HiImSean Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Conduit should be plenty strong enough. I've been using 3/4" to hang my AI Sols. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 13, 2014 Author Share Posted February 13, 2014 Almost ready. Got a TLF phosban reactor (gonna run BRS GFO in it), more rock, and extra salt. All I need is to get a small cheap cabinet for the electronics and topoff/2-part containers, bend 1" conduit, and wait for the lights to arrive next week. The aquarium might be wet by this weekend . Quote Link to comment
Roshan8768 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Good start man... looking forward to seeing what you can do with the extra space Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Hm, I have been asked to reconsider the conduit, so I'll see if I can repurpose Tek legs to hold up a 48" sunpower. Hope I can make it work <.<. Quote Link to comment
HiImSean Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 Why to reconsider the conduit? Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 My wife doesn't want any modifications to the wall or ceiling, and she thinks the conduit (even painted) is unsightly. *shrug* there are other avenues to try and a happy wife is a happy life . Quote Link to comment
HiImSean Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 lol Why not try to find a canopy? I prefer the canopy look to an open top look. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Been thinking about building a canopy, but I've never built one before. How hard can it be, though? Only thing is it would need to be a foot+ in height to accommodate the light's hanging requirements. Quote Link to comment
HiImSean Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 Mine are about 8" off the water inside my canopy. I actually mounted using conduit because of the way the canopy was designed. I've been thinking of building a new canopy though because the smaller height of mine makes it hard to access the tank. I want to do a flip up style canopy. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 16, 2014 Author Share Posted February 16, 2014 The aquarium, it is wet... No leaks, looks good. The only thing is, I purposely built the emergency drain of the herbie 2 inches below the lip of the overflow and the water sound crashing down drives me nuts. I may have to take out the standpipe and put in one that is a couple of inches longer. 1 Quote Link to comment
HiImSean Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 You definitely want the emergency as close to the top as possible. I think I ended up cutting 3 pieces of PVC before getting it right. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 After a day of freshwater, it looks like everything's holding together. Mixed salt in, waited for it to clear, then added 40 lbs of sand. I just want a thin layer, but I might want to add a bit more it looks like. I also put in the extra Marco rocks I got, and seeded the sand with a cup of sand from my 35g. I read that additional bacteria will help the particulates settle. I'm tempted to run the skimmer but I'll hold off until I see more settling. I did put in a filter sock to filter out big particles. Very very silty sandy aquarium. Pea soup! Ghetto filter sock hanger. Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 You definitely want the emergency as close to the top as possible. I think I ended up cutting 3 pieces of PVC before getting it right. You're right. I actually cut another pipe so it only drops 1/4". Very quiet now. I did a full blockage test as well (shut off the main siphon) and while it is godawful noisy, the emergency handles the full flow of the return no problem. One thing no one has told me though is that the main siphon makes an awful racket while it restarts siphon . Sounds like a toilet flushing. Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 Have to say though, the herbie design is impressive. I think my gate valve is a bit less than 3/4 of the way closed and it still handles an Eheim 1260 wide open no problem. Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 After another bag of fiji pink, a couple of cups of sand from the 35g, and MB7, it is now clear. Or clear-ish. Now to figure out how my old aquascape fits in the new tank... Quote Link to comment
jndragon Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Been following. Let us know if you decide to build a canopy for your lights. I've been contemplating adding some T5 supplements to my Rapid LED Onyx systems to get that extra oomph of spectrum for my corals. Curious as to why you didn't decided to paint the back black to hide the plumbing? 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 Been following. Let us know if you decide to build a canopy for your lights. I've been contemplating adding some T5 supplements to my Rapid LED Onyx systems to get that extra oomph of spectrum for my corals. Curious as to why you didn't decided to paint the back black to hide the plumbing? We'll see if I do. First I'll have to try the Tek legs first. As to why I didn't paint the back... it's because my original tank didn't have it painted black either . I had a black aquarium background taped to the back. I'll eventually get around to doing that, but for now, it's background-less. Hey, who knows, maybe my virulent strain of coralline will make the point moot in a couple of months. Quote Link to comment
jndragon Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 One could only hope for the epic full background of coraline algae. I will never see it as my little pencil urchin does a heck of a job finding it in my tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 The light, it is here! I did a test by putting it on the trim of the tank (barely fits on it without falling through). Goddamn this light is freakin' bright. Photos do NOT do this light justice. By my eye it's at least twice (if not three) times as bright as my puny 4x39w Coralife. Which sorta makes sense, considering it consumes twice the wattage . 2 Quote Link to comment
NanoTopia Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 The light, it is here! I did a test by putting it on the trim of the tank (barely fits on it without falling through). Goddamn this light is freakin' bright. Photos do NOT do this light justice. By my eye it's at least twice (if not three) times as bright as my puny 4x39w Coralife. Which sorta makes sense, considering it consumes twice the wattage . Worth the wait ? 1 Quote Link to comment
Curry02 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Nice progress! Always wanted an upgrade to a 90g when I moved but might end up sticking with my 30. Looking forward to the updates! 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 Worth the wait ? Still a little annoying, but worth the wait. The Reefsupplies guys were kind enough to package an extra bulb for the trouble. 1 Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 So, I was really thinking about putting legs on the Sunpower, and came to the conclusion that my best bet was to craft the legs myself. I had an idea to make I-beams out of acrylic, but I figured that a rectangle (or close to it) would be more stable and be more resistant to torsion. I called up the local acrylic place (shout out to Industrial Plastics and Paint - same place I went to for scrap acrylic) and had them precut pieces for me. They're really great that even for small orders they would precut (with very clean cuts!) and are awesome to deal with. I chatted up the guy there and he advised me to forget about Weld On 16 (which I was planning to use and already had on the counter) and use methylene chloride. Seems like it's the same consistency as Weld On 3 but have been used for ages to weld acrylic, and is cheaper. He said for the size of acrylic I was working with, it's the easiest to use. So, I have my acrylic, 6x 1/8"x18.5"x6" and 6x 1/8"x18.5"x3": And will form them into an almost-rectangle, more like a fat I-beam, like so: ---------- | | | | | | ---------- Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of me working the acrylic, I had to do it outside as a precaution against fumes. It's freakin' cold out there! I had to do it by hand, so my angles were not perfectly 90 degrees, but the I-beams seemed to hold up quite well: Within 4 hours I felt confident enough to do this: I took them off and let it cure a bit more overnight, but it's already plenty strong and stable. I ran the lights for an hour last night and there seemed to be no problems leaving them under the hot T5s. If it's anything like the spec for Weld on 3, it would be 80% strength by 24 hours and will keep getting stronger for a few days. So, lights are good, which was the last piece I need. I need to break in the Tunze 9410 skimmer still, as the outflow pipe just creates a waterfall sound inside the sump, but otherwise everything is ready. I've measured it and it seems like water parameters match my 35g. As a test, I've dropped one trochus from the 35 to the 90 and it seems to be none the worse for wear... I might transfer inhabitants tonight . Quote Link to comment
Walker Posted February 21, 2014 Author Share Posted February 21, 2014 Moving day! A quick comparison shot of fully running lights - 4x39w Coralife vs 6x54w ATI. No comparison. Also a nice scale shot of the two aquariums. Swan song shot of the 35g. It was my entry into the reef tank hobby, and I'm still amazed at how much I've learned since I started two years ago. 2 Quote Link to comment
tran Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 good size nano tank. great progress 1 Quote Link to comment
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