Once In A Life-time Nano!!!

[Izzue]

Thanks Koden

 

BHP--

Looks like I have no room to add a sump box like you where designing :|

I cut the black sponge that comes with stock and wedged it next to sump partition -- nice and quite-- after the tank ran some with salt water I did get a little noise so I stopped that.

Just a few notes:

Rio 2500 uses like 55 watts and tends to heat the water an extra degree or 2-- good thing I still have the chiller installed

The rain trays could help with this if a person didnt have a chiller but since I do- not gonna worry with moding the rain trays.

Diffenently have more tank volume now and the water level comes within 2 sixtenths of an inch from the top-- makes the tank look bigger.

RIP little Citron goby-- Found him behind the black sponge wedged in sump area partition that I cleaned and rewedged-- he was in sump again and I didnt realize this as I smushed him wedging in the foam-- Izzue prays to the fish goods for the little fissheee... sorry little buddy.

Must do something to guard overflow--

If the overflow ever gets clogged (want an anemone someday) WATER on the floor quickly...

Ideas ??

 

whit-- where are ya man???

 

Izzue

[Izzue]

BHP

One more question please Sir..

Getting a lot of bubbles now in tank...

In sump area where the water flows over partition to pump side-- do you think if I wedged a small pieace of acrylic say about 6 inchs high --not pushing it to the bottom would help reduce the bubbles??

Or any Ideas??

 

Thanks

Izzue

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

yeh i solved that same problem by mistake one day...cut a 5-6 inch tall peice of acrylic, then cut the width to about an 1/8 in short of the overall width of the sump... wrap some rubberbands around the top to the thickness of the sump... stick in in front of the pump... i will diagram later... why won't the box fit in your tank?

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

here...

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

and this

[Izzue]

Rio pump is large---

In the 1st pic you will notice how close the pump is to the sump partition-- so I dont think their is enough room for the box.

Im also keeping the water level on pump side way high or the pump will suck bubbles from the water fall. Water level on pump side is being kept about 3 inchs from the top of sump partition.

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

good idea... maybe i will too...

[kinetic]

Your overflow "slots" or "notches" look a lot bigger than the one I have in my 32 gallon. That's kind of weird? You could guard it using zip ties and maybe a mesh from a strawberry carton or something.

 

about the overflowing of your tank level, you can invest in a level controller, like Reef Fanatic Level Controller, so if the water level drops in the return chamber too low, meaning your pump is drawing water without equilibrium, it turns the pump off. Also safeguards your pump from burning out if it's exposed to air. I think that level controller is $90 from premiumaquatics.com. I will be getting it for my auto topoff, but I may get one for my water pump too.

[Izzue]

1st attempt on the damn bubbles

 

Still getting bubbles-- but better-- tried to add another baffle but wedgeing keeps causeing the closest one to sump partition to loosen. Wish the pump wasnt so close to sump partition, but tried to center some for SCWD. If i turned the pump around the electrical wiring gets closer to sump partition compared to the way it is now.... any suggestions pleaseeeeee...

[Izzue]

oh by the way

The water level on pump side is lower than usual-- its usually a couple of inches higher--but I had acclamate some blue legs and made a stupid purchase on a Green feather duster-- Well prove the stupid part compared to how well and how long he lives

Gonna do a water change today and get the level higher---Also thinking the white filte media you see should be longer than the one right now.. might help?

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

is that a canister filter?

[kinetic]

i started getting bubbles yesterday after cleaning out my microfiber sponge! weird. It was crystal clear before.

 

Also: I retrofitted a 70watt h.q.i metal halide with a 14k astralux lamp into the stock finnex XL-3055 lighting fixture! checkout my sig link! It's such an increadible improvement =)

[Izzue]

Naaaa-- no canister

What you are seeing is my chiller plumming-- it pulls water out of sump section on skimmer side -- then returns water to sump section on pump side. I have the return side going into filter media due to its return has a lot of bubbles since it sends water to chiller from the skimmer side. It should be plummed through a filter before it gets to chiller but I didnt do it the way they recommended---

 

I cut a larger pieace of filter media about 10 inchs long and wedged it behind the pieace of acrylic. Now the sump overflow water has to go through this before going under the acrylic to the pump-- seems to work better.

Once the filter media gets dirty I think it will help trap the bubbles better.

 

Koden-- your bubbles are coming from your skimmer due to the oversize of return pump pushing the water to pump side rapidly-- if you had room your could try a couple of baffles to trap the bubbles.---never mind Koden I forgot you still using rain tray--Once your filters dirty up some you should see the bubbles decreace.

 

Izzue

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

Is the intake for the chiller deeper than the skimmer pump... if your main pump stops you're going to run your chiller dry.. i'd put the return for the chiller in the skimmer portion of the sump along with the intake... that closes the loop and you should never have a pump run dry since there is always water in the skimmer section... try adding another short baffle after the tall one that forces the water up and over, this will give the bubbles time to rise to the surface...

[Izzue]

Bhp

Your are right-- think I will slide it back so chiller water will stay in skimmer section.

Mainly did it this way to move more water from skimmer part of sump to pump side of pump due to so much water coming in from overflow from main tank.

Think I will also extend some hosing so the chiller return water will be deeper in skimmer sump area, so maybe more bubbles will disperse to top instead of going to sump pump side.

Every time I try to add to baffles on pump side of sump-- the other one comes loose. I must have it cut a little to wide or havent used the rubberband method correctly. I did cut a pieace of that filter media about 10 inchs long so the water going through has to go through more media. I think once the filter media gets a little dirty it will be able to block the bubbles better-- but then of course if filter media gets to dirty and water goes over the baffle I will be back to square one.

Guess Ill have to keep an eye on this and see how easy that happens. Hopefully with the filter media being so course that will take awhile before it has to be taken out and cleaned

 

Izzue

[Izzue]

Tks BHP

I dropped the water level down on the pump side of sump... If the main pump failed now it would have taken the skimmer pump and chiller pump--but not now I moved the chiller return back to skimmer side of sump

 

Bubbles are getting alot better due to the larger size of filter media and as it is getting dirty it seems to help also. After you brought to my attention about the pump-- If the water level on pump side was high it would have been ok-- due to so much water in tank -- when pump shuts off the water did not go below overflow in tank and was over the overflow partition in sump.. When I got home from work yesterday the 1st thing I noticed was the water level being so high on pump side of sump it was setting stagnet on top and getting a layer of small bubbles. I pulled a couple of quarts of water out of tank to drop the level on pump side until I could see water movement on the surface--much better

Ill post a pic this afternoon

 

Izzue

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

You could probably cut that first baffle really short so that it just holds the media in place, cut a slightly longer peice of vinyl tubing that would allow you to move the pump as far away from the overflow as possible. that in its self might cure your bubble woes, but if not you'd have planty of room to install baffles for a bubble trap...

 

your baffles don't need to be snug in there, just wide enough to let you wrap a couple of rubber bands around the "dry" parts (salt water will deteriorate the rubber). you can build up the layers of rubberbands to secure it... i leave about 3/32" on both sides of the baffle...

 

like this

[Izzue]

Thats exactly what I had in mind -- until I decided I wanted the sucktion cups to reduce vibration on bottom of pump and the SCWD combo--(pump is big also)

This ended up making no room to make a curve in the tubing going to SCWD.

Time I install a valve to slow pump down some due to oversizing-- I could barley link it all together. What I got now is working good enough.

Future may curtail down sizing the pump

Just oversized due to the turns and SCWD -- maynot have needed pump that large

 

Tks BHP

 

Whit --where are ya man..... BHP have you heard from him lately??

 

Izzue

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

nope...

 

Hard piping it would reduce the flow a little AND GIVE YOU SOMEWHER TO put a ball-valve...

[whitmda]

I'm still around. Just haven't had time to post b/c I've been working 16 hour days this past week.

 

I'll post some pics soon of the new frags I got.

 

I also got a scwd. Just need to figure out the plumbing.

[Izzue]

Sounds cool Whit

Thats diffenently some long work days-- hang in their-- just think about the money

unless your salary-- then hopefully they will give you some time off

 

Izzue

[whitmda]

Izzue,

 

Im salaried, so hopefully I can take a day off soon to tend to tank matters (how sad is that?).

 

Well, I have a new issue. My apt. building turned off the central air for the winter. Now its hard to keep the tank at the usual 77/8 degrees (I usually have the air on all the time to keep a room temp of 68 degrees). Lately, without the a/c its been hovering around 81/2 degrees.

 

Do I need a chiller? Or should I just be more concerned about the fluctuations? What is a good cheap chiller? Do all of them require more drilling?

 

Thanks dude.

[Izzue]

Whit

Tell them to turn the dam air back on!!!!! Just joking

Hear in Miss we have been being told our utilities would go up some due to shortage of natural gas used to produce juice from hurricane damage.

Got my electric bill Thursday-- 466.00 for one month-- I almost hit the floor, then thought of unplugging my tank-- not!!!

But wow that was like a 1/3 increase-- but we havent been getting any cool weather its still hot ...

I would try a fan 1st , seeing that your weather is ccooler that my be enough.

I picked up a Azoo 100 peltier chiller from FS on clearence for 200.00..

I think you and I have the same stand for our tanks and I located the chiller on a selve I made on the (facing) right side and removed the tinted glass door for ventalation. It works ok but even in the living room with ceiling fan on high and AC on the chiller works hard in late afternoon-- I put a 12 inch fan blowing on the chiller bout a week ago and works better-- Im gonna rig a small fan inside chiller area to blow on chiller (this model is a chiller/heater ) If I had it to do again I would probable opt for a non peltier method chiller and locate it on the left on the bottom self and drill back stand wall for pluming. My chiller didnt have to work much at all--thought about removing it-- until I upgraded return pump to Rio 2500--it puts of just enough additional heat to warm the water a degree or three that is enough to cause chiller to turn on.

Gonna try to post some new pics tommorrow-- BUt I LOVE my new setup--still battleing the overflow and bubbles-- but I have plans to fix those

MY corals are loving the flow and SCWD movement--I can tell a noticable improvement in the whole tank after running the setup for about 2 weeks now

 

Izzue

[Izzue]

Little over 2 weeks with new Setup

Coraline algae starting to grow on lockline returns already

Bubble problem solved until I decide to replum main Pump with a zigzag to move pump over to right facing tank.

Made a DIY overflow guard-- this is 1st prototype

Overall tank is doing GREAT

Some lazy photos-- pump on--no tripod

 

Izzue

 

overflow guard

 

new Green Feather Duster (worm)

[The_Barbe-Hatten_Project]

i think you may have found a way fro us to double the amount of water the overflow can handle!!!... if we can make some boxes like that out pf black plastic, we could remove the teeth from the overflow completely with a dremel and cut-off wheel!!! WAH-LAA twice the the overflow..!