3 Foot Long Nano

[Captain Nemo]

Scorched,

 

I bought those screens off Amazon. How do you make them stay on the bulkhead? They don't snap on or screw on. Glue?

[Scorched]

They just press on and hold snug if you have the JT bulkheads. No glue or snaps necessary.

[Garifuna]

Scorched,

 

I love your tank and it's been an inspiration for a build that I am doing now except its a planted tank, BUT I ran into a problem. I am using the QuietOne 1200 pump and the overflows are SUPER loud. It is gurgling very loudly, do you have any ideas on how to fix it? The set up is exactly the same as yours except for the pump. I tried reading through the thread but didn't see anything about my problem. Any help would be great!!

[Scorched]

Scorched,

 

I love your tank and it's been an inspiration for a build that I am doing now except its a planted tank, BUT I ran into a problem. I am using the QuietOne 1200 pump and the overflows are SUPER loud. It is gurgling very loudly, do you have any ideas on how to fix it? The set up is exactly the same as yours except for the pump. I tried reading through the thread but didn't see anything about my problem. Any help would be great!!

 

Lets see,

 

Really check the water level as it enters the bulkheads. If its too high it will cause a gurgle sound as air is getting trapped. This can be solved by adding a valve to the pump or dialing it back if you can do it with the pump and slightly lowering the water level in the display. Dropping the water level too low looks bad so there is a balance you need to find. If you want to keep the water absolutely as high as possible add a Tee fitting instead of an elbow on the outside of the bulkhead. With the small section that is pointing up add a cap with a small hole in it. This allows air to enter the pipe and the water wont gurgle. You can get fancy with this method by adding a little airline valve to dial in exactly the amount of water let into the pipe.

 

 

Another source of noise can be how the water is exiting the pipe in the sump. My pipes all end ABOVE the water in the sump and go into a filter sock stuffed with filter floss. This heavily dampens the sound of water exiting and causes the water to fill more of the pipe.

 

Are you using 2 overflows? Is there more sound coming from one but not the other? Are there any sharp corners in the pipe layout or sections where the water is flowing horizontal and could trap air?

[smeagol108]

Scorched, love the tank. What fishies live in there now?

 

also, I see you run biopellets but no skimmer. I though you had to run a skimmer to use pellets? Was I wrong? Whagts your maintenance routine like if you don't mind me asking.

[Scorched]

Scorched, love the tank. What fishies live in there now?

 

also, I see you run biopellets but no skimmer. I though you had to run a skimmer to use pellets? Was I wrong? Whagts your maintenance routine like if you don't mind me asking.

 

Right now its a Venustus Angelfish, Midas Blenny, Royal Gramma, Sunburst Anthias, and Clownfish. There is also a Porcelain crab, and Blood Shrimp for inverts.

 

Yep I have never had a skimmer and still run biopellets. The main goal of that setup is to remove the waste product of the pellets as it dissolves. My second chamber of carbon does a pretty good job of catching a lot of that, and the remainder that does get through settles at the bottom of my sump and gets cleaned out every few months. Id imagine a lot of good bacteria is almost removed when skimming.

 

Right now its about every other week I change 5 gallons of water and replace the carbon. I siphon the sandbed with each water change. Every month I break up the biopellets if they are starting to clump together. Every 6 months - 1 Year I take everything apart and clean the sump, pumps, filters etc.

[Garifuna]

Awesome suggestions! I am going to try all those ideas when I get home. The only other difference in my set up is that I have it hard plumbed all the way through.

I have a 90 out of the bulkhead and pipe going into the stand then a 90 and it goes horizontal until it is right over the sump then another 90 into the sump. That is one side, the other drain does the same except for it has 2 45's instead of 2 90's .

[Garifuna]

 

Lets see,

 

Really check the water level as it enters the bulkheads. If its too high it will cause a gurgle sound as air is getting trapped. This can be solved by adding a valve to the pump or dialing it back if you can do it with the pump and slightly lowering the water level in the display. Dropping the water level too low looks bad so there is a balance you need to find. If you want to keep the water absolutely as high as possible add a Tee fitting instead of an elbow on the outside of the bulkhead. With the small section that is pointing up add a cap with a small hole in it. This allows air to enter the pipe and the water wont gurgle. You can get fancy with this method by adding a little airline valve to dial in exactly the amount of water let into the pipe.

 

 

Another source of noise can be how the water is exiting the pipe in the sump. My pipes all end ABOVE the water in the sump and go into a filter sock stuffed with filter floss. This heavily dampens the sound of water exiting and causes the water to fill more of the pipe.

 

Are you using 2 overflows? Is there more sound coming from one but not the other? Are there any sharp corners in the pipe layout or sections where the water is flowing horizontal and could trap air?

 

Ok, so I tried drilling the holes just on top of the 90 but it didn't work. The water only comes up to about half way on the drains, does this matter? Will using the T with a cap make anything different?

 

This is literally the only thing holding me back from starting the tank and it is sort of frustrating haha.

[KnH]

This is what I am doing, Dead silent, gate valve

 

http://www.mysaltyreef.com/forum/showthread.php/13131-Slim-overflow-question

[Garifuna]

This is what I am doing, Dead silent, gate valve

 

http://www.mysaltyreef.com/forum/showthread.php/13131-Slim-overflow-question

Ok, so I should put a ball or gate valve on one of the overflows and tune it to raise the water level?

[Scorched]

Do you have the screens? Does the water only go that high with your pump running at full speed?

[Garifuna]

Do you have the screens? Does the water only go that high with your pump running at full speed?

I haven't gotten the screens yet and since it is a planted tank I went with a smaller pump since I don't need super high flow. (I was originally going to build a reef tank, hence the large drains, but decided to go planted first)

 

The water level you see is with the pump at full speed.

[rickztahone]

I haven't gotten the screens yet and since it is a planted tank I went with a smaller pump since I don't need super high flow. (I was originally going to build a reef tank, hence the large drains, but decided to go planted first)

 

The water level you see is with the pump at full speed.

I think the reason scorched is asking is because the pump needs to be strong enough to pump enough water to actually raise the water level. However, you can also close down the gate valve a little on it pretty much getting the same effect.

[Scorched]

I haven't gotten the screens yet and since it is a planted tank I went with a smaller pump since I don't need super high flow. (I was originally going to build a reef tank, hence the large drains, but decided to go planted first)

 

The water level you see is with the pump at full speed.

 

 

I think the reason scorched is asking is because the pump needs to be strong enough to pump enough water to actually raise the water level. However, you can also close down the gate valve a little on it pretty much getting the same effect.

 

Yep with a higher power pump the water will stay elevated as the drains are trying harder to match the amount of water being pushed up. The screens also elevate the water even higher as they have slots that is restricting some water flow, plus they are designed to sit slightly away from the flange of the bulkhead allowing water to enter from a larger surface area.

 

If you have a valve on the drains you can match the gph flow of the pump and raise the water level. I personally don't like restricting the draining speed though.

 

With your current setup you should have a lot of air entering the pipe so it shouldn't be gurgling. Is the waterfall sound just too loud? If both drains are completely submerged they will form siphons and be quiet but thats very dangerous as there isn't a backup drain. On mine there is a tiny amount of air getting into the top of both bulkhead screens.

[Garifuna]

The sound is like water hitting the pipe walls going all the way down. It is very loud. BUT, I think I found a solution.

 

I put an elbow on one of the drains and that rose the water level enough to quite the one drain while the other doesn't drain at all.

 

I will restrict flow to the one drain to make it silent and leave the elbow on the other as an emergency drain in the event the other gets clogged. Does this sound like a good idea?

Btw, I do think the problem is with the flow. If I knew I was going with a planted tank I would have gone with smaller drains.

[rainbowreef]

This tank looks awesome !!! I love shallow tanks...

[Scorched]

The sound is like water hitting the pipe walls going all the way down. It is very loud. BUT, I think I found a solution.

 

I put an elbow on one of the drains and that rose the water level enough to quite the one drain while the other doesn't drain at all.

 

I will restrict flow to the one drain to make it silent and leave the elbow on the other as an emergency drain in the event the other gets clogged. Does this sound like a good idea?

Btw, I do think the problem is with the flow. If I knew I was going with a planted tank I would have gone with smaller drains.

 

Ya sorry if its not working out.

 

Mine was built with the total goal of having lps and sps coral with no powerheads in the tank. So that meant all flow come from the return pump and to get that I needed 2 1" drains on a small tank.

 

With less flow you probably could have done two 3/4". Two 1/2" would have been really slow Id imagine.

[tarunteam]

Hey. Sorry to bother you. What is your secret to keeping it so clean. I'm trying to get mine pristine. But keep coming against issues.

[Scorched]

Hey. Sorry to bother you. What is your secret to keeping it so clean. I'm trying to get mine pristine. But keep coming against issues.

 

Nope not bothering.

 

Time, patience, consistency. The tank really needs to mature for a year or two before all of the various algae cycles run their course. After that you need to be consistent with doing the maintenance and tidying the sand, glass, equipment. If you do it regularly the tank shouldnt have time to get super dirty and the parameters will stay balanced. Its when things get neglected for weeks or months that everything starts to go downhill and you get into a yoyo effect where you are trying to fix things and you might overcorrect or go from too dirty to too clean in short time spans and cause additional negative effects.

[Thomas1221]

Hey Scorched, I recently bought a Mr Aqua 12gal. I was looking through other builds and came across yours this last weekend, finally caught up on it. I saw 4 years of progression in a weekend and your tank is awesome! I was thinking of just doing a sumpless system at first but now I kind of want to drill it as you did. Will definitely be pming you with questions when I get further along with my build.

 

Is there anything new to update? Any new fts? I think I could stare at your tank all day. Awesome build!

[Scorched]

Hey Scorched, I recently bought a Mr Aqua 12gal. I was looking through other builds and came across yours this last weekend, finally caught up on it. I saw 4 years of progression in a weekend and your tank is awesome! I was thinking of just doing a sumpless system at first but now I kind of want to drill it as you did. Will definitely be pming you with questions when I get further along with my build.

 

Is there anything new to update? Any new fts? I think I could stare at your tank all day. Awesome build!

 

Awesome to hear Thomas! I hope you like the 12g long tank as much as I have.

 

As for updates the summer is always really bad for me. A lot of my corals bleach and lose color due to huge windows near my office cubicle and the AC doesn't run very cold so my tank can get up to 83-84 degrees. Maybe even hotter when we reached 90-100+ this last week. I lost at least 3 corals which is really sad.

 

One was my Oregon tort but I think most of that was my own fault. The Oregon tort is mounted to the top right of my bubble tip anemone. For over a year it has constantly been getting stuck on the bottom. After awhile that tissue has died and the branches were just brown and getting coraline growing over the dead skeleton. I thought I should try to give it some more room and let that area regrow. So I broke the entire colony off the rock and moved it even farther right and slightly behind the rock. The next day I lost half the coral to RTN. It was stark white compared to the slow stings on the anemone. In order to try and save it I took it completely off the rock and broke off any branches that were receding. The next day it was 100% dead. That RTN then spread to at least 2 other sps. One being the PC Rainbow on the left island, and 1/2 of my setosa. The top half of my brain on the left side has also had some tissue loss.

 

This is a set back but don't let that discourage you Thomas. Everything has issues and many of them are user error. Like my previous post I lost consistency. I changed thing probably too rapidly and I wasn't doing the routine maintenance as often as I used to. That is why I really wanted to redo my stand, sump, and plumbing. Designing it in a way that makes it super easy to take care of and is easier to monitor.

 

So onto a happier note. I have officially started that process of redoing the entire stand top to bottom. My cabinet guy has my 3D files and dimensions I want and has started to buy the black walnut. We actually started discussions before my coral losses so it was already in the works. Now Im just more motivated to get it going faster. The one thing I'm not sure of is if I am going to rebuy the 12 gallon long and drill the exact same holes and set up the tank at home first. Or buy everything and try to reassemble it with the existing tank in one afternoon. The fear of something going wrong, leaking, or missing parts makes it seem worth it to invest another $100 or so in a brand new tank and wet test everything at home first. Take it back apart (and a few big preassembled pieces) and then put it back together at the office.

[Marc.The.Shark]

 

So onto a happier note. I have officially started that process of redoing the entire stand top to bottom. My cabinet guy has my 3D files and dimensions I want and has started to buy the black walnut. We actually started discussions before my coral losses so it was already in the works. Now Im just more motivated to get it going faster. The one thing I'm not sure of is if I am going to rebuy the 12 gallon long and drill the exact same holes and set up the tank at home first. Or buy everything and try to reassemble it with the existing tank in one afternoon. The fear of something going wrong, leaking, or missing parts makes it seem worth it to invest another $100 or so in a brand new tank and wet test everything at home first. Take it back apart (and a few big preassembled pieces) and then put it back together at the office.

 

On that note, I bought one of those Georg Fischer Wye check valves for my return line that you've been salivating over. Gonna try it out & see what all the fuss is about. I have the room in my sump for the display to drain, just would rather not have it happen all the time when I feed, so we'll see. Been a year in the making on my new build, but should have water in the next week & a half or so. I'll let you know how the check valve works out.

[metrokat]

Requesting pictures of the individual islands please.

[Thomas1221]

 

Maybe even hotter when we reached 90-100+ this last week.

It gets that hot in Minnesota? That's about the same at it is here in Texas.

[Thomas1221]

 

 

One was my Oregon tort but I think most of that was my own fault. The Oregon tort is mounted to the top right of my bubble tip anemone. For over a year it has constantly been getting stuck on the bottom. After awhile that tissue has died and the branches were just brown and getting coraline growing over the dead skeleton. I thought I should try to give it some more room and let that area regrow. So I broke the entire colony off the rock and moved it even farther right and slightly behind the rock. The next day I lost half the coral to RTN. It was stark white compared to the slow stings on the anemone. In order to try and save it I took it completely off the rock and broke off any branches that were receding. The next day it was 100% dead. That RTN then spread to at least 2 other sps. One being the PC Rainbow on the left island, and 1/2 of my setosa. The top half of my brain on the left side has also had some tissue loss.

 

This is a set back but don't let that discourage you Thomas. Everything has issues and many of them are user error. Like my previous post I lost consistency. I changed thing probably too rapidly and I wasn't doing the routine maintenance as often as I used to. That is why I really wanted to redo my stand, sump, and plumbing. Designing it in a way that makes it super easy to take care of and is easier to monitor.

 

So onto a happier note. I have officially started that process of redoing the entire stand top to bottom. My cabinet guy has my 3D files and dimensions I want and has started to buy the black walnut. We actually started discussions before my coral losses so it was already in the works. Now Im just more motivated to get it going faster. The one thing I'm not sure of is if I am going to rebuy the 12 gallon long and drill the exact same holes and set up the tank at home first. Or buy everything and try to reassemble it with the existing tank in one afternoon. The fear of something going wrong, leaking, or missing parts makes it seem worth it to invest another $100 or so in a brand new tank and wet test everything at home first. Take it back apart (and a few big preassembled pieces) and then put it back together at the office.

So about your losses. That's quite an undertaking, pretty much rebuild your whole setup. Once you get the new stand with more room are you going to be getting a skimmer? I mean do you really need one? You've ran fine so far. And you've said before that your coral do better with the water being a little more dirtier.