Teenyreef's 20g Study-kept Dustmite Biotope: IM10 Transfer

[teenyreef]

18 minutes ago, second_decimal said:

consider integrating a few Tonga branch pieces or something of that nature? That’s what I wound up doing and it adds a natural element imho.. 

I like the way you think! Yesterday I was thinking that I wished I had done something with tonga branches instead of stax rocks. I don't have any tonga branches, but I do have a lot of small rubble rock that could be glued together into some interesting shapes, and a fair amount of old dry rock. I may play around with just using the stax stuff for the base, where's it's not very visible, and then using other stuff on top where it shows.

[teenyreef]

I pulled the sump out of the cabinet and filled it up over the weekend. No leaks after 48 hours, so I think the sump is fine and I was just dealing with water seeping around from the back of the cabinet after all the bulkheads leaked. So that's great news!

 

I ordered new bulkheads for the overflow from Amazon. Four for $12 and they came in two days. Plus they came with two gaskets each, so there's no issue with which side to put the gasket on. 🙂

 

The only thing I still needed was another union. So I ordered a couple unions and enough fittings to completely redo the two pipes from the overflow (just in case). All those parts should arrive on Wednesday, so I should be back in business this weekend.

[Sharbuckle]

10 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I pulled the sump out of the cabinet and filled it up over the weekend. No leaks after 48 hours, so I think the sump is fine and I was just dealing with water seeping around from the back of the cabinet after all the bulkheads leaked. So that's great news!

 

I ordered new bulkheads for the overflow from Amazon. Four for $12 and they came in two days. Plus they came with two gaskets each, so there's no issue with which side to put the gasket on. 🙂

 

The only thing I still needed was another union. So I ordered a couple unions and enough fittings to completely redo the two pipes from the overflow (just in case). All those parts should arrive on Wednesday, so I should be back in business this weekend.

Good news! 

[Reefkid88]

Heck yeah,that is awesome !!! Thankfully the sump wasn't causing the problems. 

 

 This is my latest project:

[teenyreef]

3 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Heck yeah,that is awesome !!! Thankfully the sump wasn't causing the problems. 

 

 This is my latest project:

Nice! I like the black PVC 🙂

 

[Reefkid88]

Its more so sprayed black lol but it doesn't stand out as bad as white pvc lol.  

 

EDIT: 

 Here is my rendition of my plumbing. I don't feel the need to use unions with the check valves and ball wolves lol. That's 4 unions lol. Any suggestions ? This is actually my first sumped tank. 

[second_decimal]

On 7/9/2020 at 9:50 PM, teenyreef said:

I like the way you think! Yesterday I was thinking that I wished I had done something with tonga branches instead of stax rocks. I don't have any tonga branches, but I do have a lot of small rubble rock that could be glued together into some interesting shapes, and a fair amount of old dry rock. I may play around with just using the stax stuff for the base, where's it's not very visible, and then using other stuff on top where it shows.

How we looking chief? any progress on the scape? 

[teenyreef]

2 hours ago, second_decimal said:

How we looking chief? any progress on the scape? 

I've had the scape on the back burner while I re-do the plumbing. I just finished the plumbing a few minutes ago, though!

 

Given how much trouble I had with leaks last time, I'm going to wait until tomorrow to do a leak test. That way I'll be fresh and have plenty of time to deal with disasters. My plan is to overdo the contingency planning so that nothing bad happens and all the contingency planning is wasted 🙂

 

[teenyreef]

It's wet!!!! 

 

And equally important, no leaks so far. It's only been running for about 20 minutes but everything looks good.

 

I turned the light on just for the picture.

 

 

[teenyreef]

Here's a video to show the overall setup and the water flow. Pretentious royalty free music added at no charge, as well as a special guest appearance of Teenyreef's hand 

 

[teenyreef]

I made a little more progress on the scape tonight. I ended up using very little of the Stax rocks. Just one big piece for the base and a few broken chunks. The rest is old rubble rock I've had sitting around. 

 

I'll probably play around with this a little more after I sleep on it. But So far I like it enough to keep it for at least another day.

This first picture is the angle I'll see most, while I'm sitting at the desk.

 

Front:

 

Left side:

 

Right side:

 

Top down:

 

[mipster]

I like it!!

[Sharbuckle]

Yes! Happy you passed the leak test! Such a nice build so far. 

[second_decimal]

Yeay... water !! 
 

i like the putty you used and how indistinguishable it is. Can’t wait to see what comes next. 

[Merthynia]

This is really looking great Teeny! I love how the sump looks underneath the desk! 

[Reefkid88]

That is awesome Teeny !!! Everything looks awesome. Out of curiosity,what is your height from the pump to the return noozle ?  It looks like it moves some water. 

[debbeach13]

Congratulations! The scape looks good to me. I like your view a lot.

[teenyreef]

Woke up this morning to a slow leak from the sump 

I'm not sure what's next. I need to make sure the bottom of the cabinet is level and flat, since it didn't leak when I had it out of the cabinet. And I guess I need to check the Skimz warranty. 

[teenyreef]

I drained the tank and most of the sump today and let things dry out. I can't tell where the leak is coming from, and it's theoretically possible that it could be a leak in the unions that is pooling behind the sump and then working it's way around the side. I see the water pooling on the side, but there's no way to see if water is pooling behind the sump. 

So my next test is to fill the sump while it's still inside the cabinet. If there's a leak in the sump because the floor of the cabinet isn't level, then I should see water some time in the next 24 hours.

If it says dry, then I'll go back and double check the unions. I really hope it's the unions!

On the bright side, the sump has a two year warranty. So at worst I'll have to get it fixed and/or replaced.

[teenyreef]

21 hours ago, mipster said:

I like it!!

 

21 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

Yes! Happy you passed the leak test! Such a nice build so far. 

 

19 hours ago, Merthynia said:

This is really looking great Teeny! I love how the sump looks underneath the desk! 

 

12 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Congratulations! The scape looks good to me. I like your view a lot.

Thanks, everyone! Hopefully I can move forward soon!

[teenyreef]

17 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

That is awesome Teeny !!! Everything looks awesome. Out of curiosity,what is your height from the pump to the return noozle ?  It looks like it moves some water. 

It's about 40". I'm using a Jebao DCS-2000 pump. When I took the video it was at about 60%.This is the same pump I have in the DB30 with about the same rise, and that one has been rock solid for 3 1/2 years. I've never even had to clean it. 

Hopefully I didn't just jinx my other pump 🙂

[teenyreef]

20 hours ago, second_decimal said:

Yeay... water !! 
 

i like the putty you used and how indistinguishable it is. Can’t wait to see what comes next. 

Thanks, but the rocks are just piled on each other for now. So I agree, that putty is completely invisible 

I'll be using Emarco mortar, which is really easy to use and works really well. And it is pretty much invisible anyway.

[Reefkid88]

That is crazy. I was told I needed about 500-600gpg for my 4-5' of vertical pipe.. Now I don't feel like that is right at all lol. 

[teenyreef]

6 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

That is crazy. I was told I needed about 500-600gpg for my 4-5' of vertical pipe.. Now I don't feel like that is right at all lol. 

The DCS-2000 is rated at 520gph, so it's in that general area. Mine is about 3 1/2' of rise, so for 4-5' I'd definitely want about that much. 

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

I drained the tank and most of the sump today and let things dry out. I can't tell where the leak is coming from, and it's theoretically possible that it could be a leak in the unions that is pooling behind the sump and then working it's way around the side. I see the water pooling on the side, but there's no way to see if water is pooling behind the sump. 

So my next test is to fill the sump while it's still inside the cabinet. If there's a leak in the sump because the floor of the cabinet isn't level, then I should see water some time in the next 24 hours.

If it says dry, then I'll go back and double check the unions. I really hope it's the unions!

On the bright side, the sump has a two year warranty. So at worst I'll have to get it fixed and/or replaced.

So it's definitely the sump that's leaking, there was no water at all in the pipes and I started getting water on the cabinet bottom anyway. 😞

I've emailed Skimz asking about what to do next. 

I'm going to start putting the scape together with mortar, but, other than that, I don't expect to be able to post much progress until the sump situation is resolved.