Hi all!!
all the piping has been glued together! It has been running now since saturday (72 hrs) and is functioning without any leeks. The only problem i have run into has been the cartridge. it's too restricting for the hight the pump has to push water. So I cut the carbon paper off, and made my own using standard filter floss, some string, and a carbon bag. Its pushing as much water as the emperior 400 (approx 350-400 gph) and is doing so pretty quietly. The tank has come up to 78 degrees. I will adjust today to push it higher, to around 82. in the future I am going to be looking for another pump, so i can have one pushing and one pulling. that would allow me to use easily replaceable filters, and possibly a bigger filter all together!
the next step is going to be making the background black. I have an idea for this, so bear with me. I have have painted the tank, but since it was a graduation present, I didn't want to "ruin" it in my parents eyes. So i was at the store the other day and found black contact paper, the stuff used to cover shelves. I was thinking of sticking that to the tank, so i can easily remove it without too much fuss.
I'll keep you all posted!
Mike
Oh and now I'm going to start looking for fish, so if anyone has any of the mentioned species locally (ri, ct, mass) I am interested.
thanks!
