The Singapore Green Tank

[jem]

thanks for the fungia man!

its acclimatizing well to my tank

really appreciate you sending it to my block.

nice ride btw..

[AdriftQuasar]

I'm really pleased to see how far this tank has come since it was originally set up. You really have something to be proud of!

[Duncan]

As Diane mentioned, you are quite ingenious with your design and getting everything to fit together nicely. I guess this is why I have never run a tank with a sump....just could not imagine trying to piece everything together. I imagine some day when I set up a larger tank it will be necessary but I am content not to try it now

 

I really like the design of your sump and the refugium with the chaeto and the light looks great.

 

Can't wait to see more pictures of the display as it comes along.

 

Thank you for the huge compliments! Sorry that I missed your post. The plumbing wasn't easy to do, at least to me. I'm really a plumbing noob! So, it was kinda lucky that everything somehow managed to fit. *phew*

 

I'm sure you will be able to do a better job than I did with my tank.

 

thanks for the fungia man!

its acclimatizing well to my tank

really appreciate you sending it to my block.

nice ride btw..

 

Hey, thanks for adopting my fungia! As I'm planning for a high flow tank, there won't a nice place for the fungia. I think with your experience, the fungia is in good hands now.

 

I'm really pleased to see how far this tank has come since it was originally set up. You really have something to be proud of!

 

oh man, thank you very much... *shrugs and beaming like a proud dad*

I will make this tank a success with the sps... *tears welling*

[jem]

the fungia is opening up really nicely now!

 

ill snap a pic of it when my camera skills improve.

 

 

k.i.t bro,

[Mr. Fosi]

Your elbow bubble-killer is the model for the system I am building right now.

 

It is, by far, one of the best splash reducers I have ever seen.

[Duncan]

the fungia is opening up really nicely now!

 

ill snap a pic of it when my camera skills improve.

 

 

k.i.t bro,

 

I'm really glad for you! Not being a nag, but remember to feed it regularly, it loves small chunks of seafood.

 

Your elbow bubble-killer is the model for the system I am building right now.

 

It is, by far, one of the best splash reducers I have ever seen.

 

Oh wow! Thanks for the compliment! By the way, just a small note (which I think you have already realized), do not raise the elbow too high or you will have a mini skimmer.

[disaster999]

i thought i was gonna get an update...boooo

more pics!!!

[Duncan]

After the mini-cycle ended, I have been experimenting the bioload of my tank for the past 2 weeks. As you know, this is a barebottom setup with an oversized skimmer and fuge running at the same time. The nutrient level would be running very low, so low in fact that the corals would start to lose colors, the zooxanthellae. To balance out, people began to add more fishes, a lot more fish than the usual practice. After some time of this heavy feeding and heavy skimming, the corals begin to regain their colors.

 

So, my aim now is to get a managable amount of fishes. More fish, more poo to feed the sps!

 

The subject sps to monitor the bioload is the red encrusting montipora digitata in my old tank picture below. It is sitting on the magnet cleaner, at the extreme right, in front of the sea fan. It's been with me for more than 6-7 months.

 

This monti originally was a superman monti lookalike, bluish purple mat and red polyps. In my high phosphate old tank, it developed a thick mat of brown zooxanthella and instantly turned into a reddish brown monti.

 

For the first few days in the new system (with only 2 clowns), it started losing the thick zooxanthella. Portions of the encrusting mat turned pale and some even turned white! I'm sorry that I don't have a picture to show this.

 

Now, over the past week, I have been adding fishes and turned up my feeding schedule to once a day. This is what I got today:

The mat is slowly regaining the blue tint while some portion still retain the brown. I supposed that it is due to a much thicker density of brown zooxanthella.

 

And the amount of fish in the tank? *cough* nine *cough*

2 clowns

4 longspine cardinals

1 firefish

1 hector's goby

1 blue and gold blenny

 

Nitrate still registers as zero on my API test kit. I won't recommend anyone to such an amount of fish unless he/she is running a bb tank with a huge skimmer.

 

i thought i was gonna get an update...boooo

more pics!!!

 

Thanks for the support, man...! More updates coming!

 

Here's a fts for you!

[j'field]

Nice FTS Duncan By the way, I was impress with the diy you do. Think I can never do anything like that. I sucks at diy.

 

So where in Singapore do you live? I'm living near Mt Faber.

[Duncan]

Thanks, j'field! Well, if I can diy the plumbing, I think everyone can do it.

 

My place is at Jurong West.

[Mr. Fosi]

Your tanks =

 

I decided to incorporate your splash reducer into my new system design. It worked great in the FW test; cut down on noise, bubbles and spashing.

[Duncan]

Your tanks =

 

I decided to incorporate your splash reducer into my new system design. It worked great in the FW test; cut down on noise, bubbles and spashing.

 

Thank you, Mr. Fosi! I'm glad the elbow splash reducer works for you.

 

And finally, I got some fishy pics at last. The nikon coolpix 5700 maybe a great macro photo camera, but it can't take pics of any moving objects. These pictures are taken with the nikon coolpix 3700.

 

New fishy, Hector's goby. He's constantly picking on the rocks for food, pod?

 

 

The blue and gold blenny is the quirkiest fish I ever keep. I think it's a he since he is really cheeky. Sometimes, he would sit inside the outlet of the sleeping seio pump, with just his head poking out. My seio pumps are controlled by the timers, providing alternating flow every 30 minutes. When the pump is turned on, the blenny would scramble to the nearest rock for his dear life!

 

After several blast-offs, I think he learnt his lesson and never wandered near the engine room. lol

 

Here's another picture with the hector's goby.

 

The timid firefish... she only came out when I shut down every pump. Not sure if the flow is too big for her.

 

I got 3 out of 4 cardinals. One of them is too shy for a group photo.

[Duncan]

Guys, I need an id on my new sps, acro staghorn! It got purple tip and brown polyps. It is a rather large frag, about 5 inches tall!

 

I intend to frag it into several smaller pieces and epoxy all over the rockscape. But for now, I will let it settle in the tank first for a month or so before its major operation.

 

With flash, you can see the purple tip and the mighty brown flesh and polyps.

 

Without flash, same angle.

 

Closer look with the flash.

 

And the same angle again.

 

The thickest branch.

 

And again... closer.

 

And a last pic.

 

Thanks for looking!

[Toomin]

this tank is getting better and better!

1)nice selection of fishes

2)wicked staghorn!looking good!

3)may i suggest a fish-yellow wrasse?

4)nice rockscape

[chuckfullservice]

Tank looks awsome ! Well doen and great picks !

"Actually, I am still getting splashes but a lot lesser now with this new design. The splashes come from the airlets, when the water flows out of them. But it is a gentle flow, so it is not big splashing."

May I make a suggestion to fix this . I think adding another 90 degree elbow onto your existing one. Just cut it right above the water line so the splash will be contained inside the pvc . Just a thought!

[Duncan]

this tank is getting better and better!

1)nice selection of fishes

2)wicked staghorn!looking good!

3)may i suggest a fish-yellow wrasse?

4)nice rockscape

 

Thanks, man~ I think I will stick with the current number of fishes. If the sps starts looking paler by the end of month, I might add the yellow wrasse.

 

Tank looks awsome ! Well doen and great picks !

"Actually, I am still getting splashes but a lot lesser now with this new design. The splashes come from the airlets, when the water flows out of them. But it is a gentle flow, so it is not big splashing."

May I make a suggestion to fix this . I think adding another 90 degree elbow onto your existing one. Just cut it right above the water line so the splash will be contained inside the pvc . Just a thought!

 

I tried just now... it didn't work quite well. Somehow, it created more splashes. Weird eh? Thanks for the suggestion. But based on your suggestion, I came up with a new design. hehe!

 

I decided to connect the 2 elbow outlets together and leaves a small gap between them, for airlet. The water that travels up the 1st elbow will exit down through the 2nd elbow.

 

Here's the bridge between the elbows. It is made of a pvc sawed in half, the open top will allow the air to escape. The ring at the end is for a secure fit at one of the elbow.

 

Inserted into the input elbow.

 

And assemble everything back together, with the front elbow facing back to connect with the back elbow. You can see the small airlet gap with the water passage running below it.

 

The first test of the bubble killer v1.1

Okay, it was horrendrous. The water dripping from the gap (bridge) was expected, but huge amount of bubbles began popping at the air gap!

 

But the overall effect was good because it killed more bubbles from the main drain output than the previous design. I think it just need a small tuning. And so I made a pvc splash cover and simply placed it on top of the air gap. Voilà! Perfect! No more splashes!

 

Thanks for the inspiration , chuck!

[Duncan]

After a couple hours of testing the new bubble killer, I found that the splash cover is not adequate for its purpose. Mini splashes burst from both ends of the splash cover. *sigh*

 

It's time to go back to the drawing board. I intend to cover all corners with the new design and thought of using a box shaped splash guard. So I found a plastic container and hacked off the bottom piece. The size is just nice for my new splash guard. To prevent it from sliding off from the bubble killer, I siliconed 2 legs (pvc cut in halves) on the inside.

 

Here it is, pardon the unslightly silicon work...

 

I'm waiting for it to cured at least 12 hours. So meanwhile, I took some tank pics to brighten this boring post.

 

The glow-in-the-dark gsp

 

Courtesy of 1600gph pumping through

 

My orange plate

 

This is the closer I can get before the pic gets blurry.

 

With flash on

 

The fts. I managed to coax the cardinals out by not doing anything to the tank. They are really scared of the 5 fleshy tentacles monster (my hand!).

 

Another angle

 

The whole system, including the sump. I wrapped a screen to my skimmer after the fuge light caused algae to grow inside the skimmer.

 

Thanks for looking! I will add a pic of the new splash guard in action very soon.

[fishtooth]

After a couple hours of testing the new bubble killer, I found that the splash cover is not adequate for its purpose. Mini splashes burst from both ends of the splash cover. *sigh*

 

It's time to go back to the drawing board. I intend to cover all corners with the new design and thought of using a box shaped splash guard. So I found a plastic container and hacked off the bottom piece. The size is just nice for my new splash guard. To prevent it from sliding off from the bubble killer, I siliconed 2 legs (pvc cut in halves) on the inside.

 

Here it is, pardon the unslightly silicon work...

 

I'm waiting for it to cured at least 12 hours. So meanwhile, I took some tank pics to brighten this boring post.

 

The glow-in-the-dark gsp

 

Courtesy of 1600gph pumping through

 

My orange plate

 

This is the closer I can get before the pic gets blurry.

 

With flash on

 

The fts. I managed to coax the cardinals out by not doing anything to the tank. They are really scared of the 5 fleshy tentacles monster (my hand!).

 

Another angle

 

The whole system, including the sump. I wrapped a screen to my skimmer after the fuge light caused algae to grow inside the skimmer.

 

Thanks for looking! I will add a pic of the new splash guard in action very soon.

 

 

Nice tank and great updates to the thread. If you haven't already... to make your stand and what you have down below look more attractive you could put some velcro tape along the top edge of the stand and buy a black piece of cloth and velcro tab the edges of the cloth and just stick it to the top edge of the stand so you have a skirt that covers up the sump and machinery down below. It's easy to remove since it's velcro-ed on. Just an idea so you don't have to look at all the plumbing and wire and lights sitting down below which you don't want anything detracting from the beautiful tank!!

[Lalani]

It keeps looking better and better, Duncan! I bet it is an active tank with all of those fish.

[Duncan]

Nice tank and great updates to the thread. If you haven't already... to make your stand and what you have down below look more attractive you could put some velcro tape along the top edge of the stand and buy a black piece of cloth and velcro tab the edges of the cloth and just stick it to the top edge of the stand so you have a skirt that covers up the sump and machinery down below. It's easy to remove since it's velcro-ed on. Just an idea so you don't have to look at all the plumbing and wire and lights sitting down below which you don't want anything detracting from the beautiful tank!!

 

Thanks for the suggestion and compliments, fishtooth! I prefer to hang my goods out!

I love to see how the skimmer churns out the skimmate, how the water flow from chamber to chamber and stuff like that. I think it is a different kind of beauty and to tell the truth, I stare at the sump more than I look at the display tank. Weird huh... haha...

 

It keeps looking better and better, Duncan! I bet it is an active tank with all of those fish.

 

Thanks, Lalani! Most of them are active except for the cardinals. They seems to be frozen in 1 spot.

[Duncan]

The bubble killer splash guard has done curing and is ready for its big moment.

 

The top view of the bubble killer where the air gap is.

 

This is the disaster that prompts me to make the splash guard. With some modifications, it can turn into a skimmer. Don't you think so?

 

Okay, let's cover it up. The splash guard fits nicely on top of the elbows and the legs ensure that the cover doesn't fall off when it gets too slippery. I left a gap between the legs so that I can see the bubble killing action.

 

And here's the completed bubble killer v1.1 in full view.

 

Front view.

 

Thanks for looking!

[disaster999]

interesting way of tackling splashes. cant wait to v1.2 or v2 =P (you know its gonna happen)

[c est ma]

Aaack, I really missed a lot! Duncan your tank is absolutely splendid! Those fts's should be in a magazine ad! And the rest of your photos as well. I can't believe the incredible shots you get of that orange fungiid! (And it sure looks wonderful in the fts's as well.)

 

Wow, you've discovered the secret to "needing" more fish! How lucky is that? They look very nice in there, esp. that school of cardinals. Loved the blenny & pump acecdote, and that Hector's goby is so gorgeous!

 

I agree with you about liking to view the sump/refugium as well as the tank. And I sure love your plumbing techniques--almost makes me think I could do it. You are so inventive, tho!

 

That was a fascinating story about your "indicator" monti. I'll be looking forward to updates on it.

 

Wow, everything is just spectacular. What a super job!

 

--Diane

[hecsrt-4]

WOW Duncan loving the overhaul. Grea DIY skills

[Mr. Fosi]

The top view of the bubble killer where the air gap is.

 

I like the other design more.

 

 

 

 

Seems to have less skimmer action but still kills the splash.