World's slowest custom 85g system. ...and there was coral. (p.18)

[Archaic37]

How big is your pump to pump the WC water up a flight of stairs? I need to set up one of those but I can't find a pump that will go up a flight of stairs.

[Rollermonkey]

How big is your pump to pump the WC water up a flight of stairs? I need to set up one of those but I can't find a pump that will go up a flight of stairs.

 

It's a Danner Mag-5. It's shutoff is at 10.5 feet. My static head to the tank itself is ten feet, so my fill rate was pretty slow. It goes faster to the sump.

 

You should check the static head charts at Marine Depot for the Danner line, I know they have pumps that will overcome 20 feet of static head.

[Rollermonkey]

More gear arrived today in a box liked with unicorn fur and hand selected styrofoam peanuts:

 

2nd Energy Bar 8, new PH and temp probes and my LSM 3-LED moonlight string.

 

Backup heater should arrive Monday, then all that's left is waiting on the cycle.

[Rollermonkey]

Did some water tight tests with the mixing station. I'd made 20 gallons of RODI, and the bulkhead and drain valve on the upper tank held fine. I drained the top tank into the bottom tank, and no leaks there.

 

I started pumping water from the lower to the upper and had a couple leaks between the union and the pump. I teflon taped both the inlet and outlet of the pump and checked again, and it leaked again. Gah. I looked more closely and realized that with the fitting I was using, cranked all the way down, there was a horizontal stress pushing the face of the pump away from the body. I re-taped that connection and tightened it until just before the fitting contacted the body of the valve, and that was the problem.

 

Last step, I pumped some water up to the top tank, shut the drain for the bottom tank, and aligned to pump from the top tank. No leaks there.

 

I pumped some water up to the ATO reservoirs from the bottom container since the top was empty and I'd lost water so I wasn't at 20 gallons to mix up salt water. (Not cycled, so I'm not doing a water change anyways.)

[FlowerMama]

Sounds like you're there so does that mean full tank fill up tomorrow?

[Rollermonkey]

Huh?

Tank has been refilled since last Friday. I dosed 5ml of ammonia per day for a week. I should probably start testing...

 

I mounted the first EB8 on the inside back wall of the stand. It fits beautifully. I'm trying to think how I'm going to keep all the electronics neat and tidy, what with the Apex Lite unit, 3 expansion modules and controllers for two MP10s and two DC pumps (return and skimmer).

 

I wonder if I have a big enough piece of leftover plywood to mount it all on one piece, and either hang it from one of the doors or maybe slide it in and out from space on the right side of the sump.

 

Hmm...

[FlowerMama]

Huh?

Tank has been refilled since last Friday. I dosed 5ml of ammonia per day for a week. I should probably start testing...

 

I mounted the first EB8 on the inside back wall of the stand. It fits beautifully. I'm trying to think how I'm going to keep all the electronics neat and tidy, what with the Apex Lite unit, 3 expansion modules and controllers for two MP10s and two DC pumps (return and skimmer).

 

I wonder if I have a big enough piece of leftover plywood to mount it all on one piece, and either hang it from one of the doors or maybe slide it in and out from space on the right side of the sump.

 

Hmm...

 

Well, thought you weren't since you've had leaks and all. Ok, so where's the tank shot? c'mon now!

[Rollermonkey]

Spelling out all the correct valve alignment for various tasks does no good if I don't actually do it.

 

I was going to fill the top jug, and instead overflowed from the hose end.

 

The salt water valve was closed, but the rest were open. Once the lower jug was full, water started filling the pipes and the hose which was sitting on the upper shelf. The weight of the water in the hose caused it to slide off the shelf, dumping the water from the pipes and hose. (Which is what I heard and ran to go see what I'd screwed up this time.)

 

D'oh!

 

Well, thought you weren't since you've had leaks and all. Ok, so where's the tank shot? c'mon now!

 

 

 

 

I didn't actually bother to take a new one since it looks exactly like the first time it was filled, outside of the stand.

 

This is the old one here and we can pretend it's new!

[ElmoC]

Don't forget the pictures on the electronics too. Want to see how you are keeping it all neat.

 

As for mounting it on the door, that is a possibility but be sure there is enough slack in the lines to compensate for the opening and closing of the door. Mounting electrical parts like that has always concerned me though. Depending on how often the door will be opened, with each opening, the cords are flexed and that could eventually lead to a failure. Probably not a big concern in reality, but something that I always worry about anyways. So I'm weird in that way.

[Rollermonkey]

I'm not convinced either way how I am going to do it yet. I might even do a combination with controllers on the door and modules on the wall.

 

As for electronics pics, not yet. Since the Apex is still on the BioCube, nothing electronic on this tank is finalized yet. Power is coming in via an extension cord and management is on a CoraLife timer/power strip. The octopus is pretty ugly because the wires don't reach from where they will plug in eventually to where the temporary strip is now so they aren't completely run in the pipes yet.

 

Now that I have the Apex LSM moonlights, I need to mount them and see where the LSM module will have to go based on cord length, since that is the limiting factor.

 

I have all those power bricks to deal with, too. Skimmer, return, two MP10s, two Kessils, the ATO and the Apex, so eight bricks in the stand when I'm done. Five are in there now and I don't have hardly any room already.

[Rollermonkey]

All those delays with the sump and shoring means that I had extra time for getting hardware before the cycle was done. I didn't expect to get the last items until I was quarantining fish between the old and new tank, but the absolute last packages for the tank are here.

 

Replacement wetside for the old MP10 which has been coated in both bryopsis and GHA, the RF module for that MP10 to make it an MP10ES, and the backup heater, which is a second 200W Cobalt NeoTherm. I'm going to set it to come on if the main temp goes more than 1.0 degrees below the primary heater's ON setting.

 

I've got a handheld TDS meter coming from Amazon tomorrow and a float valve/RODI cutoff on the way from Spectrapure to complete the mixing station.

 

After that... Wait out the cycle, then Fish and coral, I guess.

[Rollermonkey]

Got the SpectraPure Float Level Control kit and the trim ring for installing the Apex display through the stand today. Followed that up with installing the RF module in my older MP10.

 

I'd been having some issues with the controller for my return pump in that I couldn't cancel the feed mode. Got the new controller head from CoralVue today. Near as I can tell, it must be something loose inside, or a broken wire, as I did get it to cancel twice by moving the controller around, but not consistently. Hopefully the new one takes care of it and that it's not somewhere in the wire after the connector.

[Rollermonkey]

After the recent spate of very cold weather, the person providing my seed rock held off until the temperatures weren't so brutal. Got the package today. Doesn't even smell hardly at all either, so that's good.

 

 

A tonga branch for a seed rock? Nice. Placed them and turned on the lights...

 

 

Ooh, day-glo coralline? I hope THAT really takes off!

 

It's only a little more than a pound, but I think I was able to work it in unobtrusively.

 

[FlowerMama]

That's looking really awesome. Can't wait to see what fish make their homes in those barnacles. Each one is its own little apartment. Love that.

 

You'll have to go to my thread now. I just set up the fuge to cycle so next week I can hopefully get this thing finished out and pump down the water from the 34. I have like 7 1/2 gallons of water in there currently.

[Rollermonkey]

Mixing station can has float switch! Yay!

 

Maybe I can finally stop overflowing RODI containers now.

[mpsti05]

How goes everything in here? And I found the reef octopus diablo 5500 for a steal on amazon!

[Rollermonkey]

My Diablo-3500 was bought through Amazon, too. At the time, I think it was one of the only places with them in stock.

[mpsti05]

Nice! I went with the 5500 so I could use it as the return and run the reactors... Hopefully

[Rollermonkey]

My three reactors run off two Maxi-Jets: a 1200 an a 900. I like this better, because I can turn off the carbon/GFO without turning off the return or manually operating a valve. The 900 tumbles the biopellets.

[mpsti05]

Probably a good idea, I do have a mj1200 I could use for that purpose.

[Rollermonkey]

I'd been dosing 5ml of ammonia per day for a week before I put the seed rocks in. Last night, I took my first measurement...

 

NHO3: 0.25ppm

 

Really?

 

Upped the dose to 10ml yesterday and today, see what that does.

[Rollermonkey]

Ah, that's better. Ammonia was 1.5ppm tonight, so I dosed 10ml again today.

 

See where that gets things tomorrow.

 

My BioCube never got even that high during it's cycle, and it took nearly six weeks to get through. Hopefully this works better / faster.

[Rollermonkey]

I'd figured with so much base rock and non-live sand, I would get a big surge of diatoms before anything else, and they typically form on the surface of the sand, right?

 

I'm not 100% sure as it's just a little right now, but I think I'm getting film algae on the part of the glass right next to the BioCube and a couple spots on one of the barnacle clusters.

 

Weird.

 

I guess it's time to get the lights on the timer, eh? Gotta get something growing for when Maloney ships me a giant pile of snails!

[FlowerMama]

My diatoms were first on rock, then sand.

[Rollermonkey]

Yeah, but surely not on the glass?

 

My diatoms were first on rock, then sand.