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The 280 is finally going to get set up.. (1 Viewer)

First night I fired up my basement sump setup in my new house was on the ~ 3rd or 4th night we slept there. Ended up setting off the fire/CO2 detectors in the middle of the night from the skimmer driving off CO2 from the well water I think.

Freaked me out thinking I was burning down our 3 day old house...
 
Now I know why the city supply has the tinge of saltiness in it; they should stop getting their water via chanhassen :gay1:

LOL I will go back to my thread sometime soon and write my own story about a big skimmer and salt spray.
 
marty9876 said:
First night I fired up my basement sump setup in my new house was on the ~ 3rd or 4th night we slept there. Ended up setting off the fire/CO2 detectors in the middle of the night from the skimmer driving off CO2 from the well water I think.

Freaked me out thinking I was burning down our 3 day old house...
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CO2 detector? I though they are a CO detectors... back to reading some manuals I guess. Still curious how a skimmer would setoff the alarms.
 
Yeah, I bet that would do it :)

I think I am in the clear now. I am going to get the other two tanks online this weekend and then start on all of the equipment, skimmer, ATO, calc reactor and such.

Once all of that is done I can start on my DYI LED's. shed some light on the subject and then maybe actually make a reef tank.

I dumped a whole crap load of nitrifying bacteria in the tank after I got all of the refugiums on line. all my tests are coming back 0 Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate.. I've thrown in a few things I thought would at least make a blip in ammonia. But so far nothing.

I think I am going to toss a bunch of food in there and see if I can get it to spike.

I still do not have the OM going, but I just want to add I cannot say enough good things about the customer service Paul over at Oceans Motions has displayed. My first email to OM was Sunday after it stopped running. I not only got an email that day. but we have been in constant contact ever since.

I am sure we will figure it out, I am working on a theory right now that it is failing because of sand getting into the intake and jamming the OM. I think most of the sand has settled now and the closed loop has been running wide open the past few days. I am going to give it another day and then clean it all up and reinstall the drum and see if it fires up. I will know a lot more after that test. But again Kudos to Paul and OM. I bought that thing 8 years ago and I have been treated as if it is still under warranty in every way by them.

Taklu said:
Now I know why the city supply has the tinge of saltiness in it; they should stop getting their water via chanhassen :gay1:

LOL I will go back to my thread sometime soon and write my own story about a big skimmer and salt spray.
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LOL yeah the sodium content in the cities water had a huge spike over the last week :)
 
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Taklu said:
CO2 detector? I though they are a CO detectors... back to reading some manuals I guess. Still curious how a skimmer would setoff the alarms.
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Maybe not the skimmer just the flow/aeration of the water drove off excess CO/CO2 from the water (well water source). I never completely figured it out.

Man you've got a complex system.:micro:
 
Well see in the beginning, all the complexity was supposed to make everything run smoother once it was actually running. This all went together way faster in my head LOL.

No temperature spikes, salinity spikes, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, phosphates should not go up too rapidly. Just a nice stable environment for everybody. Now that the lions share of the work is done. I am glad for it, but it has been an epic battle.
 
marty9876 said:
Maybe not the skimmer just the flow/aeration of the water drove off excess CO/CO2 from the water (well water source). I never completely figured it out.

Man you've got a complex system.:micro:
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Actually the opposite, I'd expect the system to absorb some of the excess Co2/Co into the water.. aka lower Ph during winters.
 
So this is what my test kit is telling me.

I think I am going to try and mix up something really nasty and see if I can get an ammonia spike, any suggestions?

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You just need to add ammonia, someone may tell you to just urinate in the tank...be careful to not let your wife catch you....

I know that Fritz and Li at SWE sell prodibio vials. One vial is the bacteria, the other vial is supposed to be the 'food' for the bacteria, so I assume it is just ammonia, you could try that. Dumping in food requires it to break down before you get ammonia, so starting with ammonia is faster is all.
 
LowersMyBP said:
You just need to add ammonia, someone may tell you to just urinate in the tank...be careful to not let your wife catch you....
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actually its rather a good idea, have everyone at home take turns so they dont feel left out. since you have a large setup it would be adequate :kackle:

Personally I didn't do any of the dead shrimp/lone chromis/ammonia thingy .. checked the params for a week ten days and again after a week or so.. when everything looked like it should started off with fish and then a added some coral in a weeks time. within 3-4 weeks there was a frag tank ready to march towards being a reef tank.
 
I already dumped a bunch of bacteria in I want to see it work. I think I will blend a slurry of muck up and try to get the ammonia to rise. I have never tried to cycle a dead rock tank before I thought it would have been easier to get an ammonia spike. I added a few organic things but it must be taking forever to break down.
 
When I started my tank with dry rock I could not get ammonia to read either, so I just left it for 2 weeks or so and the. Added in some bio-spira and then 2 clowns and all has been good for me.
 
I would not force an ammonia spike, only thing your end up with in the end is nitrate which your be wondering how to get rid of them.

Feed (fish, food, rock etc) the system slowly, the good stuff will happen without any help.
 
Need an idea to screen the top of my tank off for jumpers.

I might have to figure out a different plan for the tank returns.

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Looks like it will be a nightmare trying to make a screen for that. I am considering drilling the top of the Eurobrace in the back and plumbing the returns through there. Anyone have a better idea? They can definitely be shorter.
 
It is hard to tell, but it looks like the front and the right side as you look at it from the front are completely blocked off as the tank is flush against those surfaces. Meaning, if the fish jumps out to the front or to the right, it will have no where to go except flop around until it ends up back in the tank. On the left side, for sure it looks like there is a gap and along the back, I'm not sure.

Anyway, you might be able to glue/affix a vertical piece of something along the very back rim of the tank and the left side of the tank. That way, if the fish jumps out, they run into that vertical piece and flop around until they are back in the tank. You would just want to cover your overflow so they don't flop in there.

I don't know, as it looks, the drilling of the eurobrace is probably cleanest, but you may get away with something like I just tried to describe.
 
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marty9876 said:
Copps @ RC has a bunch of tanks linked together with one requiring lower temps. Run the chiller on a closed loop on just that tank with only enough water from the main system to maintain life support. e.g. 1x tank turnover an hour or so form the main tank. Enough to keep the water quality in check, not enough to overwhelm the chiller.
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Decided to expand the fish room a little into the my 18 year old's room. (he is away at college he's not going to miss it anyhow) Just a 3'x4' area he has the extra room (or did). So I think I am going to go this route now with the chiller since it allows me to move a few things around..

I am surprised at how well the water holds temp. I have the heaters in the return sump set at 78. The water in the 325 (that's the last tank before the return sump) is maintaining the 78 degree mark even after going down to the 280 and then up to the three 100 gallon refugiums and back into the 325. I expected some temp loss.

So I think a closed loop off the 92 is going to work better than trying to cool that water 4 degrees as it comes in off the reservoir like I planed.

The 92 has two holes drilled in the bottom one was for the drain, the other for the return. I am thinking I will turn the return into the feed for the closed loop and return up and over the side of the tank (no interest in drilling this tank with another hole). Thoughts?
 
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Acrylic and plastics insulate better than glass. With covers ( big bins/fuges) heat loss will be a lot less. There is a online calculator to estimate heat loss from given materials and designs.

I don't think your going to cool water 4 degrees in a single pass, ie feed the tank from the chiller. Closed loop of some sort might be only option. Don't feed the tank much, 100 to 200 gph max, don't take much to support life water quality wise. Less inflow less temp you need to cool.

Be interesting to see the temp profile of the system without any heaters. See where the system runs and adjust from there. Would stuck to be heating and cooling all the time, expensive and error prone.
 
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yup everything is covered. in fact the return sump has a 2" chunk of insulation on it. all the refugiums have acrylic covers. even the 325 has a screw on top.

The electric bill next month is going to be interesting.

I agree, seeing how well the heat stays in the system that a closed loop with the chiller on the sea horse tank is going to be the only way to drop the temp for that tank.

from what I can see the system would run close to whatever temp I have the filtershed set at. There is well over 700 gallons of water in there.
 
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