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3 Foot Nano Tank (1 Viewer)

Looks really sharp. I like the little gifs that you're including in your thread.

Does this pump help with the overflow siphon challenges from a few pages back?

Also, did you ever get that Hogfish?
 
ChristopherKriens said:
Looks really sharp. I like the little gifs that you're including in your thread.

Does this pump help with the overflow siphon challenges from a few pages back?

Also, did you ever get that Hogfish?
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Thanks. I do like the GIFs. I just wish I could think of more ways to include them that show off something quickly.

So for my tank the main issue is my siphon restarts slower than the pump restarts. This means if I have too much water in my tank the pump will overfill the display and I will flood the floor. To stop that from happening I limit the amount of water in my sump. When the pump restarts it draws water from the sump until the pump runs out of water and starts sucking air. When it sucks air it no longer is filling the display and it gives the pipes time to purge air and let the siphon restart. Once it restarts the water level drops in the display tank and the sump takes on that excess water allowing the pump to run normally fully submerged.

For those unfamiliar here is how that works.


This video was showing the Jebao DCP-5000. Now with the Neptune COR pump I can program in a very slow speed ramp. In the image above for my programming it shows my pump as SET Restart. Normally this is SET ON, or includes table data for fluctuating speeds throughout the day. My restart code triggers every time the pump comes out of feed mode or after power failures and water changes. This gives my tank time to restart the siphon before the pump is going at 100% speed. However it still sucks air as the window of water balance is so narrow, but the pump may only be running at 20-30% power while its sucking air so it makes way less noise and creates less bubbles in the tank. My other option is get another optical sensor and have it positioned right above the intake of the pump. This could trigger the pump to run at 1% speed when its exposed to air. Once the siphon restarts the sensor would go back underwater and tell the pump to resume normal speed again. I just don't have a spare sensor to do this. Overall still really complicated for the most mundane thing. If you are free Tuesday come over and check it out for yourself. I'll probably do a few power cycles to show how this crazy system works.

And yes I did finally get my peppermint candy cane hogfish from Divers Den. Honestly though, Im a little disappointed in it. The colors are just very bland compared to what I hoped. The red and white doesn't stick out like I was expecting. His coloration is very drab with lots of grey and black. So I'm either going to really save my pennies for the Deepwater Candy or get some sort of vibrant red wrasse to get that nice color I've been wanting.
 
eschulist said:
So I'm either going to really save my pennies for the Deepwater Candy or get some sort of vibrant red wrasse to get that nice color I've been wanting.
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I'll just repost this here... as it seems it's inevitable. :)

36150356460_5a34ef46b2_b.jpg
 
Beautiful system. I am also a fan of pretty plumbing, well done. I noticed that now Mr. Aqua has a 22 gallon with the same length, but little more width and height. Just wondering if you considered that when doing your re-build?
 
H2OHOH said:
Beautiful system. I am also a fan of pretty plumbing, well done. I noticed that now Mr. Aqua has a 22 gallon with the same length, but little more width and height. Just wondering if you considered that when doing your re-build?
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Thanks! I slightly considered the 22. But keeping the height and depth smaller creates the illusion that the tank is longer/larger than it is due to the greater difference in proportions. I also have a very fine line to walk with how much excess water my sump can hold due to the design on the overflows. When I enter feed mode or shut off the pump a lot of water drains down. I also have a very unorthodoxed startup method and having even 2-3 more gallons of water would probably make it not work. Or maybe I would have less issue than I currently have, I dont know. I will post a new video in the coming week about the sump, plumbing, filtration, pump, apex, and my restart method. A the end of the video you can see my tank is a cup full of water away from overflowing the rim. The tank is currently running (You see very tiny bubbles coming out of the return bulkheads). I've controlled my pump and limited the amount of water in the entire system so that I can't physically do so.
 
I get it, you actually think things through. I generally plumb and figure I can hopefully make it work out. :)
 
Wow, you have few rivals with how great that looks!

Did you figure out the pump restart issue?
One possible option since you have a way with your Apex might be to blend what you're doing with a second line of code.

Could you restart like it is, time how long until you suck air (vs more water and a sensor) and back the pump down to a stagnant flow rate of say 15% so there is no back syphoning. I'm not sure how much control you have in that pump. Worst case it's the same, best case it's less of the same.

Alternatively, use an Avast neptune ready pressure sensor or wire to a breakout box vs an optical if you need something more reliable than an optical. Not sure how it compares on price. Either might be your best option but some kind of redundancy would be needed.

Alternatively, (doubtful possibility) if you prefer more water volume in the sump create an even smaller vertical box around your pump that is normally under the waterline. Depending on the volume calculations this could limit the amount of water able to be pumped back up.

Alternatively, think of a way to shut off the overflow while keeping it primed for syphoning in a reliable way and make millions!
 
Im actually doing the exact scenario you described by backing the pump down while the siphon restarts. I think I even posted that line of code in your Apex thread.

I used my ATK and inverted the bracket. I took out all the sensors and float valve. I put the top off sensors in the top two holes and added a new optical sensor and put it in the float value hole which is now at the bottom. This bottom sensor is what triggers when my sump is low on water and set my COR to 15% or something similar. Once the siphon restarts the water covers this sensor and the pump ramps back up to full power.

Ive actually created a video demo of how it works but havent done the voice over for it and uploaded yet.


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Long time no post. This tank is still up and running but it was a crazy summer/fall. I lost almost every coral in the tank. I have 1-2 photos of how it looked and will post them to be honest with everyone. I still don't definitively know the reason. I got slightly lazy but I was still doing water changes and cleaning out the socks. There was just a build up of something causing slow necrosis on everything.

Fast forward a few months and I think I have things under control around Oct. We have our local frag swap and I pick up a bunch of replacement corals to get things going again. Everything was doing great, no deaths and no more necrosis.

However as the months go by and we get to Dec and around Christmas the tank starts going downhill again and I have no idea why. I send in ICP tests and the only thing that comes back out of the ordinary is my PO4. Rather than it being the typical 0.02 it was 0.7!! But the tank has almost zero algae so Im kinda stumped. I add in GFO again even though its caused me trouble in the past. All Dec I started picking more test kit refills and I try to be deligent about checking my Phosphate with my ULR Hanna checker (which would max out at 200 for a long time). Eventually it started to get down to .2, still a long way to go though. The corals weren't looking any better and some were necrosising and had thin tissue. When this happened to me before it was a nutrient deficient issue. My biopellets combined with GFO were taking out too much and causing weak corals. This made me assume I was Nitrate starving everything with high phosphates. No algae was present because they were out of ration. Curious if that really was the case I bought a Red Sea Pro Nitrate test. (I have never owned or tested my Nitrate in almost 7 years). The test kit finally arrives and I start doing the low range test expecting 0 or very close to it. Guess what? It was maxed out purple. Which meant it was over 4ppm. I redo the test this time on the high range scale. Any guesses on what it was....?

It was maxed out purple on the high range test!! So I had over 64ppm Nitrate and .7 Phosphate.

Ok so I love my corals and fish and figure I need to get this sorted out. More orders for aquarium stuff starts taking place. I order myself some NoPox, a new bucket of salt, a new heater for water changes, and a beefy skimmer. I have ran this tank without a skimmer the whole time and I thought I was fine. Well my sump was made to accommodate one and my tank obviously needed reliable nutrient export.
 
The skimmer I decided on was the SR Aquaristik Pro-80.




It had the perfect footprint and height ratio to fit in my tiny sump. It was even short enough to allow easy access to my media reactors hanging on the back wall.



But then the issues continue. The skimmer was beautiful and fit perfectly but when I turned it on it hummed and growled like a lawn mower or weed whacker.


I emailed the company and got in touch with the owner. We had a few back and forth emails that night and it eventually turned into sending text, videos, images and speaker chatting for close to an hour. We tried disassembling the whole thing and putting it back together making sure the impeller was seated properly and that the air intake was working correctly. But everytime I adjusted the power over 50% it hummed like crazy. We called it a night and he said he would chat with me the next day.

That afternoon I get a call and we finally figured it out. The pump in the new model has been upgraded and is slightly more powerful. It also has some built in safety features that can ramp up and down its speed automatically based on sensing pressure and water intake. If it senses its not getting enough water it will increase power or if there was a valve on the output that was dialed down it would automatically power down since its can sense the output is being constricted.

Well the venturi has an air intake and hole on the front for water intake. The new models going out have too small of a water intake hole. When the skimmer turns on its craving water and it just wasn't getting enough so it would ramp up to 100% all the time demanding more water. The water/air mixture was still more air than water so it caused a ton of noise.

So the solution was to drill out the intake and make it larger to let in more water. Luckily I have a drill press and some nice forstner drill bits for clean holes.







Now its in and super quiet. It is also \much more powerful. So much so that I almost filled the whole cup overnight. I needed to dial back the pump speed and dial down the adjustment tube this morning, so hopefully it will skim better while I'm at work.
 
Glad to see that you figured the issue out with the skimmer. That looks like one powerful little beast!

I think we talked about this last Saturday... #563
 
Caluerpa is the answer. Just trim it when it gets to big. (Or chaeto, I just like looking at stuff in the tank :) ) It will soak up nitrates in no time. Just toss the extra.
 
jlanger said:
I think we talked about this last Saturday... #563
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I don't remember discussing Deep Water Basslets but I still want one when the time comes. So much money has been put into testing, maintenence stuff, the skimmer, and I need to save for eventual new corals for when things are growing well again. So it will be awhile before new fish are on the table.
 
eschulist said:
I don't remember discussing Deep Water Basslets but...
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It was more about a small red fish and I mentioned my Ornate Leopard Wrasse has a lot of red coloration.
But we know you still would like to get a Candy Basslet!
 
RSnodgrass said:
How frequently do you anticipate people testing their water if using a trident?
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If you are talking about the Trident testing it’s 4 Alk and 2 Ca and 2 Mg a day. Most will do the standard program. A couple will run it more frequently to dial in dosing and smooth out their swings.

As for people manually testing, based on NSI, a bunch will test a lot in the beginning as they will want to compare values. Then a few weeks later testing manually will probably drop to once a month or less.

It’s going to make 2 groups of people. Those that are more in tune and attentive with their tank, they will continue to test manually. And the others will be lazier as the Trident is doing the testing and dosing adjustments. Having full 100% trust in it could lead to a few mishaps and they will blame the Trident instead of taking responsibility for not confirming and maintaining their dosing.


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