Cheryl's 165 Gallon upgrade

[Madmak]

Originally Posted by CherylMcKay

How far should the water fall? My internal measurements for depth of the tank, is 21". I was thinking the over flow would be 12" deep with 1-11/2 " for the egg crate. The fall to the bulk head will be 10 1/2 to 11 ".

I am thinking my overall dimensions will be 48"x 7" x 12"? I was thinking 7" as my Euro-bracing is about 3" wide, and this will allow me to get my hand in.

Thoughts?

The water doesn't really need to fall very far at all. The farther it falls the louder it is.

My overflow is also 48" wide, but is 5" wide and 5" deep, just enough room for the plumbing really. I used 2 rows of eggcrate at the top which is plenty. With an overflow that wide you need to place it only 1/4" or so lower than the desired water level in the tank, it will take on a large volume of water easily.

With two drains I would make one a full siphon with a gate valve and an emergency. They would look like the two right-most drains in this pic.

Yours would come through bulkheads on the bottom instead but a down turned elbow on the full siphon and an up turned elbow on the emergency is the quietest.

My suggestion is to make it as small as possible as mine seems to take up a lot of space even at 5"x5". Maybe 7"Wx 5"D is best for you considering your eurobrace.

You will love the surface skimming from a large overflow like that, it works great.

This is a pic of mine in operation.

And a few when building.

[Skimmerking]

looking great Cheryl well done i love your box you have there.

[CherylMcKay]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

looking great Cheryl well done i love your box you have there.

Wish I could say that is mine but it isn't. It is Madmak's. he was kind enough to post his pictures to show me.

I strive to have mine look as good. :-)

[CherylMcKay]

So I have finally had a bit of time to do some work on the 150 gallon tank. I purchased the glass for the overflow and decided I was going to use 1/4 inch glass. I am quite happy with the strength of it, although it took longer to drill my holes then ususal. Here it is all covered with tape and siliconed on the inside.


I have drilled the holes as close to the back as I can, leaving enough room for the bulkhead flange. It is going to be 7 inches by 7 inches (including 2 inches of egg crate).


Here is my poor empty tank, waiting for the overflow to be attached and then the plumbing to be done, again.


The pipes will run down the back of the tank and then a 90 degree to then run into the holes in the middle of the tank. I will pile the my rock over the pipes to hide them, but it saves me from trying to lay this beast on it's side to drill through the 1/2 inch glass. Big sigh, deep breath and lets try to get it right this time. I have decided that I need some new toys too.... I will add photo's as they arrive.

My fish and livestock are now in my 75 Gallon, a little crowded but so far everyone is getting along.

[CherylMcKay]

This long weekend has been great for getting things done on the tank. I had installed the overflow a couple of weekends ago and this weekend, I finsished the plumbing, the rock covers for the plumbing and actually got water in it.

The plumbing was fairly easy, just a matter of making sure I had all the cuts proper and wasn't stressing any bulkheads. Here is the overflow full syphon and the emergency. I did try to follow the herbie style...

The overflow is 48 " long and I centered it the best I could but as the tank is so heavy I had to do it while it was upright... what a pain. I knew I could deal with anything being off with the PVC and I did. The return pipes are not truely 90 degrees to the back of the tank.

I had been reading alot of threads where people were making rock walls on the back of thier tanks and I thought this would be an awesome way to hide the return pipes that have to run in the display tank. I took some egg crate, rocks (I had a bunch I had to kill off) and low expansion foam (pond variety and fish safe), zip ties and went to work. I made the frame so it would sit at the back of the tank around the PVC. I made it in 2 pieces, so I can remove it if I have to do any work on the pipes (God I hope not), an upright piece to cover the back pipe and a horizontal piece to cover the last strech going into the bottom of the tank. Once I foamed the peices, I poured some of my sand on them to cover the black foam.
The left side vertical piece:

The left side horizontal piece:

The left side assembled over the pipe:

Here is a FTS with the sand in the bottom and both sides in and assembled:

I had set them into place, using a little silicone and some foam at the back corners, and then let them cure overnight. I still have some live rock in a couple of holding tanks that will fill in some more space, but because I had to dry out this rock, I wanted it to cycle for a while without the live rock so I don't kill anything important. I figure I am going to get some major spikes from this stuff as it died when one of my holding tanks crashed, due to major bristle worm die off.... It was a small tank and the heater stuck on... major die off, thank god it wasn't the really good rock.

I am not the most artistic person, so I think it worked a whole lot better then I ever though it could.

[CherylMcKay]

So, the tank has been salty for a week, I am trying to be patience. I had a bacteria bloom the first few days as the rock was just dried out not washed or anything. Now I am at the golden brown algae stage, and still getting the water flow balanced. The skimmer is running and now have a Sedra KSP-20000 running. I have decided that the 75 gallon ( I am holding the fish, coral and rock in) will become my sump. I will put one/two baffles in it, 1to keep the skimmer at the proper depth and the other to keep the live rock from moving all over the bottom...really simple.

My husband keeps reminding me that we want to take this slow and steady. I have added about 20 lbs of live rock and a few snails. I found a really small one a about day 4, maybe a 1/2 cm long crawling on the glass.

I know I need the cycle to finish, and the I can add more of the live rock I have in the 75 gallon. Should I then wait again? I don't want to remove some of the rock as I have 2 engineer gobies that hide behind/under it. I also want to transfer all the fish at once, as I have rad that there will be less aggression that way...

What is a reasonable time frame to aim for, 1 month, 2 ? I figure if I have a end date, I can count down and help control the urge to put everything in this tank so I can admire them all together.

Aquarium home-150G parameters are:
Temperature: 78.7
Salinity: 1.027
Ammonia, NH4: 0.1
Nitrate, NO3: 0.1
Nitrite, NO2: 0
pH: 8.4
Alkalinity, KH: 5.5
Calcium, Ca: 500
Phosphate, PO4: 118 ppb
Magnesium, Mg: 1,600
Ammonia Nitrogen, NH3: 0.1

[CherylMcKay]

So It has been just shy of a year since I posted on this tank. Amazing how easy it is to let life get in the way of your hobbies and relaxation. Unfortunately my tank has suffered for it. I have decide (yet again) to make sure I get a much time doing what I like as I do, doing what I have to.

With out further ado:
FTS-20140322:


I am fighting hair algae again. Fighting this stuff is crappy!!! It is slowly choking out some of my favorites and this is my record of before and hopefully after. I am also talking to my husband about getting LED's as we pay a 300 dollar power bill every month and with a 6x54Watt fixture that doesn't even light the whole tank... we could be saving and I could be getting more light.

Corals:

My poor Candy Cane coral... Don't want to scrub on it with a toothbrush, so I suck off what I can every week.

Some seem to be thriving though? This is low to the rocks and seems to be holding it's own:

Blue Ridge ... (forgot the rest of the name and I couldn't find a picture to match):

Here is a FTS of my sump... Not a lot in it but I am looking at either a Phosphate reactor or Bio-pellets... haven't decide which will give me the best gain, long term. (Although with my reading... I am leaning towards the bio-pellets as keeping the bacteria up in the tank, makes more sense then trying to just remove phosphates):

It has not also been 6 months with my Apex and while I am liking it, I have a hard time trusting the Salinity probe as my refractometer reads, a couple of points higher (35 on Apex is about 37 on my refractometer) and my refactometer is easier to calibrate:

[SteveCGY]

Maybe try add a long spined sea urchin. I had bad hair algea like that and he cleaned it spotless in only a couple days.