TVS 75 Gallon Build

Lookin great so far as far as the light goe's i have a 6 x 39w 36" sunpower on my 46g 20" high bow front with fixture hanging 6" above top of tank and have sps growing on the bottom.You have to be careful with coral placement these fixtures are powerful.You can keep just about anything you want with the ATI good luck with the build....
 
Those are the absolute best two articles I've ever read regarding aquascaping. I'm very scientific by nature and not very artistic. I know what I like, but rarely understand why. Having some theory and methodology to aquascaping will be a big help. They gave me a lot of ideas. Thanks so much shaggss!

And thanks very much for the input on the sunpower jhoff! It is great to get specific confirmation on the fixture's ability. Now I won't feel forced to build extra height into my aquascape where it isn't necessary!

I can't wait to get it going. I'm literally watching paint dry...:bounce2::bounce1::bounce3:

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oct2274 said:
Make sure your sump and overflows are set up so that if you loose power the sump doesn't overflow.
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Thanks, that is a very good tip! My sump should have plenty of reserve capacity since it will have no more than 6" of water in any chamber while running. The water level will be controlled with an auto top off, so I don't need a lot of extra sump volume to handle evaporation. The main drawback to my low running sump level is the bubble trap. I don't have much vertical distance covered by the bubble trap, which in effect reduces it's capacity to trap bubbles. I hope it is sufficient.

The overflow will be nearly full of water since I am using the "herbie" method. I'll need to ensure that my standpipes are tight so that the volume of water held in the overflow doesn't drain to the sump in an outage. Testing sump capacity with a power outage will be one of the first things I do once it is full.
 
I can't tell from the pic but i would put a ziptie around the cord and the pole of your light holder so in case they come apart the dry side of your MP won't come crashing to the floor.
 
jhoff said:
I can't tell from the pic but i would put a ziptie around the cord and the pole of your light holder so in case they come apart the dry side of your MP won't come crashing to the floor.
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Nice observation! That definitely is a good idea, and I was even planning on it. I want to make the cord as unobtrusive as possible and also anchor the vortech against a fall. I'm just waiting until I am more certain about the final placement of the vortech before I ziptie it in place. I want to place the vortech as high as I can without creating a vortex. I actually had to remove the pole from that side in order take the tank off of the stand and move it to it's final placement. Tank has been placed. Plumbing has been glued and is drying. Tomorrow I get to rinse 40 lb of sand and begin the long RO/DI fill process.

Here is the final placement in the room. I like how it separates the living room from my small exercise area. I also love how the fab four can't stop staring at it!

Picture038.jpg


My other favorite toys: Specialized 29"er Disc, custom mahogany solid body, imitation ES335 hollow body.

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Thanks for stopping by!
 
The Velvet Sea said:
Nice observation! That definitely is a good idea, and I was even planning on it. I want to make the cord as unobtrusive as possible and also anchor the vortech against a fall. I'm just waiting until I am more certain about the final placement of the vortech before I ziptie it in place. I want to place the vortech as high as I can without creating a vortex. I actually had to remove the pole from that side in order take the tank off of the stand and move it to it's final placement. Tank has been placed. Plumbing has been glued and is drying. Tomorrow I get to rinse 40 lb of sand and begin the long RO/DI fill process.

Here is the final placement in the room. I like how it separates the living room from my small exercise area. I also love how the fab four can't stop staring at it!

Picture038.jpg


My other favorite toys: Specialized 29"er Disc, custom mahogany solid body, imitation ES335 hollow body.

Picture043.jpg


Thanks for stopping by!
Click to expand...

A real octopuses garden LOL...Great job lookin good i see your from TX are you familar with extreme corals they have some nice corals but sell out really quick
 
i like the placement of the tank. Right beside the couch so you can watch tv and the tank at the same time, and I like that you can go and see the tank from 3 sides.

I have to ask how come you didnt hang the lights from the ceiling instead of putting those posts up?
 
chris3_16 said:
i like the placement of the tank. Right beside the couch so you can watch tv and the tank at the same time, and I like that you can go and see the tank from 3 sides.

I have to ask how come you didnt hang the lights from the ceiling instead of putting those posts up?
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Thanks for the compliment, Chris. I'm really happy with how it has come together so far myself.

I'd like to hang the light, but I'm a renter and don't want to damage the ceiling.
 
I finished filling the tank yesterday evening and powered it all up. The herbie works great and my sump has enough reserve volume to handle a power outage, even if the entire overflow section was to drain below the herbie standpipes. One slight hickup, the large 1.5" bulkhead that is serving as the emergency drain has a slow drip leak, approximately 2 drops a minute. I turned the recirculation off and drained the overflow section. I'll reseat that bulkhead this evening to try to get a better seal.
 
Before I removed the dripping bulkhead, I made note of where it was leaking. Once I removed it I noticed that in the very same spot where the leak was there is a manufacturing seam on the gasket. The large schedule 80 bulkheads I am using have thick gaskets, and on the glass side there are two ridge rings that are concentric with the circumference of the gasket. The manufacturing seam was actually recessed into the surface of the gasket and ridges, meaning I couldn't file down the seam which is often recommended. So I just refit the gasket and bulkhead and cranked down on it by hand. It dripped again at first so I tried to get my channel locks on it, but the nut on a 1.5" schedule 80 bulkhead is monstrously huge and the space in the stand is limiting so I couldn't get the channel locks around it. I gave it one last crank by hand and it appears to have stopped dripping!

My next step was to get the circulation pumps and skimmer finally running. Well, the skimmer didn't fire up as I had hoped and expected. It looked like nice foam but I knew better. I could see the distinct water line in the skimmer and below that line the bubble density was actually pretty poor.

Picture046-1.jpg


After posting on the equipment forum looking for answers, I took the skimmer apart (twice) and finally got it working. I'm not sure what the root cause was, but it is resolved. Now the skimmer is going nuts!

Picture048.jpg


The water in my tank is really foul. It has to be from the BRS pukani dry rock since I haven't put anything else into the tank other than RO/DI, salt and sand. I think I'm going to have a pretty hard cycle. Hopefully the skimmer settles down and helps ease the tank through it.
 
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I'm still having bubble production problems with this skimmer.

Last night I had to turn off the skimmer and return pump to do some maintenance. The water level in the sump rose a bit to take the excess from the system. The water level in the skimmer also rose but it was turned off. When I plugged everything back in the skimmer had bad production again. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it was working fine.

I unplugged the skimmer today to reroute some cords and when I plugged it back in it was bad production again. I unplugged it and plugged it back in multiple times and still bad production. I unplugged it, grabbed the cone and gave it a jiggle and plugged it in, bad production. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and then it was working fine! The pump is noisier when it is not producing, but just more vibrational noise, no impeller rattle or anything like that.

It is also still overflowing like a madman when it is getting good production.
 
Nice build. As for your SRO, from what I read you need to give it time. A club member has one and said it took a couple of weeks to get broken in and tuned.
 
Thank you all for the compliments. I know it isn't as fancy as a lot of the ultra high class builds here, but I'm hoping to be very proud in the end!

Yeah zmckenzie, I'm hoping the skimmer will settle down with some time. It is good to hear more positive input though, I'm very impressed with this skimmer despite the little break in hiccups.

Here are some shots. My camera is pretty low end and at first I saw the pictures and thought the camera made them way too blue, but then a second glance at my tank and yeah, the T5 combo I have going is very very blue. I'll continue to work on the aquascape, I didn't even use half of the rock I have, and I probably won't add more without taking some out. I like the arrangement with a large open space but a few minor adjustments will probably help.

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I think I need to adjust/reduce my flow a bit. This sand bed was flat not long ago:

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