Burningbaal

that things a beast!

unreal...I think your tank is the dream of most of us...I can only hope!

I for one am glad to see the response above. and honestly, it fixes everything I was afraid of. I'm glad to see some of the back-story and it really helps things make sense. I hope that all of these cuts grow out well and everything works out, it's a bummer that the group-buy purpose wasn't made clear to the seller as it may have helped in getting more uniform pieces, but I for one am terrible at fragging, so I can't quite cry foul. I should add that I haven't seen any of these in person and am at the mercy of pictures. I'm still confused about the plain-red-looking one...perhaps it will color up under actinics?

even if that's the case, I don't see any on the original thread that are just plain red...and I didn't think we paid for plain acans...I got some red ones (not all that different from your pic) as hitchhikers on my rock...

it seemed like the pic or two I'd seen were a little less than what I'd imagined...good to hear I wasn't totally imagining this. perhaps the seller will go the extra mile if one of these melts down on us...

looks awesome! much cleaner looking than mine! I can't quite tell in the pic, do you have the airline tubing on the durso for the bean animal?

looks awesome! much cleaner looking than mine! I can't quite tell in the pic, do you have the airline tubing on the durso for the bean animal?

I've known people with large tanks to drop two-liter bottles of ice in a sump, you could do it with smaller containers. no need to use RO, won't affect salinity, keep two of whatever container so you can have one freezing while one's melting. fan's a good choice though.

yay!!! (clap)(clap)(clap) (rock2)

yes...definitely. any tiny water that hits the bare wood would cause it to swell in that spot. firstly, that weakens the wood to near uselessness, but mostly it'll cause the base to be uneven, putting extra stress on the tank's glass/acrylic

mytshall: have all of these been picked up from you?

Trying! Two bulkheads were a little leaky in a wet test tonight and I decided it was time for bed, so I left the water level under them. Need to sort that out tomorrow

ya...paper towels still recommended to clean the tool...it's goopy stuff!

+1 also, how big was the water change? if you did a 20% water change (2 gallons), the level should drop from 20ppm to 16ppm, if you want it lower you have to change more water. if you have mostly just fish and soft corals, though 20ppm is probably fine.

that's the stuff. silicone I, clear. It'll say 100% silicone. it smells super strong of vinegar (i.e. sour smell). it has a little different texture to it than 'standard' caulks, but it's the stuff that sticks to glass so well. 'regular' caulk (usually acrylic or latex base) doesn't really stick very well to glass. it's messy, I'd have a whole roll of paper towels on hand for cleaning stuff up...especially your hands (as I assume you'll be using your finger to press it into the corners/etc)

check the jar for times to put it under pressure, probably a few hours...could be 24 hrs though. I would go slightly more than what it says, especially if the water your testing with will be used in the actual thing. if you're just testing with hose water (that you'll throw out afterwards), whatever it says on the jar should be plenty

got the plumbing about 5 minutes from done and realized I had forgot to put the collar on the union before I glued an elbow behind it. now I have 4 fittings to go re-buy, including the union, lame. probably will get those tomorrow evening and hopefully have the sump running by then. I want to keep the DT basically dry until the move because I want to put the sand in first, so I'll run the return so it just fills the c2c overflow box, never actually flowing into the DT. hopefully have that up within a few days and with some luck get the tank moved this weekend...might be optimistic

got the plumbing about 5 minutes from done and realized I had forgot to put the collar on the union before I glued an elbow behind it. now I have 4 fittings to go re-buy, including the union, lame. probably will get those tomorrow evening and hopefully have the sump running by then. I want to keep the DT basically dry until the move because I want to put the sand in first, so I'll run the return so it just fills the c2c overflow box, never actually flowing into the DT. hopefully have that up within a few days and with some luck get the tank moved this weekend...might be optimistic

very fun, I'm sure how it works (esp where skimmate collects), but I wanna see it in action! whats the dimensions (diameter x height)?

sounds like phosban reactor is a good plan and cutting back on food. what about skimmer? I assume yours is plenty? only other thought is to run macro in a fuge, push it with really bright fluorescent bulbs (6500K or so) and it'll tend to soak up all the phos and nitrate you can produce, harvest the macro as it overgrows the fuge to physically remove the nutrients. I'm planning on starting my fuge with a dsb (display will be ssb) and prolifera, maybe other rooted macros and probably add chaeto at some point. for me, it's a dual-purpose cause it'll also be a food source for the vegetarians (even though my YT apparently doesn't realize that formula 1 pellets have meat in them) glad you're persevering, can we see some pics?

good point about the siphon-break holes getting clogged, I somehow never considered that. I'm going to employ holes, but agree about the sump holding all the volume. my return will be right at the water line anyways, so it would probably not even drain 1/4" before the main outlets were at least partially out of the water.

I'll leave the why to more experience people, but it doesn't take much. a grain of 2mm sand would be enough to not fully seal it and if it happened overnight or something, it could drain a lot of water. grain of sand, chunk of LR rubble, snail shell, algae...electrokate found a crab in her skimmer's pump recently, so as that oh-so-annoying youtube sensation would say: "never say never"

I'm not clear on how your return is plumbed, but usually: provide some part of the return plumnbing to be right at/near the surface of the water in the display. so for me, I'll have plumbing up over the back of my tank, with the two outlets under the water. but I'll also drill a tiny (1/8" or so) hole in the side of the plumbing right at the water surface so that as soon as the water level falls in the DT, that hole will suck air and won't siphon out any more water. That tiny little hole won't really change the flow from the return when water is pumping and allows for a siphon break. if yours never goes near the surface, you could attach a piece of airline (or RO/DI hose) to the return that ends at the water surface...same effect. make sense?

Lots of people (that I've seen) advise against check valves, they can (and do) get stuck open. Better off to povide a siphon break for the return plumbing...good luck with the pump, I think I saw someone selling a magazine 9.5 recently, try a search...

40b depends on your stand. it's the same width (F-B) as your 75, so maybe not. how about a 29g? I'm setting up my 90g (same footprint as your 75) with a 55 sump because the stand is 4'9" wide, so there's a little extra length for the long sump....just thoughts