62G Starfire Reef [40x18x20]

[JDigital]

Operation "Skim Damn You!!!"

I can't recall if I made any mention of it in this thread but I have had a lot of frustrations with trying to dial in my Reef Octopus XP2000sss skimmer since day 1.

From what I can remember I read that 9" was the optimal depth for the water level in the sump, I'm almost bang on 9" so you can see how things could get frustrating when I can barely get this skimmer to skim.

By my math, I've MAYBE collected 3/4 of the skimmer cup full worth of skimmate since I started this tank. Really not that good and I considered myself to be feeding rather heavy, so this lack of skimming has not been ideal.

While my PO4 reading this week gave me a 0.08ppm reading I still feel this lack of skimming has had a part in my difficulties with this tank so tonight was the last straw. The boys at Concepts had suggest that I raise this skimmer to around 5" of water depth rather than 9" to get better performance from this thing.

So I went out to Home Depot to pick up some egg-crate. Home depot here in Airdrie apparently closes at 8pm now!! I ended up finally finding egg-crate Rona. $12.59 (and 1 Large Steeped Tea) later I was on my way home.



I didn't go right up to 5" yet. I built my skimmer perch to 3" to raise my skimmer to 6" depth and in doing so my sump level dropped somewhere between 3/16"-1/4" putting me at approx 5.75" (which just so happens to be what Bulk Reef Supply has on their site for optimal depth). I'll try that out for now and see if my skimmate increases.

[daplatapus]

Ya, I had an SRO int2000 as well and it didn't work well at the depth they said either. Mine seemed to work the best right around 6" if I remember correctly. One thing I found though is that it raised the effluent discharge a fair bit and the water exiting the skimmer got noisy. I put an elbow on it which did quieten it down but I found out that if you turn that elbow down all the way so that it's totally submerged, it air locked. SO I had to turn it a bit so at least a bit of the elbow was out of the water so that air could escape.

The other problem I had was that piping isn't standard size and I had to use a bit of spa flex filed down on one end to connect the elbow to the discharge of the skimmer.

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Ya, I had an SRO int2000 as well and it didn't work well at the depth they said either. Mine seemed to work the best right around 6" if I remember correctly. One thing I found though is that it raised the effluent discharge a fair bit and the water exiting the skimmer got noisy. I put an elbow on it which did quieten it down but I found out that if you turn that elbow down all the way so that it's totally submerged, it air locked. SO I had to turn it a bit so at least a bit of the elbow was out of the water so that air could escape.

The other problem I had was that piping isn't standard size and I had to use a bit of spa flex filed down on one end to connect the elbow to the discharge of the skimmer.

I'm curious where you had your gate valve set on the outlet nozzle. Mine doesn't seem to be much more open that it was before.

As of this morning I still didn't really have any substantial amount of skimmate in the cup. Good amount of foam right at the top of the collection cup neck though.. I've had this thing overflow on me a few times so I'm nervous to close down the gate valve much more than it already is.

[JDigital]

**TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ A WALL OF TEXT**



Ever since I got back into the salty side of things, wrasses seem to be my bad luck charm.

I had a very healthy Leopard Wrasse that I got off reefwars for my 180G which vanished one weekend with no trace or body.

I lost another Leopard Wrasse in my home tank. Similar scenario, just vanished one day, no body to be found.

I picked up a Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse for my 180G tank yesterday from Ocean Creations that I had put on hold Friday until Han was OK to sell. This wrasse is now not doing that great in my QT tank. Won't swim and barely even bothers to keep himself upright. Only thing is he seem to be very attentive when it comes to his eyes, he's always scanning around the tank but I don't have high hopes for him. I can basically reach in and grab him with my bare hand.

And to top it off, I get home last night, my fish are doing well and all accounted as I walk in the door. Few hours later (only minutes before I was about to go down and feed the tank) I can hear my roommate hollering at me that my tank is making some noise.

I head down stairs and the alarm on my Tunze ATO is beeping wildly and my skimmer is overflowing. Wonderful.

After unplugging the skimmer and ATO I tried to diagnose the problem. Yup, you guessed it... A Wrasse.

As far as I can see, one of my smaller wrasses was able to get through an extra wide gap in my overflow teeth, which would have instantly forced him down the main drain line. Likely getting mangled when he got to the gate valve and forced through whatever small opening there might be. This in turn slowed the flow of the tank and my tank level increased until it began to go down the Emergency drain (thank goodness for Herbie Overflows). With more water going into the tank than what was draining from the tank for a few moments activated my ATO as the levels in the sump dropped a bit.

Once the wrasse had been forced out of the piping the system settled back down which then elevated my sump levels about normal (and above my ATO emergency float switched). This caused my already sensitive skimmer to overflow what it had been skimming since my mini-project on the weekend.

And to top it off, I had a dead, mangled wrasse in the skimmer section of my sump.

Ultimately it could have been a lot worse I suppose but I was finally starting to get this tank back on the road to recovery with my levels, PO4, and what has seemed to be a successful fix for my skimmer issues. So certainly frustrating.


WRASSES!

[lastlight]

sorry to hear of your wrasse's demise. i'd definitely put drain guards on your herbie lines to prevent a repeat of that. on the plus side i'm not hearing anymore talk of selling this tank which is great to hear (or not hear i guess).

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by lastlight

sorry to hear of your wrasse's demise. i'd definitely put drain guards on your herbie lines to prevent a repeat of that. on the plus side i'm not hearing anymore talk of selling this tank which is great to hear (or not hear i guess).

I wouldn`t say its not for sale.. I'm just not actively bumping the thread because all I got was requests to part out which I refuse to do. Nothing seems to be going my way with this tank so if someone comes along with the $750 I am asking for it (minus GHL and Vortechs) I`d sell, but if I`m only going to get requests to part out a currently running system it`s not worth the effort.

I will definitely be looking for a bulk head strainer in the coming days.

It`s sort of ironic... ever since I accidentally made this slightly larger gap in my overflow teeth I have been thinking "I really hope a fish doesn't go through there" while the whole time thinking that if one of my fish did decide to go on an adventure it would likely be the wrasse that actually DID. It's like I could see into the future man.

[freezetyle]

Love the potter's angel. Lots of orange and red on that beauty

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by freezetyle

Love the potter's angel. Lots of orange and red on that beauty

Unfortunately he is long gone (as far as I can tell). Haven't seen him for weeks and never found a body.


July 13, 2013 Test Results :

Mag: 1300
Ca: 450-460
Alk: 7.78 dKH
PO4: 0.08ppm
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 25.5C
NH3/4: No Test
NO2: No Test
NO3: No Test

I forgot my test kits for the last three items at work.

I was expecting these to be a lot farther out of wack considering how much difficulty I have had keeping any coral really. Now I'm really confused. Unless I've got Ammonia, Trites or Trates..

[JDigital]

Well I have decided that I am going to restart this tank. I'm going to pull all the marco dry rock I started with out, re-home most of the fish to my 180G tank at the office, and start from scratch. New water, new rock, fresh start. There is just something not right in this tank that I can not put my finger on. This tank has been up and running for nearly a year with absolutely ZERO progress and hundreds of dollars in coral down the drain. I have lost EVERY SINGLE piece of SPS I have tried in this tank. Everything from easy to keep montis/digi's, red planet, to harder to keep stuff that was doing very well in MUCH younger, less mature frag tanks at the LFS.

I tried feeding Oyster Feast and Live Copepods per some conversations with a fellow reefer on NR.com that yielded no results with regards to improved coral vitality (SPS specifically). None of my fish are coral nippers so I can rule them all out. I've inspected and dipped all frags before putting them in my tank (although still could have missed something, the procedure was still there and I have no seen bugs or pest of any sort). Carbon and GFO made no difference in my tests with them.

I got 2 things that seem to do ok in this tank. The fish and a few (4) acans. Zoas don't grow (or gradually disappear), ALL SPS dies, I'm not interested in softies for this tank so haven't even tried putting them in.

So I'm gutting it and starting fresh. Maybe in a years time I will actually have something to show off in this tank, because as of right now after nearly a year hundreds of dollars in dead coral, I basically have a handful of fish and 4 small acan pieces (which are for the most part less than 6 weeks old). Something clearly isn't working/right/balanced in this tank and no test kit new or old can give me any indication to the problem as they all point to average readings for Ca/Mag/dKH, low PO4, no trates/trites/ammo.

[kien]

good to see you back at it. If you're losing pretty much everything that you put into your tank then something is definitely up. Especially if your water parameters are in check. Good luck! The only suggestion I can think of to give to you is to maybe invest in a Prayer Reactor.