madmike

What??? quitter! You need to change the title of your build thread now

Yep that was me,

Those are REALLY fast growers, my colonies will put on nearly a inch a month! Thats why OIAB usually has frags,

It was alright but I upgraded my skimmer to a Super reef octopus 5000 and went with a swabie by Avast marine for it. it has worked out great! With a collection container that holds several gallons of skimmate, I only have to empty it out about once every 1 to 2 weeks. I only clean the skimmer about once a month. I have the swabbie turning on for about 1 minute 4 times daily with my Apex controller. BTW you gotta come by sometime and see the setup. Did you get the house in Salmon Creek? Mike

I run a 6 bulb sunpower fixture Blue + blue + Fiji Purple Fiji new gen Blue + blue + This is more of a 18-20k look to it. I would swap out your true actinic, no real need for them with these T5s as the blue + does almost the same thing and puts out a TON of par. With 2 aquablue specials (very similar to the KZ new gen in my setup) you will get a good 14K or so color.

Glad you got it in with very little re-work on the plumbing! looks like there is plenty of room in case of a power outage. Looks good Mike

So here is the finished product, this is a photo from the back side. I didn't see your response above until after I cut the acrylic, so I went with 13" tall on the drain side, 12" for the center section, and I changed the bubble trap slightly to a 2 wall setup. We were running out of room using the 1/2" material and the return section was going to be very narrow so I didn't want to run into the pump not fitting into the chamber, lol. This chamber can be run anywhere from 4-12" of water and this is where you will place the "fill to" line for the topoff. This is exactly how my sump is setup and I have had no problems with bubbles getting through to the pump. Its ready to pickup and install anytime... just let me know when I NEED to thank Vinh and Blue Ocean Marine for donating all the acrylic for this project which would have cost at least a couple of hundred dollars or more! THANKS VINH!

For those who have seen the sump currently in place, could you recommend a depth for this new sump please I need to know what the water level should be in the return section, skimmer section, and drain section Thanks

Are you in Vancouver/portland ever? I have a nice blue gig that anenome crab would like to live in. Also wouldn't mind the gsp, trying to get some to grow on to my overflow and this would be a good start. I have lots of sps to trade if you want to come take a look.

i'd take the reactor if you are coming to portland

Sounds good, let me know what sizes you want what i.e bubble trap, return, I can put a filter sock holder in it if you want.

Beth, let me know the dimensions of the stand and WxLxH of the sump. I picked up about a sheet of 1/2" cast material donated by Vinh at Blue Ocean Marine today so I can build a rimless sump however big you want

How big do you need. I just upgraded to a 1hp chiller, so I have a 1/2hp c-050 I would sell.

I don't search for meds... I have minions that do that for me! Tap is pretty expensive... What size are you thinking (dimensions)? I usually buy my stock from James at Envision but he rarely caries less than 1/2 inch material. I know someone who has some 1/4-3/8 I think I can probably get for a decent price. Sketch something up and send it my way and I can get it done.

I'd be willing to build a sump also for free if the acrylic is provided...

Luckily Pacific coast is just down in woodburn, I would call them and see how much for a tune-up.

Don't you EVER work??? I wish I worked for a company that would let me NEVER work! Oh wait....we work for the SAME company! How come I am doing ALL your work for you?! Oh wait... It was April Fools Day, you guys get all of the holidays off right?

The difference in sunpower vs powermodule is the build quality and another fan in the powermodule line/ ie the sunpower will have 2 fans, the powermodule will usually have 3/4. The tests in light output on them show VERY little difference in light output, maybe a 5% increase from the powermodules, not worth it IMO. The powermodule is built like a tank.... the sunpower I would compare to a Hum V The sunpower line used to only go up to 6 bulbs, so the powermodule line was necessary for those who needed 8 or 10 bulb setups, now they have released the 8 bulb sunpower line so the powermodule is really only needed for 10 bulb setups.

From what I hear, the TEK doesn't use a good T5 ballast like the ATI does so it can overdrive the bulbs, heating them up. Plus the tests have shown that the ATI produce about 20-25% more par than the tek elite fixtures.

Ive got a 40 watt aqua uv unit that needs a new bulb and quartz sleeve that I would trade you. Will cost about $75 for a new bulb and sleeve but these retail for $375 new.

Do you still have the swallowtail male Robert?

cool, see you on Sunday

$45 for #2

No, you definately can use both... 0zone wont really do anything for your nitrate/phosphate besides break down the organics a little faster. I never really notice much difference with just ozone in nitrate/phosphate but it does produce crystal clear water! I am currently dosing a vinegar/vodka mix and alot of it. I have gradually got up to over 200ml daily and have seen a great reduction in my nitrate from about 20ppm to less than 5 currently. I tried MB7 but didn't really notice a difference. All of the chemistry guru's on RC seem to think that the bacterial supplementation for carbon dosing is unecessary because the bacterial is already present in the system is sufficient quantities, and it makes sense... you are feeding the bacteria so that they reproduce, and in the process take in nitrate/phosphate for fuel to do so... pretty quickly you have PLENTY of bacteria as evidenced by the nasty dark skimmate being produced. I didn't contact avast, just figured it was a fact of life. I probably could get it perfect but when I pull it off every week or so to clean it I would need to re-adjust it just right.... just too lazy to do it that way, lol.

the swabbie works pretty good. I have it on a SRO 5000 cone skimmer and it cleans the neck about 4 times a day for a minute or so. I too have a couple gallon container with an auto shutoff incase of overflow and I can now leave the skimmer for a week or more without touching it. I do ALOT of carbon dosing so my skimmate is very dark and there is alot of it, I probably make 3 gallons a week! My only complaint is it is slightly hard to get it just centered so it cleans all of the way around the neck in 1-2 passes... it puts slightly more pressure on one side vs the other so I get a little build up every few days in just one spot. I have solved this by "spinning" the swabbie ever few days to a week to put the pressure in a different spot which will then clean the spot that wasn't getting pressure. (not sure if this makes ANY sense at all but it is pretty easy to do)