280g Inwall

[christyf5]

Great work Tony!! Its all coming together now! Keep up the momentum and remember, you can sleep when you're dead

[reefcanada]

It's looking very good Tony, can't wait to see it full.

[Delphinus]

Thanks Jay and Christy!

Last night's update disappeared mid-typing thanks to my bluescreening laptop (which I really need to get around to FnR'ing - format-n-reinstall - schtoopid computers). Anyhow.

No pictures this update. Last night I made the skimmer stand and put the skimmer where I thought I wanted it which was right in the center of the tank next to the return pump. Unfortunately it became evident that having it there and my frag tank on the right meant that I'd have no hope of ever getting into the sump area to replace dirty filter socks. So a few head scratching moments and a few "what about here? what about there?" moments and I think I have figured out a layout that should work. I'll slide the skimmer over the far right of the tank and have it turned 90 degree so it just drains straight into the sump (so I didn't need that 90 MPT fitting anyhow. Ooops. Oh well...). I'll have the frag tank on the left. Nice and open in that spot and it's a spot in the sump I wouldn't likely need to access on a daily basis. It does mean it's in the middle of the room, sort of, but at least there's plenty of space to workaround. The real bummer is that it also means that my plumbing for the frag tank is now pointing in the wrong direction and I'll have to either redo it, or put a "U turn" in the pipe and bring it back all the way over to the OTHER side of the tank.

Plumbing - love it and loathe it!

I am thinking at this point I am going to transfer my clowns and carpets into a temporary tank sooner than later, move them into the empty corner of the tank room (I need to start moving the tanks out of the open area in the basement, sooner or later anyhow). That leaves the semi-cube open and ready for cleaning (it needs it big-time, it's been running for about 4 or 5 years now!) and I'm thinking of plumbing it into the system sooner rather than later. This way when I do the wet test it will be a part of that and I can see what adjustments to the plan will be needed.

Trial and error for the win!

[lastlight]

Tony if you want a hand one night this week let me know and I'll pop by!

[Delphinus]

Slightly bittersweet this evening.

I finally finished the plumbing, after MUCH trial and error, and redo-ing a few things after not liking it as much as I thought I would. Funny how seeing things in person never seems to match up to my expectations of it in my imagination.

I switched the direction of the frag tank feed pipe. Unfortunately in doing so I busted the valve ($8 down the drain, oh well). Luckily I did have a spare 1" valve in my junk drawer, only thing it it's threaded over slip .. but in that same drawer of shame was a threaded to slip adapter so it's all good.

Next up was the skimmer. I think I might have mentioned already that I had originally planned on having the skimmer in the centre and the frag tank to the right, but it became evident very quickly once I got the measuring tape out that this wasn't going to work out. So on the right for the skimmer. Built a little stand for it, drilled the sump, did a few iterations on the plumbing before finally settling on a schema that I liked.

I got so excited tonight that I had to do a wet test of the skimmer, so I filled the sump partway and flipped on that Mak4 pump to see what would happen.

Unfortunately the bearings are shot. That pump turns, but it howls like a banshee. The whole house resonated with the sound. Completely unacceptable.

So ...... a quandary now. I was already not liking the flanges, and was having trouble finding a solution for that anyhow. Now if I have to spend money to replace a pump I'm left wondering if I'd be better off spending money and replacing the whole skimmer with something insump. Which sucks because it means I drilled the sump for nothing then, but at least that can be patched or plugged.

And that's of course ignoring the financial end of the equation.

I'm left wondering if I'd be even able to sell the skimmer. It's VERY large so the target market is probably pretty small. I see by this thread:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=22453&
.. that I paid $250 or probably very close to that for the skimmer. Fast forward to today, becketts are a bit dated these days, so it's unlikely I'd be able to sell it easily and certainly won't be able to defray the cost of a new skimmer by any significant amount even if I did.

On the flip side, the acrylic alone is worth a mint. I'm probably better off for the moment looking for a replacement pump and dealing with the skimmer replacement question down the road, but then I'm left wondering, why do it twice. Do it once and be done with it.

Any opinions?

Here are some pictures. Looks like Shaw fixed the photoshares so I'm back to hosting these pictures at Shaw. I have to go back and fix the last batch now but I'm kinda too lazy to get the get up and go for that.

[lockrookie]

i woulld say if it works then why change. sure there is new tech and new design but if yours does the same thing in the end why not keep it .. besides if you do an in sump skimmer you will lose precious space fro media reactors and such in future. if i could have a fish room (never happen in this house) i would use it. notto mention if you ever wanted to use ozone i think you would get more water contact on your skimmer. just my opinion tho.

but i am very jealous if i wanted a fish room id have to build a garage weather proof it and build my dream system out there. wife would never seemem again

[Snappy]

Nice to see you closing in on the final lap Tony. Let the fun begin.

[Lance]

If it was me I'd stay with the Beckett and find a pump. I love my Beckett!

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

good.


Unfortunately the bearings are shot. That pump turns, but it howls like a banshee. The whole house resonated with the sound. Completely unacceptable.

He Tony, I know where there is a Mak4 with good bearings and a bad impeller for pretty cheep

Steve

[Delphinus]

Hey Steve, thanks, I might take you up on that. Seems a shame to throw out two pumps when we can merge parts and maybe salvage one of them. Anyhow we can talk offline on that at some point perhaps.

...

Here's a quick update on things.

After spinning my wheels around about the skimmer the last little while, it looks I found a replacement skimmer. It should be arriving sometime this week and I'll save the detailed story for after when I have it in my hands. One sucky thing is it means I have to redo the overflow plumbing to gain full benefit from it but I think it will be worthwhile in the end. At any rate, stay tuned for developments on that particular story as it plays out.

So after deciding to not worry about the skimmer for now I tried getting my T5's going. The original plan here was to use 24" T5's mounted perpendicular to the tank so that they can fit between the Lumenarcs. There is room for long T5's on the outside edge of the halides for lengthwise but there are two reasons I opted for perpendicular: cheap and easily available, and also the way that long T5's would sit would have them directly over the Eurobracing, which seems like a waste of light. However that said, it's just for dusk and dawn, so who cares if one is not squeezing out every last shred of PAR out of the T5's.

But, a snag. I had bought 16 T5 sockets and 8 24" reflectors with the intent that I would drive them, at least temporarily, using a Workhorse 7 ballast I've had sitting around since the days of old. Two problems played out here: 1) WH7 isn't rated to drive 24" T5's at all, and 2) Even if it could, it's not to drive 8 lamps (I just thought I could "get away with it" if I ran the lights in series. I riveted in two 2" straps of aluminum into the light rack so that it could hold 24" t5's and starting wiring up the sockets. Well, unfortunately, ... it didn't work. Either my lamps are defunct or my ballast is defunct .. but after finding out I was trying to squeeze lemonade out of a handful of dirt anyhow, I thought .. why not look into just buying a proper retrofit kit. Why not go with 80w and be done with it.

Well, wow, 80w kits are both expensive and hard to find. Ok. So decided to shelf T5's altogether for now and just get on with things.

But, a stroke of dumb luck, or for once, being a packrat paid off. When I went my pile of equipment to find the one last ballast I had for the halides (it was a bare ballast that I had to wire up and put into a case), I found a forgotten-about 2x24w CurrentUSA Nova unit I had purchased for the sake of adding actinic to my cube tank, which I never got around to doing. The brilliant part is it fits perfectly between two reflectors and the amount of light it throws off, even if it is a little askew to one side, is perfect for a dusk/dawn effect. If I can find a second one of these somewhere, to put on the other side, I'm going to call it done.

So, yesterday was a beautiful day outside and had 2 invitations to go mountain biking, which I probably should have taken... but instead I said "this shalt be a tank project day." The family went off doing shopping and chores and I stayed home and starting to work on finishing my halide reflectors. Took a bit of fiddling with washers to act as spacers for the socket-to-reflector mount to get the lamps to sit nicely centred in the reflectors, but I got the light rack finally wired, lamps installed, and the whole dang thing back up in the ceiling.

I've been waiting a LONG time to see this:



So what we have here is 3 Radiums. The outside two are lit by HQI ballasts, so overdriven at 430w or so, and the middle is a DIY M135 ballast (pulse-start, and slightly underdriven at 380w or so, IIRC). To be honest at this point I can't see a difference, all 3 are insanely bright to my eyes and the colour a nice shade of cool-glacier-ice-sort-of blue. But there's only been 5 minutes of run time so it will be neat to see once it's past the burn-in period.

The tank with all 3 halides on:


Of course without context, you can't really see how insanely bright this tank is. When I took this picture I looked over to my right and looked at the cube tank. The cube tank with its single 250w just absolutely pales in comparison.

For the next two photos, of course I let the camera auto-adjust so it's hard to see the step-downs in intensity but at the same time, I'm actually really impressed with things, they are still brighter than I thought they would be.

Here's just the middle halide on:


It's a pretty decent amount of light still.

And this was just the mind-blowing moment of the day for me yesterday. Here's a 280g tank light by only 2x24w t5:


There's my dusk and dawn. I'm happy with it. Like I mentioned earlier if I can find a second 24" Nova unit I might throw that up there but that will be it. Any other t5's after that will be simply be icing.

And ... and ... and:


The fill has begun. The RO/DI is a 75gpd unit so it's going to take a few days, but ... the tank is now officially wet. Happy days are here!