Noobie starting 75gal mostly DIY

[zooqi]

You should be in good shape to have 2 250 MH. I would not use 2 175 as I have done before and jumped to 2 250 MH. I added an actinic bulb Ez ballast to the hood to start the tank in the morning with it and to have it on few hours before bed.

What bulbs are you going to use with those ballasts ?

 

[Tampico]

No clue on what bulbs I am going to use. Need to hit ThatfishPlace and see bulbs. I see the different k values and dont have a clue what I will like, 10 12 14k. Will have to see them in action to really decide.

Any opinions on the plumbing ?

 

[Reef_Dweller_69]

Here ya go buddy a link for the reflector and mogul socket

http://www.hellolights.com/methalparref.html

I think 10k MH bulbs will be good if you plan on using actinic vho's with them (best growth from what I read and hear), if you don't go that way next best that will give you some growth as well are the 14k's. They have a more crisp mix of white and blue specturm

 

[Tampico]

Thought I would drop in and show the next bit of DIY. Its just the MH Light bar. Working on a Rittal enclosure for the balasts now. and also another light bar similar to the MH one for 2 VHO bulbs. Need to get you all photos of the cabinet now that it is stained and painted. Still not sure what to do with the plumbing. Moved that to a backburner while I think it out. But here are 2 photos of the light bar.

2 250watt Ushio 10k

 

[rickyfins]

I am still willing to chat plumbing when you have time!

thanks,

Rick

 

[zooqi]

Nice idea and how did you mount the side piece short to the two long pieces ? Do they make a piece to mount them like that.

 

[Stephany]

Gary M's tank has a pipe bringing his bottom hole of his tank, to the top of his water. And he built his rocks up around that. It's kinda neat, but you'd have to mess with the rocks to hide it.
Instead of a bulkhead, I would recommend to cut a larger (circle or square) piece of acrylic, and coat it with weldon. That way the pressure of the water being in it, will push it against the bottom of the tank for the seal. I've heard stuff about bulkheads leaking on occassion. That's how a lot of the people with plywood tanks keep their glass sealed in the front window.

Also, why not keep both overflows separate? That way if one gets clogged, it won't affect the other. Just run two separate lines down instead of bottlenecking them together. Great safety feature.

 

[MOX]

looking good keep us posted

 

[Tampico]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6907105#post6907105 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rickyfins
I am still willing to chat plumbing when you have time!

thanks,

Rick

Thanks Rick, I have spent far too much time @ work the past 2 weeks and they have messengers block on the work network. Hope to find some time next week in the evenings. That is the next real big issue. Just picked up some crushed oyster shells and want to start making some rock this weekend. Think my first batch will just be agro, cement and oyster shells. May get daring on the second batch and add cheetos or macaroni. Will see. I have to just pay for Photobucket, cant get enough photos on there and still need to post picks of the Brute trash containers with shower drains in the bottom to soak my DIY rock in for 4-6weeks.

 

[rickyfins]

Cool! Sounds good to me, and I am glad to see everything is going well.

rick

ps talk to you next week

 

[fishesRdelicious]

mo might have some pictures but what he does with diy rock is take old peices of bread and put it in the concrete. it makes lots of holes and makes it look more natural. then all you have to do is wait for the bread to dissolve away and you have some sweet rock.

 

[Tampico]

Zooqi Bosch Extruded has a ton of hardware. (For small projects, its insanely expensive. But we use alot of it @ work. Here is a product link. Really cool stuff

http://www.airlinehyd.com/Pneumatics/Bosch/bosch.asp


Stephany -- All of the plumbing is just dry fit. I put the plumbing together just to see it. (I'm really hands on, and wanted to try a few things that I could not visualize on paper.) Its almost like playing with legos. The plumbing is the big issue still to do. Just bought a new pump with 600g/h @ 0 head so it may be better for the sump and work the 1200g/h into a closed loop. Also just got The Ushio bulbs, ballasts, A TDS meter and a digi PH meter.

Things to buy yet.

A skimmer ( need to replace the high quality SC100 my friend gave me )
Test kits
Seed live rock

I still may make my May 12th goal.

 

[Tampico]

Sorry for the long delay since my last posting. I was so excited about this project. I love DIY. This project was so much of that and I really enjoyed it. I had a target date of middle of May for a finish, because my wife was going to buy me some Live rock for my birthday. I guess I have always been hard to buy anything for. I never really need anything. Well the rock is not what I ended up getting for my birthday, it was a divorce instead. So the whole thing was put on hold and put into storage. Tank had alot of progression after these posts, but I have been in a "mood" the past few months.

A friend asked the other day what my status on the tank was. (he works at a LFS) I told him that I needed a skimmer yet and some Live rock to seed my Concrete rock. (have about 140lbs of it made, how much of it will be used I have no idea, just made alot and will fill in with the live as the aquascaping allows. I also just quit smoking so I now have alittle extra money to waste on another habit. SW is less likely to kill me I think. I was given a Red Sea Berlin XL (150-400gal rating) with the turbo venturi pump. Anybody have any opinions on this skimmer, or if there is any mods to be suggested, maybe a DIY needlewheel?

 

[fishesRdelicious]

its definately not the best skimmer, but you can try it and see how it works.
so how far are you along now, what peices of equipment do you still need?

 

[Tampico]

I think I have gotten most of the items covered up to this point. I have all my pumps, a 55gal sump/fuge built. The skimmer has been an issue, but I think it is improving. I'm hoping that something better will come around. But I think that the skimmers are improving, first I had the Seaclone, now the berlin. Still not going to buy one yet, something better will show up I'm sure. I have the 2 MH 250w 10,000k I also have a 4 bulb compact flor. with moon lights that I am going to suppliment the 10ks with. Lots of DIY rock made, so I'm gonna need 20-30 pounds of real LR when actual setup time comes, maybe more. I will also need a bit of ssand at setup time to spike my southdown sand. Just got a 24gal aquapod that I plan to use as a QT. Also have a 1/4 chiller, but hope to not need it. I have patience. Maybe too much. Will see when I finally get all the bits. Sad part is I have not even set up the tank and I really would rather have more depth. The stand was built with that in mind.