Steps to BB?

only problem is the stand weighs a metric ton....... I'm going to post build pics. I too was going to start a build thread but I think I will just do it here since the reason all this started was going BB the correct and successful way. At least I hope.

Dude I have 36" worth of height in that thing..... its going to be freakin great...... I'm going to be able to have a huge skimmer if I want it. Once I get the doors ordered it should be complete. I'm having a really hard time deciding how large to make the doors though.

Man I love that Acro on the right. What type is it? Where did you get it.... I love tables. I'm going to try and collect as many as I can. Those and the torts are by far my favorite of all SPS.
 
Kong,

your going to have to keep me posted on how you like that skimmer. I think i'm going to try and mod the octo and see where it lies. If I screw it up, i'm just going to bite the bullet and get the BM250, H&S, or ORCA's.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10268612#post10268612 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by King-Kong
That is going to be absolutely beautiful! Nice large stand, too. You're gonna love all that space you have to work with.

I took some pics of my new setup (that is, with the removed rock). Tomorrow ill make a new thread highlighting my tank.. it's been a awhile and my old thread is.. well.. old and outdated:

http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/a11-full-tank.jpg
http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/a09-full-tank-angle.jpg
http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/a10-full-tank-side.jpg
Click to expand...

Nice. So fresh, so clean.:cool:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10269632#post10269632 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hurleycr
Kong,

your going to have to keep me posted on how you like that skimmer. I think i'm going to try and mod the octo and see where it lies. If I screw it up, i'm just going to bite the bullet and get the BM250, H&S, or ORCA's.
Click to expand...

I think you should check up first on other's succes with moding that skimmer to run on such a large tank. Just because rich was able to do it, doesnt mean everyone else can. I know from personal experience, it's best to wait to see large numbers of people with successful and consistant experience from a given product before jumping the gun to use.

Thats how I got myself in trouble w/ that faux sand BB.

It's also why I cant even fully recommend the BM250. I just need to wait and see what it does with more fish. Probably the only BB skimmer id recommend is the beckett (such as MRCs). Because there have been a lot of objective owners of it who have discovered the good, the bad, and the ugly, and are willing to tell you. Anytime you never hear a negative about ANY product/system, you need to be careful.

The coral on the right seems ot be a type of millepora. It was wild caught, sadly (not what I originally wanted), and has grown about 1/3 since ive had it (about a year, slow growing). The other tabling acro on the left is my green millepora who has probably trippled in the time (1.5 years?) I've had it. Ill try to take more pics, but the thing is literally solid. There are virtually no branches, but just pure table.

The good thing about tabling growth form is how cool they look. The bad thing is, because they grow so solidly, they appear to grow slower than stags, and they also shade things underneath them.

The strong flow in my system has caused the green mille to table so hard, I think.

uhuru : thanks :bum:
 
To add:

Here is a full tank shot from last year (this rock structure, while much improved over the last, still let a lot of detritus pile up).

http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/a03-fulltank-big-mille.jpg

You can see both of the corals there, and how much more the left side mille's grew (the right side mille was brand new at this point).



..and here it is on the bottom left when I got it (green mille)

http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/78-rightside.jpg

you can see the first rock structure I made. Very inneficient, and caused me tons of algae issues.


(edit: new tank pic for reference since we're on a new page: http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/a11-full-tank.jpg )

Infact, here is what happens when you put too much live rock in a BB tank, not enough flow, and bad skimming:

http://www.d3f.org/misc/fish/90g/56-fulltank.jpg
 
Man those vortech's really cleaned up the tank in two ways I see. The mutiplied your flow, and they really do take up little space. I can't wait to get mine hooked up.

In my opinion, skimmers are so dang iffy.... There is a ton of people who modded that skimmer, but your right not as many with a large system.

I may just run it on the QT. I would mind a becket or, but I have little to no expereince with them. I keep ready noisy, and add heat. Two things that I can't allow. I refuse to add a chiller, and the tank is in the room we are in the most. Its also adjacent to the bedroom.

What about the mixing box's on becketts, doesn't stuff get down in there and it sucks to get out right? If I went that route it would be a Barr Aquatics, or MRC. I really like that Dual Recirc Becket that MRC is making. But that has to add some serious heat to the water.

I just have no experience with this large of a tank. The 120 I was at my threashold of 81 degrees at the end of the light cylcle. That was with two Sequence's running, two sea swirls, skimmer, 2 maxi jets, an ehiem. With two fans running during the MH light Cycle.

So i'm concerned with going beckett, because basically I would have all the exact same stuff running except for the sea swirls. And instead add two to three vortechs, and I would use the sequence to power the skimmer if it were a beckett.

I can only assume that since it is larger volume that it will be harder to over heat it?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10270464#post10270464 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by King-Kong
It's also why I cant even fully recommend the BM250. I just need to wait and see what it does with more fish. Probably the only BB skimmer id recommend is the beckett (such as MRCs). Because there have been a lot of objective owners of it who have discovered the good, the bad, and the ugly, and are willing to tell you. Anytime you never hear a negative about ANY product/system, you need to be careful.uhuru : thanks :bum:
Click to expand...

Kong, so you think I should hold off on a dual aquabee skimmer from Orca and go with a recirc beckett instead? Can the overflow from my tank feed directly into the skimmer? Let me know what you think!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10271780#post10271780 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by uhuru
Kong, so you think I should hold off on a dual aquabee skimmer from Orca and go with a recirc beckett instead? Can the overflow from my tank feed directly into the skimmer? Let me know what you think!
Click to expand...

Uhuru: I just dont know enough about them to say yes or no. I just know we have seen consistantly successful BB tanks running strong beckets.

There are also succesful BB tanks running NW/Mesh wheels.

Crappy answers, I know, but I'd just suggest in selecting something with a good track record.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10270769#post10270769 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hurleycr
Man those vortech's really cleaned up the tank in two ways I see. The mutiplied your flow, and they really do take up little space. I can't wait to get mine hooked up.

In my opinion, skimmers are so dang iffy.... There is a ton of people who modded that skimmer, but your right not as many with a large system.

I may just run it on the QT. I would mind a becket or, but I have little to no expereince with them. I keep ready noisy, and add heat. Two things that I can't allow. I refuse to add a chiller, and the tank is in the room we are in the most. Its also adjacent to the bedroom.

What about the mixing box's on becketts, doesn't stuff get down in there and it sucks to get out right? If I went that route it would be a Barr Aquatics, or MRC. I really like that Dual Recirc Becket that MRC is making. But that has to add some serious heat to the water.

I just have no experience with this large of a tank. The 120 I was at my threashold of 81 degrees at the end of the light cylcle. That was with two Sequence's running, two sea swirls, skimmer, 2 maxi jets, an ehiem. With two fans running during the MH light Cycle.

So i'm concerned with going beckett, because basically I would have all the exact same stuff running except for the sea swirls. And instead add two to three vortechs, and I would use the sequence to power the skimmer if it were a beckett.

I can only assume that since it is larger volume that it will be harder to over heat it?
Click to expand...

I dont think the box settling is that big of an issue. I havent seen it directly addressed, at least.


You're right; heat and noise seem to be the two serious issues with becketts, and if you can avoid a chiller, do it!

But, running the vortechs will save you heat input versus traditional flow options (such as CLs or inefficient powerheads from things like Seios or Mags).

Also, you can also considering running the system as though it was smaller. That is to say, stock it with rock and fish as it were a 120. This way, you'll have a lot of spare space and water volume. For example, when I first started, I had a 10g nano. I packed that thing with corals and rock. Then I upgraded to a 20g, but didnt buy a single thing. The 20g looked perfect using only what fit in a 10g. (does that make any sense?)
 
yeah it makes sense, but will that work long term? It seems that doing that will essentially cause an issue long term. Wouldn't the nutrients eventually build up? But then again if i'm exporting more than i'm importing then it should be an issue right?

yeah i too was running a seio as well. I actually liked it quite well. However, I hated it being in the tank....

I'm not sure how much heat it added though. It was the last thing added to my system and I never unplugged it to see if the temp went down. I'm sure it would have but I'm not sure how much. I think I could get by with running an MR-3R on a sequence 3600 I have the older style not the new ones, but I have to wait to get an answer from Andy at MRC.
 
Interesting observation on my BM250.

Since redoing my rock, it is able to see more heavy detritus and pull it out. I just cleaned the neck and top down, and the tickness of the mud it made for only 48 hours of muck was very impressive. Far more than it was normally pulling out.

Also, I found part of a shrimp molt in the collection cup -- pretty impressive power to skim out a part of shrimp armor!
 
for that to be such a short skimmer, how turbulent is the water? It has to pumps right?

Has it added heat to you system?
 
It has two pumps, but they are very energy efficient, using somewhere between 30-40w each.

So, it has added some heat, but I can still keep the tank between 79-80 degrees, in a room that is 80 degrees warm.

Also, it is very turbulent. I think they should increase the diameter and the height ever so slightly.
 
I have no doubt that they are!!! Depending on when I have to get the skimmer, looking like mid Aug. will depend on whether or not I will go with a NW this time. I'm taking the advice of kong and exploring my ability to run a large beckett skimmer. However, the sound will be an issue so I either have to find someone with a beckett, or talk to people here and get an idea. I am also waiting to see if Kong likes his or not and see if he can get results with it. The one thing I really don't like about it is its in sump only.

I really was hoping that my next skimmer would be external. However, I am finding lots of posts of people with becketts having overflow issues once the skimmer starts back up once it shuts down from overfeeding.
 
Just an update, I cut the starboard today, and routed the edge on the bottom against the glass at 45 degrees. So here it is, should I calk the edges? and the seems? Since there are braces on the tank I can't have one solid piece. So I have to cut it, should I caulk those seems where I cut it? Just caulk around the edges or both? If both how does water get under there? or does it? If it does will it become toxic due to no flow?

Also, Kong I know that you posted this either in this thread or another one. Do you still think you need a CL with those Vortech's? Just a spray bar across the bottom or something to give a steady stream across the board to keep anything from collecting?
 
Also, since this is a DIY stand do I need to use styrofoam under the tank to distribute the weight more? or is just trim that comes on the tank OK? Its almost level all the way across, but it dips ever so slightly in the middle. The edges are flush though. Any thoughts?
 
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