Pictures of Bomber's barebottom SPS tank and related equipment
- Thread starter gregt
- Start date
keeperofthereef
New member
Great tank , great pic's (forget the critics) I run a bare bottom too and find i t runs so much cleaner no sand to trap detris and the bottom wil soon be covered with coraline. Big tanks are like Big blocks , 10- 20 thousand should get you under 9.0 seconds ! : )
melev
Well-known member
Bomber, I just noticed your location is the Florida Keys. How did your tank survive the four hurricanes last fall? I don't recall reading any threads or posts by you talking about needing a generator or having any problems.
Are you in contact with Martin Moe? I was told he lives in the Keys as well. Any news?
I bet your BB tank did better as you don't have to worry about oxygen consumption, plus you have a lighter fish load.
Are you in contact with Martin Moe? I was told he lives in the Keys as well. Any news?
I bet your BB tank did better as you don't have to worry about oxygen consumption, plus you have a lighter fish load.
The Yellow Longnose
New member
nice tank
curthendrix
New member
Great thread guys. Has anybody tried an urchin in an acrylic tank? Would the spines scratch the acrylic? If so, are there any options available, other than scraping, for coraline algae in acrylic bb tanks?
Bomber
10 & Over Club
melev said:Yep, it's all fake. I mean, we all know that Bomber really has a DSB in there or it wouldn't work. Greg just photoshops it out to make this great thread what it is today.
:lol:
You know that valve you put under your tank Marc. The one labled "do not touch". :smokin:
:lol:
Bomber
10 & Over Club
Bomber, I just noticed your location is the Florida Keys. How did your tank survive the four hurricanes last fall? I don't recall reading any threads or posts by you talking about needing a generator or having any problems.
We were unbelievably lucky. We are able to completely power without relying on the mainland though.
Are you in contact with Martin Moe? I was told he lives in the Keys as well. Any news?
They live two islands below us.
I bet your BB tank did better as you don't have to worry about oxygen consumption, plus you have a lighter fish load.
We have generators to back up our back up generators.
We were unbelievably lucky. We are able to completely power without relying on the mainland though.
Are you in contact with Martin Moe? I was told he lives in the Keys as well. Any news?
They live two islands below us.
I bet your BB tank did better as you don't have to worry about oxygen consumption, plus you have a lighter fish load.
We have generators to back up our back up generators.
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
Jerel,
I saw the thread on TRT where you and several others were discussing any potential flaws of a BB system. One of the things mentioned was intriguing to me. Middleton Mark stated he continued to have issues initally with nuisance algae until he changed his flow pattern to blow on the rocks as opposed to stir detritus up from the bottom of the tank and get it in the water column. Can you expand more on this? I'm curious how this flow directed at the rockwork will affect the corals.
Or am I thinking to hard about this?
Nick
I saw the thread on TRT where you and several others were discussing any potential flaws of a BB system. One of the things mentioned was intriguing to me. Middleton Mark stated he continued to have issues initally with nuisance algae until he changed his flow pattern to blow on the rocks as opposed to stir detritus up from the bottom of the tank and get it in the water column. Can you expand more on this? I'm curious how this flow directed at the rockwork will affect the corals.
Or am I thinking to hard about this?
Nick
Bomber
10 & Over Club
Hey Nick!
Mark didn't cook his rocks enough for one thing.
I know people are talking about flow and SPS and that might be partly our fault. We were all dwelling on the best way to get flow without repeating why we wanted it.
SPS don't really care that much about that much flow. It does no good to have a lot of flow and just keep moving detritus around. The flow needs to be there to get the detritus to the skimmer so it can take it out.
I have my sump rigged so the sump/tank loop is running on a Iwaki100.
The skimmer - on a Iwaki70 - picks up in the first compartment of the sump that the tank drains into. Then the skimmer dumps back into the second compartment of the sump.
If you can imagine, I have it dialed so almost all the water from the tank is picked up by the skimmer in the first compartment. Very little flows over the damn and into the second compartment of the sump.
Mark didn't cook his rocks enough for one thing.
I know people are talking about flow and SPS and that might be partly our fault. We were all dwelling on the best way to get flow without repeating why we wanted it.
SPS don't really care that much about that much flow. It does no good to have a lot of flow and just keep moving detritus around. The flow needs to be there to get the detritus to the skimmer so it can take it out.
I have my sump rigged so the sump/tank loop is running on a Iwaki100.
The skimmer - on a Iwaki70 - picks up in the first compartment of the sump that the tank drains into. Then the skimmer dumps back into the second compartment of the sump.
If you can imagine, I have it dialed so almost all the water from the tank is picked up by the skimmer in the first compartment. Very little flows over the damn and into the second compartment of the sump.
MiddletonMark
Premium Member
Bomber's right ... my rock wasn't cooked as part of my `removing substrate' process.
I have since taken some out to cook and put already cooked stuff in ... but that is probably now 1/3 [?] of the rock - and in late summer when I had the issues maybe 1/10 of the rock.
IMO, my rock shed `strongly' for 3 or 4 months. Bi weekly piles of substrate to siphon up - could have done it daily [and did for periods]. It blew me away. Months of crap, with a macro-algae boom [particulate detritus IMO on the rock] right near the end.
True to form, though ... as things got cleaner and cleaner the algae slowly lost color and withered away. It took more patience than I wanted, but yet even the red hair small spot I've had for a year is gone. I'd cook the rocks more next time ... but yet having gone thru the process without losing a coral, I'll take the slow process to get `here now'
.
And I was removing a 1/2" or less bed of 1-3mm + sand ... not a true DSB at all, not even close. I'm probably not the best example, given that.
I'd agree about the flow. There's a `mojo' to it for a 58g tank IMO ... it's a long way up to that overflow.
It's easy to focus on randomization, plumbing, or gph when -> `its how you use it' is the effective part to focus on.
I run less flow than I did at one time, and am happier with what the water is doing ... though I know I'm still at the excessive end of flow. I prefer the windblown look, I guess.
It's so hard to explain flow, and I don't feel like I have it down yet. Best way is to say that while I still have about the same amount collecting on the bottom [in the same two spots it always collects] .... but after my flow-scape-change only in one spot of my LR do I get significant amounts of detritus when I turkeybaste the LR. Everywhere else is clean, with minimal to no detritus there to disturb.
I'm assuming that stuff now makes it to the overflow, and is that particulate crud in the bottom of my skimmate container. I guess that's the best way to try to explain what's different with my flow - the rocks aren't collecting debris in any significant extent.
I have since taken some out to cook and put already cooked stuff in ... but that is probably now 1/3 [?] of the rock - and in late summer when I had the issues maybe 1/10 of the rock.
IMO, my rock shed `strongly' for 3 or 4 months. Bi weekly piles of substrate to siphon up - could have done it daily [and did for periods]. It blew me away. Months of crap, with a macro-algae boom [particulate detritus IMO on the rock] right near the end.
True to form, though ... as things got cleaner and cleaner the algae slowly lost color and withered away. It took more patience than I wanted, but yet even the red hair small spot I've had for a year is gone. I'd cook the rocks more next time ... but yet having gone thru the process without losing a coral, I'll take the slow process to get `here now'
.And I was removing a 1/2" or less bed of 1-3mm + sand ... not a true DSB at all, not even close. I'm probably not the best example, given that.
I'd agree about the flow. There's a `mojo' to it for a 58g tank IMO ... it's a long way up to that overflow.
It's easy to focus on randomization, plumbing, or gph when -> `its how you use it' is the effective part to focus on.
I run less flow than I did at one time, and am happier with what the water is doing ... though I know I'm still at the excessive end of flow. I prefer the windblown look, I guess.
It's so hard to explain flow, and I don't feel like I have it down yet. Best way is to say that while I still have about the same amount collecting on the bottom [in the same two spots it always collects] .... but after my flow-scape-change only in one spot of my LR do I get significant amounts of detritus when I turkeybaste the LR. Everywhere else is clean, with minimal to no detritus there to disturb.
I'm assuming that stuff now makes it to the overflow, and is that particulate crud in the bottom of my skimmate container. I guess that's the best way to try to explain what's different with my flow - the rocks aren't collecting debris in any significant extent.
melev
Well-known member
Very interesting. My own tank had high PO4 a couple of months ago, but I've been bringing it down without changing my feeding routine. I proactively did my best to remove as much detritus as I could from the sump and refugium. Each water change I create such a storm in there that brown 'chocolate milk' is pumped out of the sump and disposed of.
I turn off my sump at every feeding, so the food stays in the tank and doesn't feed the 'Overflow Aptasia' or the 'Sump dwellers'. The refugium still gets food because when the system is restarted something always ends up in the current and down to the sump. My overflows don't collect detritus at all. They are virtually clean, even though they are filled with 27" of water (Durso Standpipes).
This rock cooking thing has piqued my interest many times, but I've not made the time to read that thread yet. It definitely seems like a new trend has formed on RC about it. I doubt I could cook any of my own unless I had extra on hand that I could put in the tank in its place.
I turn off my sump at every feeding, so the food stays in the tank and doesn't feed the 'Overflow Aptasia' or the 'Sump dwellers'. The refugium still gets food because when the system is restarted something always ends up in the current and down to the sump. My overflows don't collect detritus at all. They are virtually clean, even though they are filled with 27" of water (Durso Standpipes).
This rock cooking thing has piqued my interest many times, but I've not made the time to read that thread yet. It definitely seems like a new trend has formed on RC about it. I doubt I could cook any of my own unless I had extra on hand that I could put in the tank in its place.
MiddletonMark
Premium Member
One more thing to add - it seemed like for me things didn't really start `cleaning up' until the remote 'fuge [w/ DSB, very smal] was removed.
Much of that 'fuge rock went to be cooked, seemed to me more `saturated' with sand than the main-tank stuff.
That's when I started having the macro-problems ... and when it started on the way to cleanup. While I was bare in main tank before that - not much really `changed' until the 'fuge was gone.
Much of that 'fuge rock went to be cooked, seemed to me more `saturated' with sand than the main-tank stuff.
That's when I started having the macro-problems ... and when it started on the way to cleanup. While I was bare in main tank before that - not much really `changed' until the 'fuge was gone.
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