My rendition of 300

[Sisterlimonpot]

I see you've been busy while I was away winning another Baja race. 4
Things are looking good. Glad you got the holes drilled with no issues.
I like the islands and how you constructed them. I had always wanted to build mine like that but never did. How far to the top of the water is the "bonsai" ?

Once I get word on the race, I'll text you info.

Yep, it's turning out to be my white whale. The bonsai slopes towards the front of the tank, at the tip it's roughly 4" off the surfaces, the lower portion is about 8 inches.

I've been evaping roughly 3 gallons a day, and I don't want to continue adding water so the ATO system has turned into the top priority. I've bee making progress on the lights and I will share it with you guys once it's complete. In the meantime, I had to build a stand for the barrels so that I could drill the bottom of them and place some bulkheads, There's not much to the stand cut out 8 pieces at 22.5 degree angles then nailed and glued them onto a 1/2" piece of plywood

Trimmed the edges

Routed around the middle to make room for the plumbing

Painted them, set them in place and started plumbing

I'm using one of my jebao pumps to transfer and recirculate water, this will be the first time using one of these pumps outside of the water, let's hope for no leaks.

I'm stopping here for the day, going to let the glue dry and test it out tomorrow.

Knowing how much I'm evaping will help me deterine the size of the ATO container that I'm going to build. I want it to hold at least 3 days of water and no more than 5.. this will help if there's a problem and the ATO get's stuck on, it won't dump 55 gallons of fresh into the tank. Which means, I will probably go with a 12 gallon container.

Some good news to report, I walked into the equipment room this afternoon and the exhaust fan was running based on the humidity level. I have the sensor adjusted to come on at 20%, which is the lowest I can go with it... 20% still feels a bit muggy, I need to get a humidity meter for the room to see what it actually is. I also need to set up the AC to maintain a constant temp in there which will help with humidity, yet another thing that needs attention.. hehe.

Thanks for following along, more to come soon.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Finally finished the ATO system today, over the last week I've slowed down with other priorities popping up, but I managed to make my own magnet holder for the high low float switches. Here's a photo dump of what I've accomplished.

Cut layers out on the laser and then had to machine some surfaces for the thickness of the magnets.

These are to redirect the magnetic field so that it doesn't interfere with the reed switch in the float switches

Used some neodymium magnets to couple to 2 halves together. (when did these things get soo expensive??

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Layered them all together and sealed them from salt water

Here'sthe 2 magnetic halves holding together in between 3/8" acrylic

Then I cut out a piece for the float switches and float valve

Float switches attached... those magnets could hold a lot more weight if needed

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Then I made the ATO container

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

So far so good...

 

[SawCJack00]

Nice work Jimmy!

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Having been out of the hobby for a while, I was not sure of what the siporax was, so I looked it up.

So it's just a medium to grow bacteria. Is there a special reason you are using it? Not going to overload the tank with LR? Something I don't know about?

Please educate this old man.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Having been out of the hobby for a while, I was not sure of what the siporax was, so I looked it up.

So it's just a medium to grow bacteria. Is there a special reason you are using it? Not going to overload the tank with LR? Something I don't know about?

Please educate this old man.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, the surface area in these little sintered glass cylinders is vast, it can host more bacteria than any porous rock out there. The 580 grams (1.28lbs) of siporax that I have in my sump will replace the need of over 100 lbs of live rock. This means that I'm no longer forced to stuff 300lbs of rock in my tank to achieve the necessary nitrification process. That free's up more space for fish to swim and allows for a minimalistic aquascape.

Another great benefit is that due to the way these are formed into cylinders they are easy to shake off and remove any detritus that may accumulate on their surface, which is why you will hear clams that they also aid in denitrification as well as lower phosphate levels.

I've only recently learned about these guys and liked what I read to the point that I had to incorporate them into this system. I do know that they can do too good of a job and strip away all of the tanks nitrates and phosphates starving out other nutrient exports like macro algae and such. That's why I'm being conservative with what I start off with and possibly add more in the future, although my hope is to strike a natural balance between chaeto and siporax to maintain a healthy nitrate level in the range of 3-5 ppm. It may take a little work at the beginning to get there but I hope as the tank matures it occurs naturally.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Got it. So just another take on the old wet dry filter system of years ago. just you keep the media wet/sumberged all the time.

I just used to put a lot of extra rock in my sump. had all kinds of life growing in there.

But as you aid, this will be easier to clean out when needed.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Got it. So just another take on the old wet dry filter system of years ago. just you keep the media wet/sumberged all the time.

I just used to put a lot of extra rock in my sump. had all kinds of life growing in there.

But as you aid, this will be easier to clean out when needed.

The biggest difference between the wet dry and rock rubble is the ease of detritus removal.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I'm still working on finishing up the ATO system and the light rack, but in the mean time I had to deal with some cord management of the Ecotech pumps...

Simply unacceptable!!!

Got this today and went to work installing it

2 screws and channel the wires and DONE!

More to come!!!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Little things are starting to come together, buttoning up cords and hoses. I was also able to get the macro algae light on line...

Tucked up underneath the stand

I can't quite put my finger on it, something about it reminds me of Amsterdam

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

So you admit to being in THAT section of town? :celeb3: :hmm4: :beer:

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

So you admit to being in THAT section of town? :celeb3: :hmm4: :beer:

...when in Rome. If hey didn't want me to go there, why would they station me so close? You have to experience what the world has to offer.

Wait, how do you know it's just a "section of town"?

 

[SawCJack00]

I got some new Chaeto Jimmy. Hopefully it will do better this time, and I'll have some for you in a week or two.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Awesome, thanks Bill, I haven't seen any ammonia spike, perhaps the seeded siporax you loaned me has taken care of it. I'll give it another week or 2 to be sure. I should probably start testing for N and P.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

The innovative designs of ecotech are never ending. This is my version of the Tesla Powerwall.

 

[SawCJack00]

The Ecotech powerwall!

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Glad you're making progress.
All I will admit is that I have never been to THAT country. But I have been to a lot of others.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I finally got the ATO completely automated not much to document there, except that I added an extra step to the process and I hope it doesn't prove to be an issue down the road. Traditionally a RODI feeds a storage container and the ATO pulls from that storage container for top off. My storage container is 55g and if for some reason the ATO decides to not turn off it would dilute the tank with 55g. I added an extra container in the mix, in the event it would to only dump 10g. There's so many fail safes before something like that would happen but that helps me sleep better at night.

The 10g is fed by the 55 four times a week, monday will be the 1 week mark of it being automated, and so far things are going smooth. Down the road I may have to add a 5th time.