Sandcruiser Pico Evolved

[sandcruiser]

Too late tonight to add photos... sorry

but I got a little bit frustrated with my heater yesterday, it takes up too much room in my 3g Eclipse

 

so... a quick trip to the hardware store and...

 

the eclipse now has a 3/4" bulkhead that overflows to a 5g bucket.

 

Instant "8" gallon system!

 

Return is a wimpy little 3.5watt pump. I'd guess that it would be lucky to push 50gph. But the heater is now in the bucket, as is some of the LR.

 

It opens up my 'scape a lot, which I like.

 

It also doubles the surface area of the system, more O2 is good.

 

And it offers me some space to do an ATO and some other mods. Eventually I hope to run a DIY refugium and upgrade the return pump to get a little more oomph.

 

My goby and shrimp are *pissed*. I drilled the tank 1/2 empty with them in it. I suppose that was noisy. The hermit and snails don't seem to care.

 

Future plans: bubble trap for the bucket (I'm thinking of some pvc pipe into which the hose drains, then overflows. the heater will live in there, vertical and out of harm's way)

 

maybe some light on the bucket for macro

 

certainly some more LR rubble. Why not?

 

Need a strainer for the intake as well.

 

Oh, nearly forgot, my question:

 

for a 3gallon display, is it enough to have an aquaclear mini HOB and another 30-50gph flowing into the tank? Rule of thumb is what, 15-20x? the mini should be moving about 100gph. the return moves a little bit. the intake effectively moves a little bit more. Seems like I've got around 150gph.

 

Thoughts?

 

I plan to keep softies and LPS. Maybe some maxi-mini nems.

[sandcruiser]

I did sorta screw up, by the way:

 

my 3/4" bulkhead is about as close to the top as it can be. Even with a temp strainer in front of it, my water level is waaaaayyy too low now

 

I need to add an elbow to get the strainer up higher. But I put the bulkhead pretty close to the side of the tank, so adding an elbow may prove to be a challenge. Lesson learned: put bulkhead as high as possible, but placing it towards the center a little bit will allow more latitude for future plumping. Grrr.

 

Worse case: I just need to pull the bulkhead, add the elbow, then reinstall the bulkhead. Not the end of the world.

[kamikaze_fish]

I'd love to see pics of how you have this set up. Is the bucket right beside it or something or concealed?

[sandcruiser]

the bucket is just sitting next to the tank, below the level of my desk. When I'm seated, I don't really see it. I may, eventually, add something to clean it all up. For the time being, I'm just waiting to make sure that it all works.

 

*something* that I did last night PIIIIIIIISSED off my xenia. it looks terrible today. like a deflated balloon.

 

it could be any number of different things from adding more LS to maybe the bucket wasn't as clean as I thought (it had salt water sitting in it for a week, and some LS in the bottom. I rinsed w/ tap and splashed it down w/ distilled.... but I suppose it could have had something leftover). Or maybe there is something on the bulkhead or vinyl hose, or fittings.... or maybe the dead coral head that I added (that was "clean") isn't as clean as I thought it was. Or maybe just stirring up the sand and rocks released some detritus, or or or or so many choices.

 

In any event, the xenia is sad-looking. My acan isn't very open (but it was added yesterday, so I'm not too surprised). My goby seems mildly stressed, but was out swimming and eating. My shrimp is ok. My snails.... dude, they're snails, they seem fine. My hermit is a trooper.

 

Time will tell.

 

I'm off to the LFS to grab some poly filter or chemipure just in case the pvc or coral are leaching something.

 

Will snap photo(s) of the setup later.

 

One hot tip: 3/4" pvc in a 3gal tank looks ..... MASSIVE. I wish I had gone with 1/2" bulkhead. It would have worked fine and would be less ugly.

[sandcruiser]

pics still to come. must go celebrate beginning of labor day, first. Such is life.

 

but...

my tank is still pissed.

 

pH was low yesterday- 8.0. I did a gallon water change, will test again tomorrow.

salinity is a tad high-- 1.027

so I added a bit of ro/di and marked the new height. I'll test again later and maybe change out another gallon of water w/ some lower salinity h2o. the natural sea water I bought in San Carlos seems right on at 1.026, but I'm going to slightly dilute it when I do a water change, to get the tank salinity down a tad.

 

Still.... 1.027 shouldn't IMO be that stressful to my xenia, which still looks melted.

 

I did swap out my t5 6w "daylight" with a 10,000K. that is making everything (even the wilted xenia) look much nicer!

 

fwiw: my acan still looks pinched, but less than yesterday. My 2 'shrooms both look ok, but neither looks great.

 

I added polyfilter yesterday, it hasn't changed color.... don't know if it is doing much.

also added a small bag of carbon. when it doubt, filter it out. Right?

 

I'm confused as to what is going on. I may do a larger water change, in case there is some type of pollutant involved.

[sandcruiser]

I pulled the bit of coral (dead) out that had suspected of being in some way contaminated. The xenon is still looking very rough. I have doubts about it's survival, which makes me feel bad for whatever I must have done wrong.

Having said that, everyone else is perking right up. I just came down to see the can open and "hungry" so i fed some- the goby is out and about grubbing on leftovers, despite only having moonlights. The shrimp looks active as well.

 

I do have one snail that is still moving very little.

 

In the end I think that the problem was probably adding so much extra water all at once. I doubled the volume in about an hour, which probably meant a pretty rough pH and salinity and maybe even temp shock to the system. Lesson: take it slow or suffer.

 

Pics to come when the tank lights come on.

[sandcruiser]

here are some shots of the sump addition

 

the overflow isn't pretty. but it works reasonably well and (so far) has kept snails and crabs out. Good enough for the time being.

 

I did a modified durso (I think "durso" is right)... essentially I used a screw-in plug instead of a drilled cap. I can unscrew it slightly to allow more air or tighten it to eliminate air, which alters the pitch and gurgle of the overflow. I think it would work even better if you cut down the threads a little bit such that you've got more control. As it stands now, it is difficult to have some-but-not-all flow of air. ie: it is too easy to go from air passing to zero air, but hard to be in the middle.

 

I've also included some shots of the modifcation that I did to my ACmini (AC20). Basically: I didn't like how much flow went forward and blasted sand. So I re-used some plastic packaging. Cut a small rectangle and hot-glued it to the ACmini overflow to divert some current towards the rest of the tank. It works really well. Now there is less sandstorm and also more flow in previously slow parts. Took longer to let the heat gun warm up than to do the rest of the modification. Easy to reverse by cutting it out w/ a razor.

 

 

more pics