We landed on hydraulic cement. We ran several tests for construction techniques, for strength, and changes to the water (pH, etc.). This took an awfully long time. On top of that, I needed to go out of town on business. While I was away, Terry took all that we had learned through our experimentation and built this:
This pic doesn't do justice to all the work that went into this. Most of these pieces had to be fabricated using fiberglass rods, epoxy, hydraulic cement, etc. Needless to say, I was very happy to come home and have this ready to go. So we've been busy over the past two weekends getting the aquascaping finished and the corals placed. Here's a look at where we stand so far:
Left side:
Right side:
FTS:
We have a lot more to post about in terms of other things we've done....
Just have to find the time to take pics and document our work.
What are the 2 fish with orange spots on them? Love the look of the tank
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Correct, and thank you NexDog.
It has been a while since an update; we've been very busy around here as summer approaches in Virginia. This week has been in the 90's and muggy.
First up of interest is the closed loop pump. Our 2nd Reeflo Dart was getting noisy and had a lot of that brownish salt creep around the seal. We figured it was time to pull it out and repair or replace it. We recently helped someone set up their tank and they purchased a new Dart. The pump was obviously a newer style, much larger motor, bigger fan, ran more quietly and cooler. We decided to go ahead an order one. Our timing was excellent; a couple of weeks ago, the Ocean Motions 4-way locked up (predictable since we just added sand to the tank). So we took the old Dart out, cleaned the OM4, and put the new Dart in:
We're very pleased with this new pump! It runs quieter and way cooler than the old Dart we had. Highly recommended.
Another issue that cropped up was a fairly wicked outbreak of cyano:
To deal with this, we've cut back on feeding a bit, turned back the photo period, turned off the UV/O3, and have been vacuuming the evil bacteria. It is getting better, but still will be a while before we've knocked it out. I think it is a matter of reaching critical mass on the beneficial bacteria populations in the system. We have been reading a lot of threads on bacteria and cyano - any recommendations out there?
Figured we would show some pictures of the livestock which is finally starting to color up a little after months of suffering out in the garage.
Blueberry Monti:
Granulosa:
One of the many Stylos:
A pretty monti (danae maybe?)
undata and purple haze (bad pic sorry)
One of the new acro's we purchased had an evil inhabitant:
who managed to do some damage before we got him out. Bear in mind this crab lived through the 20 min revive dip!
OUCH!
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REEFROOKEE
New member
doesn't that through a damper in things! wicked tank dude!
following!
following!
Hey Mike-
I have been M.I.A.....been under the weather a bit -so I had a LOT of reading to do on your thread here. Looks Great!!!!
In your las post - you mentioned your OM-4 locked up after adding sand. Don't know if it will help - but I had the same thing, talked with Paul at OM, and he has a newer design on the drums than the ones I was using. It is built to a lower tolerance, so ther is less opportunity of binding on the extreme fines that can get kicked up occasionally. You might want to give him a ring and ask about those...He *does* have the finest product support of any manfacturer I have ever dealt with!
T
I have been M.I.A.....been under the weather a bit -so I had a LOT of reading to do on your thread here. Looks Great!!!!
In your las post - you mentioned your OM-4 locked up after adding sand. Don't know if it will help - but I had the same thing, talked with Paul at OM, and he has a newer design on the drums than the ones I was using. It is built to a lower tolerance, so ther is less opportunity of binding on the extreme fines that can get kicked up occasionally. You might want to give him a ring and ask about those...He *does* have the finest product support of any manfacturer I have ever dealt with!
T
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Gotta be vigilant. Those things can do some real damage. Found another one last night on a 4am patrol...
Thanks RR. We don't sweat the small stuff...there's way too many other things to worry about in this hobby
Great to have you along!
Thanks T! Good to see ya checkin' back in...and glad to hear you're above the weather now
I'll check with Paul on the new drum...as I said, this was fairly predictable getting some sand in there with setting up the system new and all, we had pretty much just assumed it would need some maintenance early on after we had gotten the initial 'scaping and sand done. It worked just like you'd hope. The sand got in there and bound up the drum, but the mag drive just allowed the motor to "clutch" rather than burn out the motor.
Some more livestock pics since we know how you guys love pics!
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It's a Borbonius Anthias. Super cool fish.
Things are looking great. It looks like I'm going to be going the DD route sooner than expected and was wondering if I could get a shot of the overflow design. Particularly what you did to the front teeth and what the inside looks like with the two drains and the return. Trying to get an idea how tall to make the overflows etc.
Thanks
Thanks
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Good to see you again, Boegie! We've been really busy, but will try to keep up with the updates a bit better...How's your build going?
Thanks for the kind words, Mike. Good to see ya dropping by. The overflows are modded on the inside with the drilling of a hole for an extra 1" drain line b/h:
We have not yet modified the teeth of the overflow itself, as several have done, for example: Jeff's Overflow Mod
But, with the addition of the new return pump, we've found that the 200PS is now hitting up against the max that the stock weirs will let across them, so it is a very real limitation. So modding the weirs is now back on the list of things to do. We are actually going to try to put some kind of easily removable clamp-on weir that can snap on and off for easy cleaning. Has anyone out there done this yet? I know some of the Deltec tanks have this feature on their overflows.
Another change we recently made was the orientation of the mogul sockets in our LME's. Remember how we installed them originally:
Well, that wasn't cutting it. The light spread was not getting anywhere near decent coverage front-to-back. So we flipped the sockets around and the orientation of the LMEs:
This is providing better coverage, but we may still want to try a different reflector for better coverage... that will have to come later once our savings account bounces back a little
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Thanks for the update and glad the lights are working better for you now. It's funny how little things that shouldn't really matter sometimes do.
Appreciate the overflow pics but do you have any of the inside of the overflow or does it look pretty much just like the one in the link? What I was looking for was how they were plumbed inside. ie how tall are the two overflows and what kind of grates you may have on them if any. I'll be using the Blue Line 150 for my return pump (pump will be in the cabinet) and as it stands now the plan will be to remove every other tooth to open up a little more flow through the weir. If that isn't enough I'll probably go the same route as in the link.
BTW I should have the cabinets in by the weekend. They're very close to yours, only difference is that they will be stained with a wood top and the center section will be 40" deep and 2" taller than the sides. As soon as they're in my build thread will kick into high gear.
Appreciate the overflow pics but do you have any of the inside of the overflow or does it look pretty much just like the one in the link? What I was looking for was how they were plumbed inside. ie how tall are the two overflows and what kind of grates you may have on them if any. I'll be using the Blue Line 150 for my return pump (pump will be in the cabinet) and as it stands now the plan will be to remove every other tooth to open up a little more flow through the weir. If that isn't enough I'll probably go the same route as in the link.
BTW I should have the cabinets in by the weekend. They're very close to yours, only difference is that they will be stained with a wood top and the center section will be 40" deep and 2" taller than the sides. As soon as they're in my build thread will kick into high gear.
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Sure thing, Mike.
Here's a side shot of the right overflow:
you can see inside is the stock durso drain pipe (1.5") nearest the outside, the herbie drain pipe (1") in the middle, and the return line pipe (1") near the inside.
The approximate height of the pipes is:
Durso = 24" includes elbow
Herbie = 16"
Return = 26" includes elbow
There are currently no grates on the durso pipes, but you can see from the pic that we run the water level below the durso drains. The herbies have the tall strainers on them. Yes, it is a good idea to go ahead and cut the stock weirs to allow more flow across them. We really like Jeff's mod with dremeling out every two teeth and putting gutter guard behind it.
Looking forward to seeing pics of your build!! Rick is an awesome craftsman. You're gonna love your stand & cabinets.
Here's a side shot of the right overflow:
you can see inside is the stock durso drain pipe (1.5") nearest the outside, the herbie drain pipe (1") in the middle, and the return line pipe (1") near the inside.
The approximate height of the pipes is:
Durso = 24" includes elbow
Herbie = 16"
Return = 26" includes elbow
There are currently no grates on the durso pipes, but you can see from the pic that we run the water level below the durso drains. The herbies have the tall strainers on them. Yes, it is a good idea to go ahead and cut the stock weirs to allow more flow across them. We really like Jeff's mod with dremeling out every two teeth and putting gutter guard behind it.
Looking forward to seeing pics of your build!! Rick is an awesome craftsman. You're gonna love your stand & cabinets.
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prop-frags
SPS Slave
Yep, no problem.
Don't forget to drill a small siphon-break hole in the return pipe around the mid-height of herbie filter...
Don't forget to drill a small siphon-break hole in the return pipe around the mid-height of herbie filter...
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