wjb

Unbelievble bad luck. I spoke with a lfs and he claims to hear this story about 5 times a year. Bad valves, leaking balls, cracked housings, and nuts. I am just glad it is over, and for me, lighting rarely strikes twice???? I got my skimmer online last night, and today, I will work on trying to re-pipe my closed loop return system Anyone use the OCEANS MOTIONS systems??? I love it btw, very quiet, very low profile, as there is no boxes or motors inside my display tank... But talk about piping. uggh, I rememeber hooiking it up originally... I dont look forward to it now, but now, I will be plugging the holes on the returns prior to doing anything...

Ummm, Actually the camera is down right now. I dont want any evidence from this last weekend!!!! I had a catastrophe!!!! :eek: I was doing some preventative maintenance on my tank, and was going to take my SEQUENCE DART pump, offline to clean it up, as there was a good a mount of salt creep coming from around the shaft / dry side of the volute... So, I closed the valves on boths sides of the pump, and loosened the uniions, (2" on teh suction / inlet side) and as soon as I seperated the union, All HELL BROKE LOOSE. It took about a minute to drain a hundred and thirty some gallons... It was not pretty. My area rug was under water. Water was flowing out my front door, I found out a half hour later, that water had made it into my bedroom and master bathroom... I have hard wood floor / the laminate kind, the kind that dont like water, not that any of them do.... I had to stand and think for a bit... What to do? Do I tear it down and trash it? Do, I try to save my corals and live rock, or just let them die while I move all my furniture out.??? I ended up calling on a buddy, reef geek buddy. He told me he had his five year old kid with him, and that he needed to pick up his other kid in a bit,...... ..... He then said he would be right there..... .... ... I was speechless... Istarted rescuing my coral. I started dropping them down into the water that was left, About five inches, and move as much rock down as possible,and move a ton of coral to my sump, and to buckets, nd even into my mixing barrel,, 100% water change with no acclimation.... I would imagine my coral was ... (flame) My friend had to drive an hour to get to me. and we finished moving all my furniture out into the front yard. I had rented a shop vac and heavy duty fans, and we started squeegeeing the water out.. Another friend showed up about a half hour later, then another showed up so there were four of us taking care of business... We got things dried, MOSTLY. and move the furniture back in, except the area rug. and I got a new valve, 1-1/2" double tru-union valve, $25, and also decided to move the closed loop pump and Oceans motions 4 way, outside, *my sump andfuge and skimmer and all around everything, is outside, as the tank is on an exterior wall, and the area is a covered, enclosed patio... Around 5PM I was on the search for salt water... I make my own usually, with a ro/di filter, and a 55gal recirc barrel for mixing saltwater, but I needed almost 100gal after my already available water... My lfs closed right after I got my first batch of water, (i only had 5 five gallon jugs) so after that run, then I bought from a machine in front of the supermarket.. and mixed it up, and waited a WHOLE hour, than added it to my tank... After that, I was able to get my overflow and sump to work. I was good for the night... I was able to turn my heaters on. I am using a RIO 2500 return pump, for my circulation... It really blows. I am impressed... I spent that sunday reaquascaping with another friend, it took us six hours. I took out all the rock. AND I caught my nemisis!!! The blue devils are now exhiled... Life in the sump for now on... But after that bit of happiness, it was back to work, I sucked out all the sand, (I had a bare bottom, but put in ten lbs of sand to keep som sand creatures happy, but sand is everywhere with 3600 gph circulation... So, now, I am bare bottom, and my tank is completely differentthen it was. I have just finished hooking up the skimmer, as I had to relocate things when i plumbed the new closed loop pump outside... Tomorrow I will start re gluing all my corals in place... That is a pita,.,, I bout tentubes ofglue from the .99 cent store... 3 per .99 cents, not bad, huh?? Anyways, basically a weekend from hell...

impur, I will set up an account for you too... if anyone else wants an account, just let me know... I am not trying to get anyones info, and GUARANTEE that no info will be exchanged between me and anyone else regarding the use of your username. (and for those that want to know, that is all I get when you log on, just the username and time you log on...) I dont get real names, dont even ask for it...

yea, I know about firefox, and will add safari to the list. Nothing I can do about that. That part, the software to control the camera, is develped by the mfg. and they control what software will and wont work... I got hte camera ON SALE, so go figure as to what will and when things will be updated But, as far as I can tell on my end, you did log on around 10:30 and 11:20 last night... Or so it says on my end... Let me know if youw ant some more assistance, you can pm me or somehow get my tele number, that would be better,,, And at that time of night, it is pretty dark.. The best time to see stuff is between early morning, (6AM) til about 11:30AM or whenever the lights come on... I usually feed flake before lights come on or right when lights come on. I feed by hand so it is usually cool to watch.. (nothing like an aquarium feeding, but lettle things for little minds, (me that is)

http://mytank.monroviamountain.com:81/ are you using firefox or mozilla or something? what browser are you using, and what screen are you seeing

Hello ALL (continued...) Continued from the earlier message... After I orginally plumbed everything, (about 4 months after), I decided to redo most of the plumbing, to minimize the elbows and in-efficient pipe runs... After it was all done, per the calcs, I had reduced the head pressure by about 7 feet, and the flow increased by almost 500gph... Part of the changes was this... I replace 4 - 1" pvc elbows with these two 1-1/2" wide sweep "90" (found int he electrical department at home depot and lowes... This is actually the only elbows needed for my tank... Unfortunately, there is two other elbows that can be removed, but it is more then a PITA to get to... This has to do with teh overflow being in the middle, and my not being able to get to the overflow, cause I would have to remove and replace the bulkheads, but I can not get to the overflow, so.... So, I deferred replacing those till whenever, (WHEN? NEVER!!) I will get to it, but, it will be a while... When I re-piped, I removed several auxillary pumps and decided to go with the Quiet One 6000 pump, and fabricate a 'manifold' to branch out and supply water to each of the equipments I have, i.e. the chiller, the media reactor, the UV light.. But, again, I did not want ELBOWs, although they would not affect the flow into or out of the display tank, it was the intent and goal for consistancy.. (I do have elbows in my system, just the bare minimum though Here is a manifold, (I ended up scrapping it and making it slightly different, but at least you can see the concept... Here is a pic of my skimmer. I dont understand why everyone doesnt have the MRC skimmers or something like them. (they can be upgraded by buying or fabricating sections to make the chamber longer)... (you can see how I plumbed the top of the skimmer to feed both beckett injectors so they had equal pressure and flow... You can see on the sump, the black ABS line is the drain line coming from the display tank, (I split the drain line, so one side comes in onthe left side of the sump, and also the right side of the sump, (the fuge, and it is throttled back to reduc the flow through the fuge) I approximate the flow through the sump/fuge to be less then 400 gph, with about 100gph through the fuge (no the pipe is not copper, (I was bored and had some copper spray paint) Anyways, hope you enjoy, and if you gots questions, I gots answers, or guesses...

Well, I am truly hoping to move and inject myself, (another socal burnout), into your neck of the woods.. I want to move SOONER, rather then later... But, I have only toured through your areas many many years ago. And I was not looking to move back then. So, now, I dont have a clue as to how to start looking... Or where.... I dont have many NEEDS. The only true consideration is I am a single father of a 15 year old daughter, (who thinks she is thirty) Other then that, I would WANT, a 'smallville' type of farm/ranch/home. I want a small town, and elctricity , telephone or cell phone, gas or other heating fuels, and sewer/septic... Other then that, barns, stables,horses would be okay... If not a farm or ranch, then just a small neighborhood, with as much space between neighbors as possible... Anyways, as for my TANK. It is a 180g tank with a 50g sump/fuge I am using a MRC MR2 skimmer with dual beckett, (w/ quick release fitting everywhere) I have a 1/4hp chiller, and a aquaC XP media reacotr, and 45 watt Aqua logic UV. I also have a saltwater mixing barrel with auto top off float valves, and a homemade DIY/ 12v auto top off that is fed directly from my RO/DI filter... The sump and all equipment, (except for a closed loop), are located outside on my private patio. (it has a roof, but the perimeter is actually a fence, (wood fence)... Inside is my tank, which is drilled with a center overflow, (which I will not do again, as I can not get access to the inside of hte overflow) The overflow has 1-1/2" drain, and two -1" return lines... The back of the tank has 4 - 1" holes for the return lines of the closed loop system, and two 1-1/2" holes for the inlets to the closed loop, The closed loop is a Oceans Motions, 4-way, powered by a Sequence DART pump, 3600gph Lighting is a 72" Hamilton fixture, which has 3 250 watt MH bulbs. the outside bulbs are 10K, and the center bulb is a 14K. One of my upcoming projects will be to replace the center ballast with a 400W as the bluer the bulb, the dimmer it appears, as compared to the whiter bulbs... The fixture also has two 72" Super actinic VHO bulbs Everything is controlled by the Aquacontroller 3, which is bridged wirelessly to my router... NOW for the pics... The sump, and chiller, (the tank is onthe other side of that window) A very old pic, (Actually 10 months old), I promise to take some new pics this weekend) A closeup of the Oceansmotions 4-way. For those that dont know, thing that is just on top and out of the picture, is the motor that turns a drum inside that section that has the 4 red unions. (it turns it via a bunch of magnets, so there is no direct contact between the motor and the saltwater.. It turns at the rate of 1 revolution per minute, so (depending on the model of the drum), one hole is open at a time for fifteen seconds, then the next and so on... (very simplified explanation) (A better pic, but, it was taken after installation and after I found a 1/4" hole in the side of the pvc elbow...) (also notice the drain line and return lines going into the bottom of the tank. That little 'field goal' looking assembly to connect the return lines took me thre tries to get it to work and fit... (It dont look pretty, but it dont leak either) (CONTINUED in next message)

i can help... (I hope) you can call me or email me directly. for now, you can check out my tank at http:mytank.monroviamountain.com:81 sign on using your user name here on this forum, and guest as the password... Only one person at a time using the same user name. If you want a separate account, let me know your user name for me to use...

Hello, I have had problems with bulkheads leakinig before, and the most troublesome event was one where teh bulkhead was resting on the bottom of the hole, i.e. gravity held the BH down on the acruylic, so the gasket was just barely making contact at the top of the hole, but with water flowing downhill, it seemed it was leakinig from the bottom When installing the next BH, as you are hand tightening it, gently lift it up so it is centered in the hold. Then hand tighten it, (THAT IS IT, no WRENCHES) I should also suggest that the gasket goes on the inside, or against the flsh part of hte BH, not the part that has the threads on the outside, (the part that the large BH nut screws onto...) Also, I dont reccomend sched 80 bulkheads except on the bottom plate glass. Teh sched 80 s for STRUCTURAL strength, to make up for the loss of integrity by removing the glass, i.e. drilling the glass) The BH becomes the strenght that was reduced... Also, sched 80 has a smaller inside diameter, so whenever you use sched 80, you are getting less water flow... as it has a smaller diameter... Never use silicone on the gasket or surface of glass in hopes of sealing. It dont work that way. And will make it prone to air bubbles that will allow water to sneak bast the gasket... As for the removal of the old sump, and draining the tank, I am not sure why you need to drain the tank, just replace the standpipe with a longer pipe, one that sticks above the water line, then water will not drain into the sump, you will only have to drain the sump.. Good luck Bill