my 20 gallon high diy project

[danoreef]

thank you Lpabsolute
next up...water testing and the lighting. I broke down my 75 gallon cichlid tank today and posted a sign at work to try and sell it, and the wet/dry filter we'll see if it sells. LFS says hell buy it, but for a very small amount. I might work a trade with him. its weird not having any tank up an running. I'll post some pics after I order and build the lights.

 

[danoreef]

bad news. During water testing I had a leak. Then I cracked the glass. it was the DIY bulkheads that were the culprit.

 

[gregbot9000]

how did you do the bulkheads, did it crack the whole tank.?

 

[danoreef]

the bulkheads I use were 3/4 inch pvc male to female adapter. really not enough surface space to snuggly tighten the gasket down. real bulk heads are worth the price... IMO.

 

[hammer294]

hey danoreef....progress is looking real good. the diy rock looks great. just a thought for you, but look into the light that melevsreef uses for the refuge. I just changed to that light and it is working great....cheap too.

I will be following along as i have a 20H as well. Been up and running for a few months. Check it out if you would like at my homepage.

keep the updates coming

 

[danoreef]

thanks Chris...


Heres what happened to the tank...

the crack :sad2: . Then I ordered the Aquapod 24 with the 150watt MH... My DIY project is no more :sad2: :sad2: .
I painted the wood stand I made black. here is a picture of that

and here is the ap 24

 

[hammer294]

atleat everything didnt go to waste on the diy project. stand looks great. whats your next move for the tank?

 

[danoreef]

the brand new ro/di has a broken fitting so I will wait to get it fixed before adding the water and salt. the pics are of fresh water doing a leak, flow and temp test. then its onto the live sand and waiting until the water that the DIY rock is in to get to the correct PH. then start the cycle. I think I will cycle with 1 shrimp from the grocery store fresh fish department what do you think. Also looking into options on how to set up the rear of the aquapod. I removed all of the filter material and I have nothing in the rear chambers except the return pump. I was thinking that I might need to add some floss to catch some debris. I am still doing research on how others did the filter modifications on their aquapods.

 

[hammer294]

i would think about not doing the shrimp bit to try and jump start the cycle. I would just get either a piece of live rock or a small amount of live sand to get the cycle going. But, see what others say as well.

 

[danoreef]

I am going to use live sand as the substrate. as far as the live rock I am only going to use the rock That I made. but you think that the live sand will be enough to cycle?

 

[danoreef]

I believe I have found the solution to my filter situation for my ap 24 here it is; I cut some egg crate to fit inside of the chamber. then I cut a couple of ledger strips out of plexi glass and siliconed them in to support the egg crate shelf. now I can rest a piece of filter floss on top and add a refugium down below. here are some pics.

 

[hammer294]

i would think that along with the live sand, it can only help to have a small piece of good live rock to seed the tank as well. BUt i am not an expert by any means, and live sand alone could be all you may need. Maybe throw a post up in a different section of the forum for a better response?

 

[KYyada]

Great looking setup. I bent acrylic by using one of those butane hand held torch / soldering gun kits. I clamped one side in between two by fours and the other side on a bench and heated it slowly moving the torch rapidly over the acrylic. The weight of the wood will bend it for you when the temp is right just be sure of where to clamp it so your bend will be in the right spot. If it gets to hot it will bubble and look bad, also remember acrylic is highly flamable!!! I had a glass company drill my tank and he even had the bulkhead installed when I picked it up. Money well spent. My first attempt at my reef failed due to DIY rocks. I let them cure 7 1/2 weeks changing water three times a week and they still were uncured in the middle! My ph was OK but my calcium levels were through the roof, uncured rock is the only thing I could think of causing it. I made mine extra large. I also used oyster shells and my phosphates were out of control. I dumped them in the creek..maybe they are cured now? Maybe this summer I will try them again without the oyster shells on the new 40 gallon breeder tank I just bought.

 

[danoreef]

thanks Chris. I was reading on one of RC's articles that they suggest live sand 1-2 small pieces of LR and 1-2 pieces of cocktail shrimp. I will still put some feelers out there in another forum and see what the consensus is on cycling.

thank you KYyada the DIY rock is a concern of mine too, since Iv'e never done them before . I was only checking PH, Now I will also check calcium and phosphate. posting on RC is great for this reason other people tell you where things went wrong for them so you can learn from there mistakes. I will let the rock cure and make sure all parameters a spot on before adding them to my tank. as far as drilling and real bulkheads go, If I were to do it again I had no problem drilling the holes so I would do that myself, however I would not use DIY bulkheads made from PVC parts I would buy real bulkheads for approx. $10.00 ea.

 

[danoreef]

Here are some updates:
I didn't like the small amount of flow from the stock aquapod water pump so I used a Rio 1400 (about 365 gph) in its place. it slid right into the rear chamber where the stock pump was. I still didn't think that was enough water flow so I put the stock water pump back. but I put it in the display part of the tank, however during the water test runs the pump kept losing its suction and falling off the side glass, I hate when that happens when the tank is all set up. So I modified the back plastic wall of the tank so that I can put the pump in the rear chamber with the Rio and not worry about it falling off the glass. now water flow is approx. 365 + 295 = 660 gph almost 30 times the size of the tank.

I added 1 20lb bag of arag-alive Fiji pink live sand to the tank the ammonia had a very small rise so I added a piece of raw shrimp to kick start the cycle check out some of the pics.

heres the mods I made to the rear wall

the sand bed and the shrimp

 

[KYyada]

It would have been nice I would think to have your DIY rock in there so it could be colonized by bacteria. You live close to the ocean I would find a nice quiet clean place to put your rock to let the ocean cure it! Hang it in a bucket under a pier somewhere.... You can get dry reef rock real cheap. I put 14 lbs in when I cycled my tank. I now have 6 1/2 pounds cured fiji and 2 1/2 pounds semi cured carribean and going through a second cycle. I am going to get 8-10 pounds more mixed cured tommorow so when It is cycles I will be done. The carribean is really cool! All kinds of critters crawling around alot of things in the worm familys / feather dusters ect... haven't seen anything bad yet, knock on wood. I have a mag 5 with a SQWD water switch and use two loclines out the back top corners it works great for my 20 High.

 

[KYyada]

That looks like a big piece of meat! I would cut that down some. Your bacteria will balance out against the load / nutrients available so if you don't have anything in there the numbers will drop again. With that much you will end up with a ton of nitrate in the end. Most people that post, if you notice, has like 55 gallon tanks and up....some much larger so two shrimp would be ok for them. I would have put one half of a coctail shrimp in. But who am I? HAHAHA I used one cap of special blend a mix of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and the end result was 5ppm nitrate. Which oddly enough is where it is now in the second cycle.

 

[danoreef]

KYyada I was thinking the same thin about the rock but I was not sure if I should have waited to cycle when the rock was fully cured. what I finally decided was that as long as I get the tank cycled then start adding a clean up crew then 1 to 2 fish then the ammonia - nitrite - nitrate thing will always be happening. So I belive that the rock should still get "live" even if I add well after the cycle. I think. :twitch:.
That is half a piece of shrimp I put the whole piece in at first I thought it was to big and cut it in half. I will keep an eye on the ammonia.

 

[danoreef]

here is how with cycle is going so far with the shrimp;

before the shrimp on 2/1/07. added shrimp after this round of tests on 2/1/07
ammonia=0
PH=8.2
nitrite=0
nitrate=0

After shrimp was added on 2/2/07
Ammonia=.5
PH=8.0
nitrite=0
nitrate=0

2/3/07
ammonia=1.0
Ph
nitrite=0
nitrate=0

2/5/07
ammonia=2.0
ph=7.8
nitrite=.5
nitrate=0

 

[danoreef]

I did not like not having a sump with my new aquapod 24 gallon, and I wasn't a big fan of the modifications that I made. I felt that I just needed a sump so I got busy yesterday and heres what I did...
I removed the false back wall and added an overflow and a sump/refugium.

in this pic you can see the overflow and return