The Rebuild Begins!!!

[Geoff]

Originally Posted by snowrip

so far i am still unable to heat the tank.

Would it help at all to sheath or otherwise insulate that 40-foot run?

Everything looks great!

i may end up doing that, but first i want to see how much the MH's heat the tank. i would rather not have to get a chiller if i can help it. i do have a second heater that i can chuck in there also to help out if need be.

G~

[motorslave]

Umm...pics?

Sorry, just had to say it! Hope all the bugs get worked out soon, allthough it sounds like its just little bugs! Nice when it isnt too bad.

R

[Geoff]

here are a couple of pics. this is what the surface aggitation looks like with the two T2 eductors on only. not bad considering the eductors are 3" below the waters surface. they do do a good job of keeping the water moving all around the tank.



i seemed to have lost the manual for my Ampmaster, is this how you are suppose to mount it?



since noise is my prime concern on this build i am trying all the tricks i know of for sound isolation. i decided to hang the pump from the floor joists using 75lb test fishing line. it does a great job of isolating the noise/vibration from the pump itself. i need to work on getting the Spa-Flex to quite vibrating though. i used Spa-Flex to hopefully dampen and transmitable vibrations through the plumbing. i may need to dampen it agains the ground to do this.

G~

[snowrip]

Holy flow, Batman!

[skeety]

just awesome!

can't wait to hear more!

[russbriscoe]

very nice geoff, do you use regular ol black paint to paint the PVC? I have some i need to paint but wasnt sure if it would mess up the water since there is part of it that sits in the tank

[Geoff]

for painting plastics, use Krylon Fusion for plastics spary paint. it comes in plenty of colour choices. this stuff does not like Spa-flex PVC though. it remains sticky and nasty forever. i have some overspray from spraying the return manifold on it and it is still icky after a couple of weeks.

G~

[Geoff]

not a whole lot of exciting stuff going on.

the tank is now SW!! i salted it Monday. it is now running just shy of 1.026. threw in an old Top Fathom Skimmer i had laying around on it to start pulling out any organics caused by all of the adhesives i used on the tank.

got a couple of pieces of LR from Zac to help the cycle along. do not plan on putting any livestock in the tank for at least a month. then i may only put a snail or two in there for giggles.

did some fine tuning on the drains to make it quieter. Zac and i did redrill the back of the tank for a 1.5" bulkhead (of course the tank was full at the time).

i modified a dual MH ballast for X10 control, not pretty/complicated, but will work.

i may throw the old canopy up on their so i can see what it will look like lit. besides the boss wants the canopy out of the bedroom.

i plan on making a sound baffle over all of the plumbing to keep it even quieter. i also need to clean up all of the wiring to make it nicer.

i have drilled and will plumb the semi-auto water top off tank by the end of the week.

started on the new kalk reactor also. need to get a small pump to finish it and plumb it.

G~

[tims]

sooooooooo how a bout picture up dates?
how did the paint job come out?
glad youhave salt in there..

[PowerManJ316]

Congrats on the progress Geoff...I am hoping to get SW in mine by the end of next week which is way exciting because I have NEVER had a saltwater tank before.

I got an off-topic question. I noticed you got a much longer tank than mine and still you have no plastic brown separator(s) on your tank. It looks like you added a clear one. I am also interested in removing that ugly brown separator, mainly for illumination reasons. Did you infact remove these brown plastic reinforcements and if possible could you show a pic or two of a closeup of the clear replacement you made?

[Geoff]

yes, you see it correctly. i did remove the plastic center brace on the 125 and replaced it with an acrylic one. i keep thinking i am going to put another light over it, but i just have not needed it yet.

if you want to do it i have a really short paragrapha bout it on my website. it is in red as an update. there are a couple of linked pictures there also that give good closeups to what was done. if you do want to do this. i strongly suggest doing it while the tank is dry. you want the brace to be in its shortest length now so when the water is in it the brace is under tension and holding the tank shape.

let me know if you have more questions.

G~

[Geoff]

it has been quite a while since my last update. not a lot is going on. i think i am in week 4 of the cycling. not to sure it is called cycling since no new LR was used. i only used an ounce of pure ammonia and a couple of lbs of seriously cured LR from Zac. just enough to get the bacteria going. a couple of weeks after that i added some snails, a pep, and a serpent star. all of these came from Zac's tank that he was taking down for is upcoming move back to Minnesota.

All are doing fine, did not expect anything to go wrong since they are such a light bio-load anyway. i have decided to put the old canopy up on the tank for now untill i finish the new hanging one. this should give me a good guage on if i will need a chiller or not, and will also give the snails something to feed on. i only have the lights on for a couple of hours a day for now. just trying to keep the electricity bill down for a bit.



this is a pic of it fully lit and running. with that pillar in the middle it sure looks like i will need to add another MH there. i have an extra 175w ballast laying around so i will prolly slap that in the new canopy. i will wait untill i have the new canopy build to decide on this though. the new canopy will have a much larger reflector, so it might not be as focused on the mounds.



here is a pic of the nearly automatic water change tank. i have it marked off for 5g, 10g, and 15g water changes. i plan on having fill in the middle of the night. when it is full it will automatically heat and stir itself. i will then add salt to taste. when it is done it is just a couple of valves to turn in order to do a water change!! really looking forward to doing that. i still think i will need to some siphoning. prolly a fair amount in the sump. not much is accumulating the tank right now.

if the algae does not start cranking up here in a bit i may just have to try a small frag os something to see if all is really as well as it seems. i figure i will do my first water change a couple of days before i will try this though just to double check that bacterial populations are up to snuff.

G~

[dobejazz]

Very cool Geoff!

[Tim224DT]

Getting there!! looks nice!

Tim

[tims]

looks sweet geoff..
i have a 250 icecap for ya if i can get down that way