230 Tank Build

[Rudy]

Rudy - this is quite impressive. I just existed the reef hooby (lost everything in Gustav) and am setting my 90g tank up as a planted brackish until I move into a house in a few years.Chris

Wow - sorry to hear of the loss of your home. When you settle into your new space let me know and I'll mail you a pound of live sand from my tank to help seed your new tank. That is, if you are interested? No Worries either way.

To answer your question about the waterfall, you really want it as minimal as possible. Reason is to minimize noise and salt spray. I aim for a 1/4" inch.

Chris

I am a bit surprised the preferred waterfall is that short (shallow) a fall. Nevertheless, the space between the top of the overflow wall and the snugly fitting glass top will not allow for me to create such a short waterfall. C’est La Vive.

I will shoot for somewhere between 1-2”

 

[clsanchez77]

Thanks Rudy. But to clarify, I did not loose my home, just the tank. The 4 days of power outage and high temps was fatal to my reef. Living in a condo, I can not accomodate a generator. Out of personal obligation, I deced against rebuilding a reef tank until I can accomodate a generator and other essential equipment for my tank to survive extended periods of bad weather and no electricity. I live in New Orleans so it should have been a first thought.

For Katrina, I had a 65gallon planted tank survive 10 weeks with high temperatures and no power. I am redoing my 90g as a brackish tank, but modeled after the old planted tank.

Luckily, I have already bought a lot for a new house, now I just need to build a new house...one day.

Back to your tank: Regarding the waterfall, 1" will be tolerable noise-wise, but 2" will be more noisy. You may have a salt spray issue. Being that your water fall is at the end of the tank and you will be using T5 lighting (if I remember correctly) such that you will have end caps directly over this water fall may be a maintenance issue. Even though the T5 end caps are water proof, you will get significant salt creep on the end of the bulb. I would be worth building some sort of cover for your water fall. You could do this with acrylic, plexi-glass or PVC sheeting.

Good Luck.
Chris

 

[Rudy]

Oh - sorry for my assumption, but glad to hear it was only the fish which were lost.

Back to your tank: Regarding the waterfall, 1" will be tolerable noise-wise, but 2" will be more noisy. You may have a salt spray issue. Being that your water fall is at the end of the tank and you will be using T5 lighting (if I remember correctly) such that you will have end caps directly over this water fall may be a maintenance issue. Even though the T5 end caps are water proof, you will get significant salt creep on the end of the bulb. I would be worth building some sort of cover for your water fall. You could do this with acrylic, plexi-glass or PVC sheeting.

Good Luck.
Chris

Actually - I changed my mind regarding the lighting and broke down and purchased a 72" LED light system (Solaris I5). I cannot wait to see how it looks atop the tank. With regard to salt creep, for a tank top, I jave three sepearate by very snugly fitting hinged glass tops which run the entire length of the tank. During my water testing, they seemed to create a very good moisture barrier.

 

[clsanchez77]

Excellent,

BTW, fish, corals, shrimp, worms, thousands of micro-fauna. It was really really sad to see the thousands of dead bodies that crawled out of the sand and rock looking for some oxygen. Oddly enough, all my LPS corals survived long enough for me to find them all a good home.

 

[Rudy]

background

I am trying to determine what to use to obscure the overflow wall, behind which my plumbing is visible.

I have come-up with a project I have 2/3 compete and will post pics tonight. I basically have taken a large piece of egg crate covered with black screen mesh applied gobs of silicone caulk, smoothed, and then applied thousands of pieces of crushed coral. I am not sure how long it will last, but I could not come-up with any other idea.

Can anyone tell me what they have done given similar circumstances?

 

[Rudy]

background

Some pics of the latest portion of the project. It will be intersting to see how it holds-up, if at all? LOL

Please suggest alternative solutions if you ahve any that ahve worked for yourself.

Thanks

 

[Sploke]

That looks like it would work, especially once its all covered in coralline. It'll give a nice little area to grow pods and such in all the little crevices as well.

 

[Rudy]

Provided none of my new plumbing (valves) does not leak when i water test them tomorrow, I plan to begin stocking (Aquascaping) this weekend.

I have built many tanks but never one on this scale and with a closed loop. Please answer any of the following questions with which you have personal experience. Thanks.

• When I add the substrate (1-2mm sand) to the main tank following final placement of at least the base layer of LR is it a foregone conclusion I will not want a depth of sand deeper than my bulkhead fittings on the bottom glass for the CL. Hence, I'll have a relatively shallow sand bed in the tank (~1"), but my DSB will be in my sump, right?
  • I'm sure I could make it a little higher but I would risk some sand at some point getting into the line resulting in FOD to the Dart.

• If you look back in this thread you'll see pictures of two large, 55 gal and 30 gal, drums which have been housing ~ 150 - 200 lbs LR since March 2007. Believe it or not the rock is in great shape. A lot of life within those barrels still exists.
  • My question is should I use the water in the drums as part of the water in my large system or start completely a new? I am guessing I have about 50-75 gallons of old, but chemically stable H2O in those drums with the LR. I think I could make an argument for either decision.

Good Night

P.S. Man I am getting excited about this weekend.

 

[kcress]

Let me get this straight. The two on the end are the inlets?

Being stuck with a few millimeters of sand is going to drive you insane. Everything in the tank will be sweeping it away from the bottom leaving unrealistic glass patches all over. Any sand sifters will want to throttle you. You need about and inch so any moved sand will self fill-in due to the the angle of repose.

If you can't achieve that depth then stick something into your four bottom returns(?) to extend them. Personally I'd not want them pointed straight up anyway. Carve up a piece of PVC that is as short as you need to plug into the bulkheads and a 45. Have fun angling the 45s around. You might want to make a gyre so they all force the water to swirl around the center of the tank or if you have an Ocean's Motion, (if I remember), point two to gyre one way and the others to gyre the other way. This would give a small surge effect that a lot of your tank denizens would enjoy.

Yes running sand thru your dart would be a very bad thing.


I would test that drum water. If it's low nitrate, low phosphate, correct pH, good specific gravity, and not yellow, I would not hesitate to use it.

 

[Rudy]

Kcress - sorry for the delayed resposne. We've been without elcetricity since early Friday (12/12/08) morning. Needless to day, i did not start the aquascaping.

I have revolutions extending up from each of the four CL returns in the bottom, so I suppose I could add sand up to the beginning of their aprons. Beyond that, I have seen the PVC extensions you speak of which I could screw (FPT) into each bulkhead then attach the revs into the extensions, but I was not planning for an overly deep sand bed anyway. Maybe I'll try to find the shortest extensions availble. i dont want the revs too high off the bottom either, but a little extra height will allow for me to get closer to 2" depth of sand.

I am not too worried about sand getting into the CL line since where the sand is located (bottom) is the output from the CL versus the intake so the flow should greatly decrease the chance of sand getting into the line.

I echo your thoughts on the water. if it is sustaininglife in a 30 and 55 gal drum then it cannnot be all that bad.

Thanks