Unsuccessful with SPS corals. :(

[DeepThought]

I changed around the mechanical filter and replaced it... so now 100% of the water has to go through the mechanical filter before it gets in the sump. I can already tell that the amount of detritus settling in the sump is cut down to almost none! that's a good thing, right?

 

[DeepThought]

The powerheads in the display tank were cleaned. I figure that if it's covered in coralline it is probably impeding water flow,... and they look nicer clean anyways. I'm going to start cutting off all the coralline algae growing on the glass and overflow as well.

As the coralline on the powerheads started to dissolve, I noticed a purple tint to the water.

 

[DeepThought]

I cleaned all four walls of the fuge and scraped them as clean as I could. There was a little hair algae build up, which tells me that my phosphates are getting a little higher then they should be.

I also cleaned and inspected the Octopus NWB110 skimmer and made absolutely sure it was working properly. It is really skimming the gunk out of the tank now! I'm happy.

 

[DeepThought]

This is a pic of the sump from the livingroom side. I also took the time to zip tie some wires together and made everything fit in better and more organized. I added the phosphate reactor back to the system with GFO that had only been used a few days prior to taking the reactor offline. However, I am going to buy more GFO to replace the old media soon enough. I put the reactor in the sump so that if it does spring another leak, it will all end up back in the tank instead of on the floor.

The next pic is of the whole system. I'm sorry that I have yet to master my DSLR camera. lol. There are plenty of softies in there now, so I'm going to be weeding out most of those in the oncoming weeks. Sorry that the tank doesn't have some amazing SPS corals growing that everyone can OOO and AAHH over. I'm in the process I guess you could say. Not everyone starts off the way I did. lol

 

[rich850]

Perhaps we are saying the same thing. What I'm getting at is that it is best to have the base water at temperature when adding salt, and keeping it at tank temperature, circulating/aerated for 48 hours before using it.

Yes, I've read multiple posts on the subject, they're just incorrect from the explanation standpoint (not necessarily incorrect from the observation standpoint). It is true that having a local high temperature at the heater wall can precipitate calcium, since it is more soluble at colder temperatures than warmer (one of the few substances where this is true). But this is one of the reasons for keeping the water mixing - it drops the local temperature at the heater tube.

I don't know man but I just don't have a heater turned on while mixing salt once its well dissolved then I turn it on

 

[rich850]

Deep tank is already looking better!

 

[dkeller_nc]

Deep - Actually, I quite like the looks of your tank. It's true that the large size of your soft corals is probably limiting the space that you have for growing SPS, but they do look nice.

A couple of suggestions:

It's hard to know from a picture, but if your fuge lights are incandescent, they're adding a lot of heat to your tank. That might not be a good thing in the summer. LED lights are now available from the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) that fit standard sockets, put out 800 lumens or more while consuming less than 10 watts, and are pretty inexpensive (about $10 - $15 each).

One thought about SPS is that with fluorescents, most folks have at least one section of their tank where the rocks are within 5-8" of the surface of the water, and they place SPS species like Acropora on the top so that they get a great deal of light, flow and gas exchange.

In the 20 gallon tank I mentioned earlier, all of the SPSes are within 5"-8" of the fluorescent PC bulbs, so they get pretty intense lighting. It's hard to know how bright your new fixture will be until it arrives and you install it, but re-arranging and/or purchasing a bit more live rock may assist you.

 

[DeepThought]

Thanks ya'll... but it's far from where I want it to be. Keep the suggestions coming, they are working so far!

Deep - Actually, I quite like the looks of your tank. It's true that the large size of your soft corals is probably limiting the space that you have for growing SPS, but they do look nice.

A couple of suggestions:

It's hard to know from a picture, but if your fuge lights are incandescent, they're adding a lot of heat to your tank. That might not be a good thing in the summer. LED lights are now available from the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) that fit standard sockets, put out 800 lumens or more while consuming less than 10 watts, and are pretty inexpensive (about $10 - $15 each).

One thought about SPS is that with fluorescents, most folks have at least one section of their tank where the rocks are within 5-8" of the surface of the water, and they place SPS species like Acropora on the top so that they get a great deal of light, flow and gas exchange.

In the 20 gallon tank I mentioned earlier, all of the SPSes are within 5"-8" of the fluorescent PC bulbs, so they get pretty intense lighting. It's hard to know how bright your new fixture will be until it arrives and you install it, but re-arranging and/or purchasing a bit more live rock may assist you.

I'll stop by the BORG this weekend and pick them up. I turned my fuge lights off overnight and my water cooled down to 82.5*F I have been waking up and my tank has been at 85 or so without any lights on and the air conditioner turned on all night.

I think that the photon 48 that I bought will be sufficient light for the tank. One thing that people have said so far is that they don't ramp up the lighting till months after initially turned on,... and most don't even go above 80%. ...

That doesn't say that I won't rearrange my live rock. I still have a little base that I have not used that is at my parents house that I can use to build the structure upwards. I have been really considering re-building/aquascaping the live rock in the last two weeks. I'm trying to lay out a plan of how I would do it. How would you go about doing it?

Here's what I am thinking: my kitchen table is 5foot long. I'm going to tape the table off to be the bottom dimensions of the tank with painters tape. Then, I'm going to build the structures base using base rock, zip ties and epoxy. After I get it put together, I will carefully start pulling live rock and do a "two half" structure - one side and then the other - so that the rock doesn't dry out too much and go through a mini cycle.

I want to get the rocks completely away from the glass so that the glass is easier to clean. Also, that small leak that I was talking about earlier that was molding the canopy a bit... well, something happened and it started dripping on my floor. SOO, of course, I didn't notice it until later last night. I ended up rigging something up with zip ties to keep the pipe close to the water and dripping into the tank instead of on my floor.

SOO, since I discovered the leak and have no idea how long it has been going on... I measured salinity with my refractometer and it is down to 1.022. Looks like I am going to have to increase my salinity a little bit, and I want to do it through a series of 10g water changes.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Your plan for the aquascape seems like a good one. You might want to read the "Tips and Tricks for Creating Amazing Aquascapes" thread for ideas.

While 1.022 sp. gr. isn't really going to harm anything, one reasonably effective way to raise it over a few day's time is simply to curtail the additions of make-up kalkwasser and let evaporation do the rest.

 

[DeepThought]

Yup. I read through it quite a bit the other day. Thanks.

Im collecting water today. Gonna mix up ten gallons tonight.

 

[DeepThought]

My apex keeps kicking off my lights because of the high temps. I'm going to have to get those dang fans afterall. I was trying to avoid it, but I guess there isn't anyway to avoid it now. I really would like to keep my temp below 82*F year round.

I finally got that 40g breeder from that man. It's actually a 40g long... so I'm not sure If I want to use it for anything now. I thought that it was a drilled 40g breeder,... 3ft... because I had some other stuff that I wanted to put in the side cabinet. Oh well... I'm sure everything will work out some way or another. I might re-sell it or something since it is drilled. maybe clean it up and what-not. a little 40g breeder at the big box store $1/g sale is not that bad, and I can pick one up later on.

I think what I am going to do is build the cabinet to fit three 10g tanks on top of one another - and see about trading the drilled 40g long for an undrilled 30g to replace my 20g long sump. One 10g tank will be a top off, another 10g tank will be a mixing station for new saltwater and the third 10g tank will be a refugium that I can periodically take off line and clean. I'm considering siphoning out the sandbed in my display tank and putting a deep sand bed in the remote refugium and have my tank go bare-bottom. If played right, I am led to believe that SPS corals will eventually encrust on it when conditions are right,... right?

 

[dkeller_nc]

My apex keeps kicking off my lights because of the high temps. I'm going to have to get those dang fans afterall. I was trying to avoid it, but I guess there isn't anyway to avoid it now. I really would like to keep my temp below 82*F year round.

Honestly, the best way to keep your tank cool in the summer is to run the house AC. The issue with only using fans to accomplish this is that if the power goes out for an hour and the inside air temp is already at 80 deg F, your tank may way overtemp in a big hurry. If the inside air temp is 75, you can tolerate the power going out for a couple of hours.

However, if you haven't replaced those refugium lights, you're adding heat somewhere in the range of a 150watt heater being on continuously. You might consider shutting off the refugium lights during the day.

For fans, I'd highly suggest one of the small vortex fans from home depot or lowe's instead of the "aquarium fans" made by JBJ, Tunze and others. One $15 vortex fan will give you far more flow than 5 "muffin fans", which is what the "aquarium fans" are.

If played right, I am led to believe that SPS corals will eventually encrust on it when conditions are right,... right?

Indeed, but there is nothing wrong with running a sand bed in an SPS tank. There are dozens of TOTM examples with beautiful coral growth that have sand beds.

 

[DeepThought]

SO

My Mag Drive 9.5B return pump is power cycling. I know when it comes to metal halides and other stuff, power cycling usually means that it is about to die. The thing is vibrating like crazy and scares me every time it turns itself on again.

I think I'm going to buy a Quiet One 4000 pump by LifeGuard Aquatics. It should be pretty quiet, right? All I know is, ... I have GOT to get it replaced sooner than later. Listening to it power cycle all day is killing me. Thankfully I'm not home most of the day.

 

[DeepThought]

Honestly, the best way to keep your tank cool in the summer is to run the house AC. The issue with only using fans to accomplish this is that if the power goes out for an hour and the inside air temp is already at 80 deg F, your tank may way overtemp in a big hurry. If the inside air temp is 75, you can tolerate the power going out for a couple of hours.

However, if you haven't replaced those refugium lights, you're adding heat somewhere in the range of a 150watt heater being on continuously. You might consider shutting off the refugium lights during the day.

For fans, I'd highly suggest one of the small vortex fans from home depot or lowe's instead of the "aquarium fans" made by JBJ, Tunze and others. One $15 vortex fan will give you far more flow than 5 "muffin fans", which is what the "aquarium fans" are.



Indeed, but there is nothing wrong with running a sand bed in an SPS tank. There are dozens of TOTM examples with beautiful coral growth that have sand beds.

Yeah, I am running the house AC. It stays on about 74*F most of the year.

I'll look into getting that fan pretty soon, but right now I have to save up for a new return pump. Bah, if it's not one thing, it's another, right?

I'll also look into getting those LED lights from the BORG pretty soon. Just have a tight budget at the moment since I am saving for the MACNA trip this coming August/September

 

[DeepThought]

Well, looks like I am buying a Quiet One pump to replace the mag drive. 991gph... mixed reviews, but that's almost on any pump out there. I'll be ordering Monday and hopefully it will be here by friday. I hope my corals and fish and everything can last that long without the sump running on the system.

I'm going to turn the old used return pump on a few hours a day to get fresh water through the sump. I have extra powerheads inside the display tank and in the sump. The skimmer is still going as well as the phosphate reactor. I'm sure none of the water will stagnate.

This is a test... it really is. It shows me that if I am going to invest this much money into my tank... I need redundancy, backups, and even a generator. Everything is in the works so that I can protect the tank investment.

So far everything seems like it is doing fine. My fish are swimming around, my corals polyps are all moving and out and about... like nothing even happened. I hope this can go on for the next six days without a hitch. Wish me luck ya'll!

 

[dkeller_nc]

This is a test... it really is. It shows me that if I am going to invest this much money into my tank... I need redundancy, backups, and even a generator. Everything is in the works so that I can protect the tank investment.

So far everything seems like it is doing fine. My fish are swimming around, my corals polyps are all moving and out and about... like nothing even happened. I hope this can go on for the next six days without a hitch. Wish me luck ya'll!

Well, relevant to your original question on this thread, taking the route of replacing something when it fails by mail-ordering a replacement doesn't bode well for keeping an SPS tank. I'm not critiquing your decisions necessarily, we all have more limited budgets than our probable desires for tank size, equipment and animals will allow.

But, if your budget is stressed enough that it will not allow going out to the LFS and purchasing a low-end, low-flow return pump to keep your tank going until you can receive your replacement, you may find that keeping an SPS tank isn't in the cards. I can assure you that it's quite common to have to fork out a couple of hundred in 24 hours to save an SPS tank, while a soft coral tank or an LPS tank will get along fine for several days while a fix is in the works.

Folks aren't kidding when they say that stability is required for keeping these animals.

 

[DeepThought]

Well, i might not be able to rush out and buy a bunch of stuff, but i can stock up on it over time. Buying two new heaters, two new return pumps, a generator, an mp40 and keeping the other powerheads as backup. I have plenty of extra salt and a 20g capacity to mix new.

Its not really that i cant afford it. I just havent bought everythin just yet. Im used to lps and softie tanks and just getting into sps in a major way. Just takes time accumulating stuff. Yah know?

 

[dkeller_nc]

Well, i might not be able to rush out and buy a bunch of stuff, but i can stock up on it over time. Buying two new heaters, two new return pumps, a generator, an mp40 and keeping the other powerheads as backup. I have plenty of extra salt and a 20g capacity to mix new.

Its not really that i cant afford it. I just havent bought everythin just yet. Im used to lps and softie tanks and just getting into sps in a major way. Just takes time accumulating stuff. Yah know?

Well, personally speaking, I don't find it necessary to have 2 of everything, though that's what some folks do. What I do instead is to make sure that I have a backup of things that I can't buy locally. If, for example, my return pump on one of my tanks suddenly goes toes-up, I've already scoped out my local fish stores so that I know I can get a pump that will work.

Here's one thought that might save you a good deal of cash: If you live in a suburb or city where power outages are fairly infrequent and don't last long, then back-up batteries and an inverter can be substituted for a generator. You can buy an all-in-one inverter/trickle charger from a company like West Marine, and hook it up to a trolling motor battery. A trolling motor battery can be had pretty cheaply, and has sufficient power to run a reasonably efficient powerhead for a week or more. Assuming that you will know that you're out of power, you can also hook up a return pump, a heater and even LED lights at low power and run them intermittently.

This strategy has saved my bacon on more than one occasion. I do have a generator, but it is a gasoline-powered unit that I have to hook up manually. So the vast majority of power outages are dealt with by the battery/inverter method.

By the way - if your house is kept at 74 deg F or below continuously, 82 degrees plus for your tank sounds awfully high. I would only expect such a temperature differential from a tank with a full hood that is running metal halides. My guess is that you've already found the cause - a submersible pump that is cycling is kicking out its internal thermal overload (in other words, it's getting really hot). That, and the incandescent refugium lights are probably at least 5 degrees F of the temperature differential between your tank's temp and the surrounding air.

Finally, you might wish to take apart your Mag pump to see if it can be rescued. Sometimes these units will build up a layer of calcium on the rotor or the shaft that the rotor rides on. The additional resistance heats the motor, and causes it to fail or cycle. That can often be fixed by giving the pump a 100% vinegar bath for a few hours and carefully cleaning the rotor, the shaft, and the rotor well in the pump body.

 

[ThorEffex]

Well, i might not be able to rush out and buy a bunch of stuff, but i can stock up on it over time. Buying two new heaters, two new return pumps, a generator, an mp40 and keeping the other powerheads as backup. I have plenty of extra salt and a 20g capacity to mix new.

Its not really that i cant afford it. I just havent bought everythin just yet. Im used to lps and softie tanks and just getting into sps in a major way. Just takes time accumulating stuff. Yah know?

I spent last year placing together my new system and I finally got the money to order the 2nd radion, 5 months after setting it up. I also agree wit the battery/ inverter idea I have a jumper pack for my car and it has an inverter and charger built in it was only $80.

 

[DeepThought]

I don't think there is any help for this return pump. Seems like it's getting worse the longer I let it run. I'm trying to run it one or two hours a day to try to exchange some water from the sump to the display tank.

It's a good idea to do a battery backup. I think I will have that in the works as well. I know my side cabinet idea is something I am also looking forward to setting up with the water change system.

I think the problem with the water getting hot was directly being caused by the return pump overheating...

I know there's nothing wrong with buying a few things over time. If I have a lot of money invested in something, I know I want backups. I wasn't really *serious* about the hobby until I decided to convert my tank over to an SPS dominated system.

It will all work out, I hope.

They should be building my lights tomorrow and have them shipped. I should be getting them by Friday or so.