caolewis

I would cut the drain pvc a bit shorter then coupling to aim them into the socks directly, or it's fine the way it is. It's glass to mess around with bulkhead and drilling

Is this drain from dt tank into your sump? The top better cause you can put filter sock on your return drains? If you put on the side, make sure it's tall enough to have room for you sock filters. It was top for my tank because it's easier to change and place sock filters. IDK, I am confused with drain and pump pressure out on how we called them . For my system, from my DT tank plumbing down to sump, it is DRAIN for me. From pump's outlet to DT tank, PUMP-OUT ( not sure what it should be called )??

Worth every pennies. I tossed all jebaos after a year or less, they are junks, POJ

Anyone knows where to get acrylic tank buff up? Thanks.

Oh my bad....carbon reactor vs carbon dosing.... But again, my same question why dosing if your system is doing well? And still same main point is that you care about your water or you care about about your LPS/SPS colors? They need right intensity/par, sweet spot of N and P to color up. Zero P and N will starve them. Too much P and N will kill them.

What are you trying to do with your tank? Is it SPS dominated? Mixed? Or just LPS? Why you try to use carbon? If your stuff is looking good, why bother? Carbon is very good at what it does that is keeping your water clean and strip all the elements ( just like your home water filter ). If you care about your tank cleanliness, run it. If you dip bunch of stuff for bugs and worry about poison/ammonia spike, run it a day or 2. If you care about your LPS/SPS colors, heavy carbon dose will starve their colors in long run.

My ex-hobby/toy :-)...well short off cause I am not dumping any more $$ into it....except food and uv

If I turn your basement into this, I am hired???

Well beside Ocean, next is Brad

You can't hijack this thread into your own bali :-).. Can you snorkel? I vote for your stinkypinky, one of the very nice milli (king of the pink ) Demon angel? still waiting for a grow after a year of no grow but seeing positive sign Brad's crazy Tierra Acid trip/Asd Mattv Fanta (bright orange) Sex Panther ( extremely hairy...don't they all do :-) ) Bahama Off the topic WD and Peterpan are must have ( they are a lot more hairy annd sizeable PEs than most of the millis )

Ocean has them :-)

Has anyone tried this? Will they fight to shift their focus away being a hard worker :-)? My current convict is a super hard worker. Anyone knows how hard a worker Chevron tang is?

ha..ha....Sorry, I am party crasher, huh :-). When I do things, I do a lot research and brainstorm then pull trigger. I don't ask for opinions cause they sometimes set me down. All about nut, gut and luck!!!

Have tile flooring with drainage. No matter how well you plan, you will flood your floor at least once and few time with your sump. 3 or 4 feed wide/depth will cost a lot more lighting ( if you want well spread all over the tank ). You go with cheap LEDs, they are gone poopoo within a year or so. Good lighting (my hydra has been going for 2 years or more now...crossing fingers) will cost around $400 each for led and you need may be 8? Man, my tank only 2 feet in depth but I already use 8 hydra :-). The worst part is fish jumping and flashing saltwater and moist over lighting and they are going poopoo alot faster.

Gil&Fin....you should ask reefnjunkie to let you try to reach in to clean a bit to have a feel of it. He's a pro and everything he laid out seem like piece of cake but at the end the day, you are the captain. Are you really committed to it or just hot shot and get rid of it after few months??? I almost gave up this hobby last Summer after lost all my colonies to AEFW battle, dead fishes, and every time deep clean, my back hurt, my arms are tired but the colors inspirations in SPS keep me going but for how long....IDK. I am getting older and my body is slowly giving up on me....I probably shut down both aquariums and koi pond soon and just visiting you folks reefers's tanks to enjoy for no labor work :-). Saltwater/ponds are no joke, they seem like a part or fulltime job. If you are in for a long run, make it so easy when it comes to maintenance( and stay away from acrylic). This is not a plug and forget thingy.

Are you kidding me Gil&Fin, no wayyyyyyy. You are gorgeous . In wall is nice and you get away of the 2 sides and just the front for cleaning. Design the upper front door well so you do not bend to much to reach bottom for cleaning. Everything comes with pros an cons. Deep tank are cool with fishes but hard to clean. 700gal is at store but it was forcefully placed there without my will :-(.

Does not matter front or back access....you can't fully clean the bottom front algae build up from the back. So craw underneath that tiny window and scrub its bottom off weekly. And if you have a deep tank that your hands can't reach the bottom? You'd be swearing weekly :-). That's how it goes for my 700 gal system

In wall is pain in the butt when cleanning (ask ReefJunkie for opinion). Sharpfire glass island cube or stand alone system for me. IDK, my tank is pretty deep and every weekly round of cleaning....I go like why the heck I got into this pain in the butt hobby.....

I will take it

Well, Wife has the card and I got to work through the weekend.....I hate valentine, bdays...... Upgrade to gen 3, touch screen 12 inches finder?

Brian, Readjust reactor's enfluent to good flow ( a bit faster than dripping ). You don't need full stream unless your tank filled with big colonies and have a great need of CO2 ( Danik's old tank or ReefJunkie's tank :-) ). Good effluent flow, and count the C02 bubbles, it should be 40-50 counts per minute is where your tank should reach around 8.3ish. Readjust your apex C02 outlet guardband so it's on while trying to reach and maintain your tank desired KH.

Daily .8% or .9% of your tank volume if you could ( using doser machine to do your robot water change :-) ) Or weekly 10%. The more often but low volume of water change, the better. If your tank is heavily stocked with fishes, probably a bit more water changes and PO4 reactor to begin with. For SPS: 1. Deep Purple color: According to google :-), it's the hardest color and required clean water so water change is a must. 2. Bright Yellow: Right intensity and right balance of PO4 and Nitrite and nutrients. This is a tricky one as they can become yellow to green quickly or vise versa. 3. Deep red: Rich nutrients These are the top three hardest colors to achieve in SPS. Too much water change, you will lost the deep red. Too little water change, you might lose yellow or things will start turning slimmy and brown out and eventually die. Watching things in your tank or during feeding time, it will tell you a lot if you are doing the right amount of water changes. For LPS: 20% bi-weekly might be good. I don't add any additives to my tank but I stocked heavily with fishes and right amount of water change to get rich nutrients to try to achieve rainbows :-) https://reefbuilders.com/2008/09/03/guide-of-sps-coral-coloration-make-them-more-vivid-bright/ .It's still WIP and learning for me but it's slowly getting there....

ahhh, I got no feeling so no offense...:-) It's good to discuss to help others. I see your point. My effluent flow is pretty good ( while some others have it dripping ). For my case, I try to not to touch effluent flow but increase the C02 counts. It's pretty sensitive for my tank with a hairy touch on C02 knob, KH could swing to .5 or 1. For brand new tank and no corals, it would be around 35-45 of bubble counts per min so I doubt if the solenoid is wide opened and still be at that low KH

If the number above was pH references then I am pretty sure. My tank's KH will reach 8.5-9.2 when "6.5 < reactor's PH < 6.95 " ( the right number will reduce over time once things grow bigger). if reactor's PH read above 7.0, KH is way below 8.

Looking good except KH. Bump KH up to 8.5-9.0 range by giving more C02. Apex is used to prevent solenoid malfunction to swing KH too high ( too low of KH when solenoid is dead :-) ). if ph above 6.5 then ON, less then 6.4 then off ( KH high, Reactor's PH dropped. KH low, Reactor PH raised). Raise or lower KH by giving or reducing CO2 gas using the CO2 knob on solenoid. I have 2 PH probes, 1 in sump and 1 in reactors and I view them daily on my phone to make sure things are running well ( so is temp and salinity ). My sump's PH around 8.2 and my reactor's PH around 6.8-6.9 range.