Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

Not much to update. Just been waiting for the tank to settle down after the, prazipro, melafix/pimafix, and ich attack dosing with cyano bloom. Haven't had any cyano since I did the three day lights out and blew everything off. The skimmer is starting to get back to normal which is a good sign things are settling down because those meds really made it go crazy. I'd say I'll give it one more month and I'll start adding some more stuff.

The pod population is still going nuts so still plenty of food for the mandarins which are still plump and healthy. Still have some aptasia in the hob refug which I'll probably pull another rock out to put in my DT and give the peppermints another treat one of these days. Those 4 peppermints were the best things I've gotten for my clean up crew yet. The turf algae is still there and did grow a little more but looks like it's peaked and starting to fall apart. When I blow off the rock with a baster it's starting to falling apart.

One interesting note is I got some neat filament type algae growing on my output from the refugium into the DT like I wanted and I can harvest a little bit of it every week and it'll grow right back. On the other hand my chaeto has withered away while my red gracilarias(sp?) is looking better and fuller then ever. So, don't know how that's possible since chaeto is supposed to be tougher and gracilarias is suppose to be harder to keep. Either way I got some good algae growth despite the chaeto going away.

 

[Poeticlydead]

Jason how is everything going now?

To everyone that keeps tabs on this thread including the lurkers I hope you had a Merry Christmas and/or a happy holiday season.

bump for a great thread

 

[jason2459]

Jason how is everything going now?

To everyone that keeps tabs on this thread including the lurkers I hope you had a Merry Christmas and/or a happy holiday season.

bump for a great thread

Thanks for the well wishes and for following along. I should be getting some more updates in here in the near future as I'll start adding some more corals and maybe some fish.

Had a super busy week last week with lots of traveling. Some good and some bad. Visited my wifes family and mine (which was a last minute thing.) My grandfather that I mentioned previously that was in WWII and has been having health issues passed away on the 17th. We were hoping he had 6months to a year left but a tumor they found under his diaphragm was growing faster then expected. I got a plane ticket to get down there as soon as I could to see him one more time but was a day late. They though he might have three weeks left but ended up with just a day. It really is for the better as he has been miserable and not happy at all for a good part of the past two years and really wanted to go quickly.

He was more like my best friend then a grandfather and he was the type that never wanted to grow up. He had fun his entire life up to just recently and was always very active with dancing (ball room/square/etc.), diving, snorkeling, lobstering, sailing, windsurfing, camping, rv'ing, traveling etc. you name it. If it was fun he wanted to do it. He always told me to find something to do that I enjoyed and not get stuck in a job even if it paid less. He was a creator and fixer which he did as a living as an engineer in which he got scores and scores of patents, primarily with medical devices like heart valves and stints. Outside of work he was the same, a real life MacGyver. He could fix anything.

It was nice to see a lot of family though but it is nice to be back home. Brandon our son just got sick today with a 102 fever so hopefully that passes quickly. The last place we were at my wife's niece and nephew ended up getting sick the last day we were there and it looks like Brandon got what ever they had.

Well, enough of that. I look forward to taking some more pictures of the tank as soon as I get a new camera. With a bunch of best buy gift cards I'm looking at getting a Digital SLR. So, more to come.

 

[jason2459]

Can't wait to get this thing going again. I'm going to be going away for a week coming up at the beginning of February to go visit my Grandma and parents. After I get back I plan on getting some new additions for the tank.

The turf algae the past month and a half has been slowly receding back a little. The floating pieces of algae have been causing some maintenance issues with my skimmers mesh wheel. I've had to clean it out three times now in a month and a half. Not really liking mesh wheels right about now.

My YWG has started to protect his caves and holes that the pistol shrimp is still digging away at. If any fish comes close the YWG charges at them and head butts them. Funny to watch because he's such a small sliver of a fish and the other fish just keep swimming around like nothing but a nat hit them.

Getting the nice DSLR will have to wait for a little bit. I have to save up some money to cover the cost that the gift cards to hit. Mainly because when we were in Best Buy last weekend looking at them we ended up buying a waterproof point-n-shoot. Mainly because our old point-n-shoot is getting pretty banged up and also we have Brandon in swim classes. Also, I got my wife a small fill up pool for her birthday last year and it will be fun playing with Brandon in it as well. So, the water proof camera will be great to take with us into the water and get pictures of him.

So, it'll be a few more months before I get the nice DSLR. Definitely want it before summer is over with because the wife got me a telescope for Christmas and I really want to get some nice astrophotography shots with the DSLR along with some decent tank shots of course.

 

[jason2459]

Few updates. Got done with taxes and had a much bigger return then I expected and I decided to get a skimmer that I've been following and very interested in. It'll be the biggest and beefiest skimmer I've had yet. I really like the eshopps psk-100h I have now except for the mesh wheel on it I'm not to happy with. I'm constantly cleaning it out now. I think I'll keep it and hook it right off the hob refugium and just run ozone through it. I'll probably modify it a bit more to make it a better ozone reactor by filling it up with some bioballs and cap the top off so the collection cup wont be sticking up so high. I'll probably also take the mesh off the wheel as I wont need the super fine bubbles anymore.

I'm looking at getting the super reef octopus lx-2000s HOB. I think it'll be the most I've spent on anything for this tank. I definitely have some high expectations for it. I'll be reviewing it as it comes in.

Here's a couple pictures I took with the new little point'n shoot. It takes pretty good pictures and has a macro setting. Makes the little 1in YWG look huge. lol

YWG

I found a airflow meter really cheap off ebay and picked it up and want to run it against my old skimmers and the new one coming in. Just hooked it up to the eshopps tonight and got decent results with it. It hovers around the 10-12 scfh area.

dwyer rmb-53

 

[Poeticlydead]

Grats on the new gear.

What camera are you using now?

 

[jason2459]

Grats on the new gear.

What camera are you using now?

It's a Fuji finepix WP z33. Only goes down 10 feet but it's perfect for bringing to the pool and taking pics of the baby. Brandon is having so much fun in the water.

Here's a link to the camera online
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/z/finepix_z33wp/

 

[jason2459]

Got the skimmer in this morning. Premium Aquatic rocks! They messed up on the pricing I guess and it was supposed to be $389 and charged me $339 and honored the miss pricing. Plus, free shipping which got here with in three days.

The skimmer was about as big as I expected it to be (which is big) but WOW that buble blaster pump is huge. I didn't think it was going to be as big as it was. I can't wait to get that thing hooked up and see what it can do. Looks like this skimmer will be able to suck the snot out of my system. Maybe even a little over kill. I just couldn't resist the testing out the potential of 1000+ lph of air flow this thing is supposed to be able to deliver. If this is to much for my system then I'll just have to sell it and get the xp-1000s hob cone. :inlove:

The pump:
Sleek looking box:

Next to a standard mouse:

The clear volute is going to be awesome to watch

It's about 6 3/4" long

Couple things I was a little disappointed about. 1) no collection cup overflow drain outlet. 2) no outlet for an overflow in the collection cup! :spin3: This is something that every skimmer should have especially this size skimmer.

I also noticed that there is a bit of a lip in the collection cup where it transitions straight up. I wish it was a lot smoother there. Also, I find interesting the placement of the air silencer. We’ll see how that works out. It would have also been nice if the bubble plate was removable but that's something I can live with.

So, I ran over to Lowes over lunch and got a 1/2" barbed fitting for the collection cup overflow drain and drilled a hole for it already. When I get home I silicone it into place. With that size opening I shouldn't have a problem with keeping up with a overflow. Having the collection cup be a flat surface made it really easy to drill a hole into it. I used a Unibit. I went a bit off center to make sure I didn't drill a whole into the neck. I also made sure it was high enough so the collection cup could be lowered all the way down.

That's one thing I really like about this skimmer's collection cup is that there is no stupid rubber band to move around and make sure it's level to adjust the collection cup. Just two screws and a slider.

Slider adjustment

Drain fitting

Collection cup is about 7 ½” wide

Neck is about 4 1/2” x 2”

 

[jason2459]

I'll probably get it hooked up tomorrow some time. But for now here's some more pictures. I'll keep updating as the skimmer breaks in.

 

[jason2459]

 

[crank2211]

Looks great Jason. Can't wait to see it up and running.!

 

[jason2459]

Looks great Jason. Can't wait to see it up and running.!

Thanks. I'll be watching your thread on the lx-1000s too.

 

[Larah]

I caulked and painted the entire inside of the stand with water proofing boat paint and then covered that in 3 coats of white high gloss bathroom paint. It actually holds water for quite some time as I have had a few small floods.
I too am humbled by your expereinces.

 

[harper]

Good looking skimmer! Very interested in your review as it breaks in. Good luck

 

[jason2459]

I caulked and painted the entire inside of the stand with water proofing boat paint and then covered that in 3 coats of white high gloss bathroom paint. It actually holds water for quite some time as I have had a few small floods.
I too am humbled by your experiences.

Thanks. I should have painted the inside of my stand too. Didn't think of doing it and didn't read a lot of the suggestions on this site in time to do it. One of these days I'll pull all the crap out from under the stand and paint it.

Good looking skimmer! Very interested in your review as it breaks in. Good luck

Very BIG skimmer. I'll be interested in my review as it breaks in as well. :hmm4:

I went to put it on the back of the tank and instantly saw an issue. Wish they would have angled the intake pipe like the SWC Extreme HOB did. The lx-2000s uses a 90 degree angel so it juts out about 2"+ into the tank and about 7" up from the lip of the tank. My hood w/ lights are about 4-5" to low and goes all the way to the back of the tank.

This actually gives me the opportunity and excuse to work on my canopy. It's a bit to low and puts my retro lighting about 3-4" above the water. This causes me to have to constantly clean salt spray off the bulbs and the reflectors. I went out to menards and picked up some 1x12 boards and will replace the 1x6 boards currently in place. So, I need to cut, trim, sand, and stain the new boards then separate out the old panels and put the new into place. Once I have that done then I can get on with trying out the new skimmer.

 

[crank2211]

Jason, I was very close to running into the same issue with my fixture. I manged to barely get around it by having a small 4 bulb t5 fixture that gives me a bit of clearance on each side. :rollface: With the beast hanging on the back of the tank, my fixture is pushed up towards the front of the tank quite a bit.

Interested to see your build for your fixture. Keep up the good work and keep us posted. Good Luck :thumbsup:

 

[jason2459]

Jason, I was very close to running into the same issue with my fixture. I manged to barely get around it by having a small 4 bulb t5 fixture that gives me a bit of clearance on each side. :rollface: With the beast hanging on the back of the tank, my fixture is pushed up to wards the front of the tank quite a bit.

Interested to see your build for your fixture. Keep up the good work and keep us posted. Good Luck :thumbsup:

I have a four bulb retro in the canopy and have about a 1-2" gap between the front two bulbs and the back two bulbs where I have moon light leds setup. This causes the bulbs span the entire width. Even with out the bulbs the canopy would still hit the intake pipe. The clear pvc pipe used is huge. I haven't measure it but I'd imagine its a 2" ID.

 

[crank2211]

How's your progress with canopy going Jason? Did you manage to make any headway with it this weekend? When do you expect to get it wet? I know you must be anxious to fire this sucker up!

 

[jason2459]

How's your progress with canopy going Jason? Did you manage to make any headway with it this weekend? When do you expect to get it wet? I know you must be anxious to fire this sucker up!

I got the three pieces I needed cut down and routed on Sunday. I started staining that night and last night. I think I might be ready to rip the old panels out and put the new ones in. When I get home tonight I'll have to compare the new with the old to make sure I don't need another layer of stain.

I also picked up some krylon fussion black paint yesterday from Walmart and will be masking the areas on the skimmer I don't want painted today.

 

[jason2459]

Came home last night and compared the newly stained wood with the rest of the canopy... needed another coat and another...

Ended up putting two more coats of stain on last night and finished it off. Tonight I ripped the canopy apart and slapped on the new panels. I like it but I wonder what the wife will think of it tomorrow as she is sleeping right now.... could be :love2: or :mad2:


Now I have to decide on what I'll do next. Either I'll paint the new skimmer black or try out some black acrylic to skin over top of the red. I kind of liked that idea (crank's idea).