New 120 on the way

[chrisrush]

Alright, I took some pictures today of my new plumbing, stand, tunze, and christmas wrasse.

Christmas Wrasse (hopefully he will take care of any AEFW that show up, plus he's got great color)

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Stand

With doors on:

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Doors open:

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Front off (sides come off the same way):

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New sump design (one large chamber with a larger return section):

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Sump from end:

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Return section:

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More to follow.

Chris

 

[chrisrush]

Return plumbing (I already had a 1" bulkhead drilled for the sump, but I wasn't using it. It is transferring some vibration to the sump, which I think that I can silence if I wrap the pipes):

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New tunze:

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Some Pm'd me asking about how I feed my skimmer. It's a little tough, but you might be able to see the 1" union that feeds the skimmer. There is a ball valve upstream that I can control the rate of flow in the skimmer.

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This was the answer to one of my questions last night. How do you drill anti-siphon holes with a pressure rated pump and a pair of penductors on the ends. Well, I think that I figured it out, at least temporarily. I enlarged the holes to 1/4" and stuck some airline tubing into it. I then ran the airline tubing to the overflow and ziptied it to the overflow so that when the return pump is shut off, the airline tubing will suck air and stop the siphon. I'm sure that I'm loosing a little bit of flow this way, due to the airline tubing, but it can't be that great with 1/4" tubing.

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http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a153/Rush2005/4-17-
06/returnantisiphonhole2.jpg

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[chrisrush]

A post wouldn't be finished if I didn't put in a full tank shot or two. I didn't get any close-ups of any of the corals, due to the increased flow in the tank, I'm getting more junk in the display, which will slow down as my skimmer cleans it up. I am going to shorten the loc-line from the return. I didn't have the right part and of course, Home Depot didn't have any either. I wish that the sLowes was closer to my house. I'll get the new part tomorrow.

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Right side (I forgot about the left)

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Thanks for looking,
Chris

 

[scottj]

hey chris,
looks good...if i remember correctly from previous pics you had your CaRx in a seperate cabinet ... and now with the new sump setup it looks like you have done away with the refugium and moved the CaRx to the sump ... just wondering what led to this decision ?

 

[chrisrush]

A 10-15 gallon leak. When I was messing with the mag 2 on the ca reactor, I broke the volute covering. I tried to glue it but it developed a leak overnight. I awoke the next morning and it had flooded the kitchen. From now one, most of my equipment will be in the sump if I can fit it.

Chris

 

[RedComet89]

Hey Chris,

How do you like your lyretail anthias? And what are you feeding them and how often?

thanks

 

[chrisrush]

I like them alot. They are very active and colorful. I feed them a mix of mysis, brine, and whatever else goes in the tank. I feed 1x per day.

Chris

 

[chrisrush]

I was looking at the inside of my hood last night, and I just noticed that the MHs heated the moonlight LED that was imbetween the MHs. I guess the hood gets a little warm.

Chris

 

[chrisrush]

Boy this thread sure did get moved to the bottom of the list quickly. Anyways, over the holiday weekend, I bought and installed a pair of lumenarc reflectors over my tank. I did this for two reasons, a) to remove any heat trapped by my old light setup and b) to move the lights so that they are not directly over the center brace.

I bought some angle iron and flat stock, a packets of rivets and washers and a rivet gun. I then laid out a frame work in my garage to decided where to put the lights, vho endcaps, etc. I ran into a few problems, but I think that it worked out pretty well. I was originally going to use the L-brackets that I hung from the ceiling with the steel rope, but I opted for a bike pulley system that Ryan, Keith and Steve all used. It was much easier, plus it allows me to raise/lower the lights without effort.

Anyways, on to the pictures:

I don't have a picture of how the old lights were hung, but here is the light hood that is now for sale (hint, hint). And no, the dog isn't included.

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Inside view:

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Prior to removing the lights on Saturday:

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This was one of the things that really bugged me on my old lights, I couldn't figure out how to hid the cords.

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[chrisrush]

Here is the riveted frame that I was working with. I ended up adding cross braces to the middle two posts and 45 degree braces to the corners. This seemed to really help out with the stability of the rack.

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Here is the tank without the lights, and wood skirt.

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When I was removing the old stuff from the old lights, I noticed that the led that was my center moonlight was fried, and boy do I mean fried.

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You can see how large the lumenarcs are in this picture. The light rack is 46.5" x 23".

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I had a little difficulty with the endcaps, mainly b/c I didn't tank into account the lenght of the endcaps, instead, I used the bulb lenghts. (Silly me). So I had to reverse the endcaps and drill out two holes to run the wires. (Sorry for the crappy picture)

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Here's a top down look at the endcaps, notice how the endcap doesn't face the right direction, chalk that one up to good ol' Aggie engineering.

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[chrisrush]

Well, I got the lights up on top of the tank, but since the back of the lumenarcs are so heavy, I couldn't get the thing to balance out when I was using my old hangers. Here is a picture of the lights on top of the tank.

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Another picture of the ghetto rack:

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Once I bought the bike pulley and installed it, it was much easier. I didn't really like the wood screws that came with the setup, since I stripped most of them, so I ended up using a few more screws than was probably necessary.

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Don't mind the off kilter shot, it was still working on the level. You can also see one this shot the white pvc pipe that I installed next to the tank. Hopefully this will allow me to run all the wires down to the cabinet without creating a mess.

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And here is the final product with the skirt back on.

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I didn't take any pictures with the MH on b/c I had to put two layers of window screen under them so that nothing would bleach. I'll take some photos in a few weeks after things have settled down.

Chris

 

[Servo]

The angled iron rack looks good. I need to add on supplimental lighting to my MH to accentuate the colors. I like what you did with the VHO's.



BOy Chris, that ghetto rack is such a bad idea in so many many different ways. You are lucky your house didn't burn down.

BTW; I thought I saw your dog on the news in an animal raid that was on TV. You need to train him to stop hangning around the wrong crowd. There was a big drug raid there as well. :?

 

[chrisrush]

Yea, that rack wasn't up for very long, and the lights weren't on for very long either.

I always wondered where that dog went at night when he goes out. All he ever tells me is that he's going out. I guess that's what you get from a teenager. I've been waiting for that phone call from the county jail since he learned to walk. :lol:

Chris

 

[TCU Reefer]

Looks good Chris.

Your wife must be a very understanding woman to put up with all your tinkering, especially in the kitchen!

Did you a figure how to get it to balance permanently?

Do you notice a change in the light the reflectors are giving off?

 

[chrisrush]

Thanks Steve. But I'm not sure that understanding is the best word. I think that she just puts up with it. Every time I tinker with it, it is usually when she's at work and my plan is to have it back to normal when she gets home. It doesn't always work though.

I did notice a big change in the intensity of light that the reflectors are putting off. It is very bright, and it even makes the 10k Reefflux bulbs seem a little whiter. I've got two window screen layers on it right now, so that I don't bleach the corals.

Chris

 

[chrisrush]

Anyone know of a good fan that I can mount behind my tank to blow across the surface water? My old canopy had 2 fans that would move the water across the bulbs, but I'm now looking for a fan that can move the air from behind the tank to the front, across the width of the tank.

Pictures would be great.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[chrisrush]

I found some sweet fans to go behind my tank. Jerone sent me to Lowes to pick up a pair of squirel type fans. They rock. My tank hasn't moved more than + / - .5 degree since I installed them. Of course, I'm evaporating about 5 gallons per day now, but that's alright. Water is cheaper then electricity.

I posted this in the propagation section but I wanted to see if anyone following this thread had any ideas.

I'm thinking about adding a frag setup (mostly SPS & zoas) to my current sump. I have a space that is roughly 18" d x 12 " l x 14" h on the left side of my sump.

Here is a current picture of my sump.

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Here is a close-up of the left side and the right side:

Right side:

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Left side:

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I can remove the rock rubble and phosban reactor in the left side if I need too. The only problem that I might encounter with the left side of the sump is the return pump and the float switch, which you can barely see in that last picture (white pvc pipe, with float switch next to it).

I am getting a new calcium reactor to replace the DIY on the right side of the tank, so I thought about adding the frag setup to the right side and move the reactor to where the return section of the sump is, but I don't know if that will work.

If I add some eggcrate to raise the frags up, what MH ballast/bulb/wattage should I go with. I'd like to stick with 250w SE bulbs, since that's what I'm currently running, but I think that might be too much for such a small surface area.

Here's a top down view of the left side, btw.

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Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

 

[chrisrush]

Installed a new Ca reactor last weekend. I haven't run any gas through it yet though, as I'm waiting for my alk to drop a little.

I'll update with some more pictures once I get my home computer running again.

It's a 6" x 24" Aquatic Systems Design Ca Reactor with a ehiem 1250 recirc pump and a pH probe in port in the top.

Filled with 16 lbs. of Gen-X CRM and a lb. of Zeomag

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[Kay]

Looks good, Chris. Wish I had some of those DIY talents. Do you have a fuge? I don't see one in the pictures. I can't wait to get a camera so I can post some pictures. There's lots of us with 120's but each one is so different, as different as people are, the tanks are.

Good job!

Kay

 

[chrisrush]

Thanks Kay. No fuge. I could never get anything growing in it (chaeto, etc.). Right now all I've got is my skimmer and a small frag section.

Short update:
I picked up a 2nd false perc, 2 twinspot gobies and a powder brown tang in the last 2 weeks. Everything is doing good. Here are some pictures. I'm getting some brown diatoms on the reef ceramics, which I understand is normal. I soaked them for a week in fw and in sw but I still got the diatoms.

Powder Brown

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1 twinspot

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Pair of twinspots

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Small perc with his lady

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Those BTAs have split again, I now have 5!!!

Here's a quick angle shot

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And one of my favorite acros, purple pillow. It's amazing how purple this is under ambient light. I'll try and snap a picture tomorrow if the sun is out.

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