Daily log of my new 55 gallon South American Tank.

[lousybreed]

More pics of overflow and sump

i just finished painting my overflow that will be going into the tank. i used plastic paint so it will stick to the pvc but i must say that it sticks to skin as well!!!!!!

in the pics i have my homemade filter made out of bulk filter pad and egg crate and zip ties. all the piping for the overflow is done. i just got the rest of my supplies today so the rest will be finished this weekend. hopefully by next wednesday we will have fishies in the tank!!!!!

 

[ineedabox]

that's real nice man. im really anxious to see how this whole thing goes for you. You know...maybe you could put a couple kribs in the tank eh? I love kribs.

 

[lousybreed]

getting there

Since it is saturday I had a chance to go crazy with my tank. I did all the return plumping and the refugium today. First we will go over how simple plumping is actually very involved. For my simple overflow/return system I had to:

31 segments of pvc cut
just over 18 foot of pvc used
22 elbows, 6 caps, 2 tees, 2 valves and one union were installed. to accomplish that i had to do this each of these 116 times: sand all peices that are being chemically welded, apply primer and cement and hold each bond for 30 seconds assuming that you are fast this would take at least 2.5 hours of just glueing peices together. that doesnt even include all the planning for the plumping cutting and measuring!!!!!!!!!!! Very time involving. I could do it much faster next time though.

the refugium explaination:
the egg creat is used so when the plants grow they will have something to attach to for stability. I siliconed 5 pcv pieces on the bottom of the tank and then place the first layer of egg create on that. then i spaced the first and second layer with a 1/4" space. The top shelf is going to be right at the water line. i made the first layer of eggcrate high enough so i could put the sweet ebo-jager heater under it. i cut an access hole in all of the egg crate so i can adjust the heater with out having to tear everything down. the water will go thought the mechanical filter, flow through the plants and then waterfall over the glass pane i installed. The glass pane wasnt very tight fitting so i cut 4 pvc pipes and siliconed them to the glass pane for extra support. the mag 5 pump will pump it back to the tank.

plumping
the overflow siphon is quite confusing but i am confident it will work. i have attached a valve to i can start the siphon without having to dunk the whole thing in water (which would be a real pain). at the top of the siphon i drilled and tapped an airline fitting so i can draw all the air out of the siphon to get it started.

the return plumping includes a sweet bi-directional water stream configurations and valve control. i am not painting it black because it will take to long for the paint to totally cure, i am impatient!!!!!!!!! the mag 5 pump will move about 300gpm and i will have a 200gpm wispher filter on the tank also. this is going to be sweet!!!!

Price update another 23 bucks for the return 3/4" plumping. The overflow is all 1" up to the siphon tee, then it is 1 1/4" pipe. All the return plumping is 3/4 pvc with some pvc hose to quell pump vibrations (vibrations can propagate with all rigid piping, i learned this from my friends at reefcentral.com)

total cost: $440!!!!!

the plastic paint is still kicking out fumes and the silicone that i used to construct the refugium overflow will take another 24 hrs to dry, I will not have water in the aquarium until monday night!!!

here are the pics, let me know what you think!!!

 

[lousybreed]

another couple pieces of info

ebo-jager heater is waterproof and it says it on the box. because of some weird laws to pass UL and the like regulations it says that you can't submerse it in water. i checked on reef central and on some web pages and they say you can submerge it. one guy has one submerged for almost 4yrs. these are hands down the best build heater i have ever bought. i was skeptical with all the hype of these heaters but it is all true. thermal protection (you turn it on out of water and it will shut off) which i think that no other heater has, 0.5F temp control, 2mm glass tube as apposed to 1mm for the rest.....the list can go on

i bought the coralife digital thermometer for like 7 bucks and it is quite accurate ( i tested in in icewater, it read 32.1F very accurate) my only complaint is that it uses a small watch battery and i think that it will wear out quickly. i am going to solder wires to the leads and hook up a AA battery for like 100 times the life......well that is it for now.

 

[ineedabox]

I'd say you're well on your way, my friend.

 

[N8DOGG]

very nice.....so is that paint safe for fish?? if so I'd have to try it when I do my over flows

 

[lousybreed]

very nice.....so is that paint safe for fish?? if so I'd have to try it when I do my over flows

The guys at reefcentral.com say that it is but you must wait several days becuase unlike regular paint it takes a bit longer to dry or cure in this case. This is day 4 of my drying and it is still emitting a slight odor. I will be filling up the aquarium on monday just to be safe.

 

[lousybreed]

I'd say you're well on your way, my friend.

i hope so, we will see how everything goes.

couple updates:
bought 20 more pounds of schultz aquatic soil at the HD bringing the total to 50 lbs i doubt that i am going to need all of that. $14

at Lowes i found my spath plants (spathiphyllum) and they go by the name Peace lily. i bought 5 4" pot specimens for $20

went to homedepot and to my amazment they stocked T-8 daylight and sunlight bulbs. Usually you can only find T-12 flourescent bulbs in the "specialty" bulb types. Since my main flourescent strip is actually made for T-8's I picked up 2 6500K and one 5000K bulb. The T-8's look like they throw more light than the T-12's and this is backed by the rated lumens on the lights both are right at 2900 lumens compared to the T-12's 2200 for 5000K and 3000 for 6500K. So my combined out put is 5750 lumens for the T-8's compared to 5100 lumens for the T-12's. Plus they use less energy!

total cost: $474

 

[lousybreed]

updates

I added about 40lbs of the aquatic soil and then i added about 20lbs of gravel to the tank today. i took some of the gravel and put it into some vinegar and unfortunatly it started fizzing! I tried to remove most of it but there is some still in the tank. Do you think that it will raise the pH significatly? I guess that i will have to add extra peat to combate the gravel!!!! here are a couple pics

 

[Emg]

Man, I think I would try and get that gravel out instead of having to worry about adjusting PH with anything....might be well worth the effort LB.......Hmmmmm....I wonder if a large fishnet would work to sift through the sand to get that out...if it has larger sized netting for the sand to get through, but not the gravel...it might work...