Tank of the Month - January 2008

very very impressive. at first i thought your tap water being used in the heat exchanger went directly to the sewers but then when i read you used it for your ro unit I was like "ingenious!"
 
What an absolutely beautiful tank. Question, using the Great Stuff and epoxy, are they not toxic? If so what did you do to be certain there was no leaching of these chemicals into the water. I'm upgrading to a larger tank and thought what a great idea to save $$$ on base rock. Thanks.

Bryan
 
great tank- poor tank of the month article

great tank- poor tank of the month article

The tank is fantastic, but the TOTM article is really quite shallow and not up to the quality in description (or much of the photography) of other TOTM articles.

No real description of the circulation system, virtually no description of the inhabitants. Could this be because of the book that is being written which I am presuming includes this tank.

wonderful tank, but reefkeeping gets a C- for this one.
 
Stopped by to say hi to Stan last week. All I can say is this tank is ABSOLUTELY as STUNNING as ever. Some corals are larger than basketballs
He should charge an admission fee. :mixed:
 
Hold out much?

Hold out much?

Glad to see the system up on RK MAG!

The pictures are all amazing.

You mentioned you were able to pull the ozone and some other stuff. Are you still running the phosphate filter? Whats your current thoughts there?

Now that I have 5 of those volcanoes running... any tips on getting others to clean them for me? C. Nut keeps disapearing during cleaning time.

:strooper:
 
Nematode- Don't blame RC about the pictures- I supplied most of them. Sorry to say I am not much of a photographer. In fact that was the first time I picked up a camera in about a year! As far as providing more information on the tank- no problem but realize it is kind of hard with a limited amount of space. I didn't have enough room to go into details on the tank, instead I wanted to focus on an overview of the system. It seems that the hardcore enthusiasts are getting alot of information and many of their questions answered from the prior threads. I am also answering quite a few Pm's as well. I also did not intentionally list many of the inhabitants. Their are 50-80 different fish, hundreds and hundreds of different sps, lps and soft corals and countless inverts. I really would not know where to begin or really want to waste my time making a needless list since the aquarium inhabitants change. I have literally found new inhabitants that I did not realize where in the tank. I put in a pair of mandarin Gobies and about a year later saw them for the first time. I thought they had both died but I saw them at night during a courtship spiral in the water column. I haven't seen them since. Sometimes a coral colony will die and I'll pull it out only to find one or two other colonies that I didn't realize where growing behind it. A true list of inhabitants would take up way to much space and probably be somewhat tedious to read.
 
Reefstock, How was the grand opening your new store? People are saying a lot of good things about your place. I'll probably be heding your way in the next week or two to check things out. I was very impressed when I stopped by during construction so I can just imagine how it looks now!

Answers to a few general questions:
Great stuff, epoxy resin and the PVC shelves.
OK here goes, the Great Stuff styrofoam in a can becomes inert after it cures. This usually takes a minimum of 24 hours. After this the epoxy resin or can be applied. Make sure you use a brand (any brand works) that DOES NOT HAVE MOLD INHIBITORS. This in turn will need to cure or off-gas at least one week. I personally rinsed it quite a few times as well but that was more of a precaution. After that it was ready for the tank. I do not think anything has leached from the fabricated rock and yes it is very boyount. I also ran carbon during the first year or two of my tank so this may have drawn out any harmful toxins. I no longer run much Carbon and everything is still fine.

Skimmer:
The skimmer runs off from one modified sequence pump. The pump draws about 190 watts. Spazz has a hand crafted needlewheel to produce the fine bubbles. This needlewheel made by Spazz is way more eficient than the one provided by Sequence. This is the reason it can handle so much air. The skimmer is force fed air from an alita 80 air pump. If I get some time I'll try to get some numbers and run a comparison to other skimmers for those that are interested.
 
How much water do you run through your skimmer? R u gravity feeding your entire output from the aquarium overflow through the skimmer or is it split up?
 
The grand opening went famously. We had a full house and lots of great response. Casey and Li just finished the Display aqua-scaping, beautiful and silent.
Oh, and we installed a light-track back at home with a luminaric on it... and of course another volcano. :) Tus/Thurs are best bets to sneak away from the store, if you would like to see them in action.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11663595#post11663595 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by prostaff
How much water do you run through your skimmer? R u gravity feeding your entire output from the aquarium overflow through the skimmer or is it split up?
Click to expand...
because of the way the skimmer had to be placed in the fish room we had to feed the skimmer with a dart pump. it has only 3.5 feet of piping so it gets all the 3600 gallons per hour the pump puts out. the 4 overflow run around the outside wall to the back side of the sump. in the rear corner of the sump there is a collection box where all the water comes into from the overflow. them the dart pump was cut back just a littie bit to match the flow comming from the overflow. that way 99.5% of the water is run into the skimmer. all the water is filtered before it ever reaches the sump. there is just a trickle of water going over the collection box. the pump sucks the water out of the bottom of the box so all the bubbles are removed from the water before it goes into the skimmer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11665648#post11665648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spazz
because of the way the skimmer had to be placed in the fish room we had to feed the skimmer with a dart pump. it has only 3.5 feet of piping so it gets all the 3600 gallons per hour the pump puts out. the 4 overflow run around the outside wall to the back side of the sump. in the rear corner of the sump there is a collection box where all the water comes into from the overflow. them the dart pump was cut back just a littie bit to match the flow comming from the overflow. that way 99.5% of the water is run into the skimmer. all the water is filtered before it ever reaches the sump. there is just a trickle of water going over the collection box. the pump sucks the water out of the bottom of the box so all the bubbles are removed from the water before it goes into the skimmer.
Click to expand...
Thanks Spazz. That paints a very clear picture. Wow that skimmer handles 3600g/hr...that's pretty impressive
 
Dear Stanley !

Very impressed of yr tank also the size !!! I have a couple of question can I buy the Great Stuff and the Epoxy resin at the Home Depot ? also noticed that you have in yr reef a goniopora sp. how are you doing with this coral as understand is very difficult to maintain in a reef tank.
Unfortunately we do not have this type of epoxy and the great stuff in Panama.
thanks and congratulations again for yr reef tank.

Regards
Fernando Chang
 
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