Tank Journal: Miracles 144

It works!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsjkx5rGIcQ

Just one small leak. Bummer. Working on a fix.

 

The leak was on this plenum, right in the middle on one of the tee joints



So what I did was take the plenum off (which I hope I never have to do again) and then cut a piece of spa flex so that it wraps around the pipe and fits tight to the tee. Then I primed it so it was good & soft and smeared on a thick coat of PVC cement to both pieces, put the patch in place, and held it in place with a couple of zip-ties.



I let it sit and cure for about an hour, at which time the joint between the patch and the tee was still pretty soft, but I opened all the valves so that no water was flowing past the tee and fired it up. It held, and 2 days later I cranked the valves closed and put everything under pressure and it's been fine for a couple of days now.

The sump flow is still mad. On Thursday it evaporated 3 gallons. Today I only had to add 1 gallon. Weird.

 

Well I'm wondering if it would have been better to have 1/2 as many jets and have higher flow going through them. However, with the pump valved back, it is a little deceiving. Once I get the rock and corals in (TOMORROW!!) and then add a splash shield above the intake chamber (will be part of the algae scrubber) then I can crank the flow all the way up and play with the valves. I still have confidence that it will be super awesome.

 

The move has begun!

Temp "Frag" tank. Wife said "those don't really look like frags









Ready to tear out all the base rock and pluck all the Xenia and Anthelia.

 

10am - 11pm. WHEW! Thanks for Nik for helping!!

90% of rock in on trip #1



all rock in, fish in on trip #2









Sump



a little salt creep

 

fishies

 

Alive...

 

Weird video of a bristleworm spazzing out. He got sucked through the pump and shredded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOBVt2-2qKA

Rocks and sand in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff0q1kh5nrw

Fish in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgfW9_iI8zA

 

I stopped in tonight to install a screen on the weir and found the peppermint shrimp in the sump. Luckily I had screening up in the sump to keep him from the pump!

Did a power-off to install the screen. Miracles included a black acrylic insert for the overflow box, which had slots and kind of defeated the purpose of the weir, so I cut out the slots and used Weld-on 16 (it has a purpose) and bonded some 1/4" nylon screening to it (usually used to make tank tops). Worked out pretty good.

I mounted the power strip for the lights and ran the wiring so I could close up the cabinets.

The sand bed has been rearranged. Apparently the Engineer Goby has decided that a 10" mound of sand, right in the middle, is a much better layout. Had to run before I could take a pic, so I'll have to get one tomorrow!

Tank temp is set at 76, the JBJ True Temp system does a 2 degree range so it drops to 75 then turns on until 77. Every time I've been in there it has been in that range so high temp is not an issue so far, but it never was in the winter before. So far it seems the glass tank does not hold the heat as well as the acrylic tank (to be expected). The old system had some bad high heat issues what with a closed upper cabinet area with trapped heat from the light, 3 power heads, and a submersible pump. Now just an external pump and open cabinet, we'll see how it goes.

Flow seems to be pretty good even with the pump cracked back. I have some mad plans for keeping the sump spray down with the pump on full, but didn't get time to install them.

Will be bringing in the rest of the top-corals this week, and installing the scrubber ASAP.

Fed the fish, they ate, a little skittish but OK otherwise. Tomorrow is the intro for the office and I'll be stopping in to get praise from everyone LOL!

 

This morning I added about 1/2 of the 'removable' corals and snapped a few pics

 

The clowns hang out in the corner. I think the need a home (anemone)



Lighting hanging system



Overflow box. I added the black acrylic insert yesterday (as previously mentioned) and also stuck in a piece of plastic canvas, the untold wonder aquarium product. In this instance, it prevents the wall of water coming into the overflow box from causing bubbles that get sucked into the siphon (which get decimated into microbubbles). This because a little more of an issue when I cranked up the flow today.





And yet again, another use for the plastic canvas. In this case, when I really opened up the flow on the pump originally, there was so much turbulence in the sump that water was splashing up onto the wall (little drops, but enough of them to be a problem eventually!). I took a big piece (13.5 x 26 I think) of the #7 mesh plastic canvas and cut it to fit through the baffle compartment, then made cuts on the end so that it stuck in between the drain pipes. This serves several purposes - it blocks splashing by 'calming' the top of the water down, catches microbubbles and allow them to pop without a little drop of water going up and landing wherever (decreases salt creep)

 

Added almost all the rest of the corals yesterday. Pics turned out much better just after lights-out

 

I made some light-blocking mods to the scrubber. These pics are a little hard to see. Black acrylic tends to suck up the flash.










removable covers for the lights



Previously I used a male/female threaded fitting with o-rings and connected a pipe to it to form the 'drain' but it was rather loud. so I siliconed in some 1" PVC instead





Then I will secure this to the bottom of the box



Which allows for an air break between the box drains and this drain, meaning no noise. the reason for the PVC parts siliconed in is to prevent water from creeping along the bottom of the box

Here is with the side covers on



Then I field-fitted a leg and brought it back to shore it up so it wasn't wobbly (this thing weighs upwards of 15 pounds without water in it)



I cut a new slot tube on the table saw and field-fitting everything for that also, so now it's ready to be fired up!

 

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUkLYIDAbco

 

Auto top off system from Autotopoff.com



made a couple mods