Tank Journal Archive
Synodontis dropped off my new frag tank Friday morning - 900x300x300mm built out of 6mm glass. No bracing.
Friday night I messed around with bulkheads, which I ultimately had to shorten and install in reverse to fit into the small overflow box. The black mesh that was around the overflox box managed to get ripped out in the process.
Put black contact on back of tank, which managed to take an inordinate amount of time, and isn't perfect but it beats looking at the pipe behind it.
This morning (started at 5): worked on plumbing to get it across to my sump (it's to the left in a cupboard). After a fair bit of rooting around, and removing the tank more than once to get the bulkheads to reseal an elbow, I managed to get it mostly functional. Then spent some time loading the sand, making the shelving (the top shelf is just sitting there, which is why it's crooked), finding small enough bits of live rock out of the sump, then finally getting it wet.
The overflow box is a bit too high for my liking - when I first turned on the 1000/l return, the overflow pipes couldn't keep up. Initially I had intended to have a main pipe and an emergency. The lack of height doesn't leave enough room for an emergency to have time to do much, so I decided to change things around so both pipes can share the load.
The pipes needed some modification (they are running horizontally before they drop and one bend was up too high). I then shoved a hansen ball valve into the return piping to slow the flow down a bit.
After some tinkering, and blocking each of the overflow pipes for a few minutes, I finally convinced myself that each pipe could survive if one is blocked. The return pipe on the right is a fair way down - further than I'd like, however if the pump is turned on, it tends to bubble and fart a fair bit, and if I didn't have it down that far, it blows water all over the walls around it. My sump should be big enough to cope if the power cuts and it syphons back at the same time as the DT. Haven't tested this yet, but I know I can fit over 50l extra in there, so it should be fine.
Other points worth mentioning: this is sitting under my cichlid tank. The lights are attached to its base, and as can be seen in the photo, the drivers are up near the light - I really have no where else to fit them, but they're out of the way up there. You may make out a fan to the right of the light. When I tested the lights up there, the heatsink was too hot too touch when running at 100%. I rigged an old PC power supply fan up to hang next to it, and found that at the other end of the heatsink I was getting a 10C drop in temp - enough to make it comfortable to grab hold of again. I attached the fan to an old computer I/O slot cover, screwed it up there, and wired the fan to the power supply that also drives the RapidLED controller that is currently running the lights.
Live rock - I wanted to throw in some live rock so the tank could be used stand alone if I need to. It's out of the way, and most of those pieces are long thin bits that I might like to grow things on one day. I may at some point put a heater in this tank as well.
Next: get some more flow in the tank (probably a couple of smaller cheapo little power heads at this stage), and bring on the Vic LFS crawl. I need to stock this puppy up.
Friday night I messed around with bulkheads, which I ultimately had to shorten and install in reverse to fit into the small overflow box. The black mesh that was around the overflox box managed to get ripped out in the process.
Put black contact on back of tank, which managed to take an inordinate amount of time, and isn't perfect but it beats looking at the pipe behind it.
This morning (started at 5): worked on plumbing to get it across to my sump (it's to the left in a cupboard). After a fair bit of rooting around, and removing the tank more than once to get the bulkheads to reseal an elbow, I managed to get it mostly functional. Then spent some time loading the sand, making the shelving (the top shelf is just sitting there, which is why it's crooked), finding small enough bits of live rock out of the sump, then finally getting it wet.
The overflow box is a bit too high for my liking - when I first turned on the 1000/l return, the overflow pipes couldn't keep up. Initially I had intended to have a main pipe and an emergency. The lack of height doesn't leave enough room for an emergency to have time to do much, so I decided to change things around so both pipes can share the load.
The pipes needed some modification (they are running horizontally before they drop and one bend was up too high). I then shoved a hansen ball valve into the return piping to slow the flow down a bit.
After some tinkering, and blocking each of the overflow pipes for a few minutes, I finally convinced myself that each pipe could survive if one is blocked. The return pipe on the right is a fair way down - further than I'd like, however if the pump is turned on, it tends to bubble and fart a fair bit, and if I didn't have it down that far, it blows water all over the walls around it. My sump should be big enough to cope if the power cuts and it syphons back at the same time as the DT. Haven't tested this yet, but I know I can fit over 50l extra in there, so it should be fine.
Other points worth mentioning: this is sitting under my cichlid tank. The lights are attached to its base, and as can be seen in the photo, the drivers are up near the light - I really have no where else to fit them, but they're out of the way up there. You may make out a fan to the right of the light. When I tested the lights up there, the heatsink was too hot too touch when running at 100%. I rigged an old PC power supply fan up to hang next to it, and found that at the other end of the heatsink I was getting a 10C drop in temp - enough to make it comfortable to grab hold of again. I attached the fan to an old computer I/O slot cover, screwed it up there, and wired the fan to the power supply that also drives the RapidLED controller that is currently running the lights.
Live rock - I wanted to throw in some live rock so the tank could be used stand alone if I need to. It's out of the way, and most of those pieces are long thin bits that I might like to grow things on one day. I may at some point put a heater in this tank as well.
Next: get some more flow in the tank (probably a couple of smaller cheapo little power heads at this stage), and bring on the Vic LFS crawl. I need to stock this puppy up.
Running it off the main tank was going to be a must - didn't want to duplicate too much hardware, and I didn't want to run another skimmerless tank, and have another set of water changes, etc.
Luckily the main tank's cabinet had an open section left open for cables + ATO water pipe feed in, so I was able to use those. Unfortunately the heights dictated what height I needed the bulkheads on the frag tank, which is why it's a little less than ideal.
What's going to be interesting is to see how much more it'll impact evaporation - I've been going through 40l or so a week, so I'll be curious to see if this number increases much.
A week in, and the algae is starting to get a showing in the frag tank- just brown powdery looking stuff. I've wound the lights back as I suspect they're just a little too much - like I forgot that they were at 100% lol.
Re-balanced the colouring a bit too to give the blues a bit of an edge to help get the colours to pop. A little dark in there right now, but until the algae settles, I might just go with it.
Made a few mods last night to increase the flow back to the sump. Can't be doing too badly for flow back to the sump though, the frag tank doesn't have it's own heater, and it's maintaining the system temperature in a room that's about 6 or 7 degrees cooler.
Tomorrow during the water change, I'm going to rip out one of the wavemakers from the DT and stick it in the frag tank and see what happens.
Re-balanced the colouring a bit too to give the blues a bit of an edge to help get the colours to pop. A little dark in there right now, but until the algae settles, I might just go with it.
Made a few mods last night to increase the flow back to the sump. Can't be doing too badly for flow back to the sump though, the frag tank doesn't have it's own heater, and it's maintaining the system temperature in a room that's about 6 or 7 degrees cooler.
Tomorrow during the water change, I'm going to rip out one of the wavemakers from the DT and stick it in the frag tank and see what happens.
The morning after the night before.... lol
Spent an absolute fortune on coral, and came home with 2 1/2 boxes full. Some were in cheapo tanks that will require some TLC, and others were just random buys.
I'll need to do two sets of photos, as the stuff in the DT is still sitting in the dark until this arvo, and rooting around with the Typhon to turn the lights on early is too much effort lol.
Some of this stuff I had already, a lot of it is new...
Spent an absolute fortune on coral, and came home with 2 1/2 boxes full. Some were in cheapo tanks that will require some TLC, and others were just random buys.
I'll need to do two sets of photos, as the stuff in the DT is still sitting in the dark until this arvo, and rooting around with the Typhon to turn the lights on early is too much effort lol.
Some of this stuff I had already, a lot of it is new...
Tempting.
I bought that rock ultimately to split it up for instant colonies for each of the different zoas - that was kinda the justification for spending that much on a single piece. It's kinda too awesome to really do that, but alas, I will wind up doing it- that's an awfully large bit of rock to cleanly get a few of those really, really small polyps off.
I'm not rushing at it just yet - space is an issue just at the moment, but once I free up some, sadly for that rock, I need to make a mess of it.
It's going to be awkward too - there are polyps on both sides of that rock.
If I wasn't going down the path of trying to establish specific colour colonies, I'd be making room in the DT, but I need to stay the course.
There are some great colours in a couple of the small mixed rocks I got as well. One of those turned into about 10 frags. I've fragged those already, though I'm holding on them just at the moment, as they're kinda mixed.. the polyps are still really small and bloody hard to differentiate out of the tank, so once they get a bit bigger on small tiles I should be able to split the colours and re-sort them later.
Once they're established, that vertical piece of rock left of the hammer may wind up with tiles of each colour stuck over it so I can make a mixed zoa feature out of it.
Long overdue update (without pics.. sorry).
Tis the time of year where I need to leave the tank in the capable hands of a non-reefer to come by every couple of days to throw in a little food, top up the ATO containers and feed my cat while I venture off to Mt Panorama. Another week before I leave so still time to finish getting organised.
- Doubled the ATO holding tank volume from 25 to 50litres (last time I did this a float valve failed).
- Bought an IP based web cam with IR so I can see the tank in the dark over the internet.
- Just had the IBC filled for the 3rd time since I got it in December.
- Decided I needed more space next to the sump. All of the LED drivers are all on a board in the cupboard under the DT, so I decided to change the layout slightly, swing the board around so all the electronics are out of the way, and managed to salvage an extra 3 inches of space beside of the sump. 3 inches that will let me fit 3l containers of randy's home brew neatly. Amazing what a 10 minute change does for reclaiming space.
Sump is a bit of a mess. Have a filter sock coming sometime this week. Only going to put it on the pipe from the DT, but won't do that until I return from Bathurst. Not a big fan of big changes before I leave the house for a week. I used some filter wool for a while when the tank was first started, but stopped after I needed to change it every 2 days to avoid slowing the flowrate.
Working on sorting out a dosing pump soon to get my calc and alk a little more stable. Might even look at a chiller once we get to summer; it won't get much use here, but it will give me some piece of mind if I go away for a few days and it does get hot. Will need to think about that more when I have the money for it :p
Not much else to say really. I have frags overflowing from the frag tank into the DT - at least all the one and two polyp ones that will take a while to grow out. Made a 3 foot long, one tile wide holder out of egg crate and a magnet and attached that to the back wall of the DT. Probably looks a little too DIY, but the utility of it is far more useful than the aesthetic of it at the moment.
I have a stack of fragging I need to do still, but that will need to wait a few weeks I think. :D
Tis the time of year where I need to leave the tank in the capable hands of a non-reefer to come by every couple of days to throw in a little food, top up the ATO containers and feed my cat while I venture off to Mt Panorama. Another week before I leave so still time to finish getting organised.
- Doubled the ATO holding tank volume from 25 to 50litres (last time I did this a float valve failed).
- Bought an IP based web cam with IR so I can see the tank in the dark over the internet.
- Just had the IBC filled for the 3rd time since I got it in December.
- Decided I needed more space next to the sump. All of the LED drivers are all on a board in the cupboard under the DT, so I decided to change the layout slightly, swing the board around so all the electronics are out of the way, and managed to salvage an extra 3 inches of space beside of the sump. 3 inches that will let me fit 3l containers of randy's home brew neatly. Amazing what a 10 minute change does for reclaiming space.
Sump is a bit of a mess. Have a filter sock coming sometime this week. Only going to put it on the pipe from the DT, but won't do that until I return from Bathurst. Not a big fan of big changes before I leave the house for a week. I used some filter wool for a while when the tank was first started, but stopped after I needed to change it every 2 days to avoid slowing the flowrate.
Working on sorting out a dosing pump soon to get my calc and alk a little more stable. Might even look at a chiller once we get to summer; it won't get much use here, but it will give me some piece of mind if I go away for a few days and it does get hot. Will need to think about that more when I have the money for it :p
Not much else to say really. I have frags overflowing from the frag tank into the DT - at least all the one and two polyp ones that will take a while to grow out. Made a 3 foot long, one tile wide holder out of egg crate and a magnet and attached that to the back wall of the DT. Probably looks a little too DIY, but the utility of it is far more useful than the aesthetic of it at the moment.
I have a stack of fragging I need to do still, but that will need to wait a few weeks I think. :D
Need an update before it all comes down DavidS ! :)
:confused: Some more info required - are you moving DavidS??
I am indeed. Less space, but upgrading to a concrete floor -one that's hopefully a little more level. The poor frag tank is gonna have to suffer without being hooked into the DT/sump for a few weeks - I need to sort out a new cabinet for it, so until then, it's gonna be running a little low tech. :(
Frigging typical, I just get things going, was about ready to get a dosing pump, and I then need to move lol.
Thank you. I believe we're both suffering with the same process?
Members online
No members online now.