Wolrey's 58 build thread (1 Viewer)

[JS_racer]

I have a few questions if i may. What can you tell me about your sump, likes or dislikes.
is your flow and return seem good for the tank size ??
I have a 58 ultimate that i have yet to get wet.

Any tips or info would be great, yours looks very nice.

Thanks,
Joel

 

[wolrey]

I don't really want to, and was just dealing with having a pH that floated around 8.0 Last night though, we had family stay in our basement and with all 7 of us hanging out down there, the pH really tanked. Got down to 7.67.....:micro: I'm pretty sure the pH probe is calibrated and working correctly. I'm hoping for a solution to bring the pH up around 8.2 and not have to worry about entertaining people. I'm already adding fully saturated kalk as all my makeup, so I'm pretty much out of ideas....

I don't recommend it. I though it was bad enough when I did the skimmer mod that increased the air input. The extra 60degree air from the basement getting sucked in made the tank temps dropped 4 whole degrees and the heater ran full blast non-stop.

Imagine what it will do to your tank temps when you have 20-30 degree air going straight into your skimmer...........

If you house has a fresh air exchanger perhaps T off the furnace intake would help get fresher air that isn't so cold. I don't have an exchanger so I just live with it and do the best I can by running Kalk.

 

[wolrey]

I like the sump and it has worked well for me. It's a 29 gallon, as I didn't think a 20L would be tall enough. I bought the glass at a Hardware Hank and they cut it exactly the size I asked. I left almost no gap between the baffle edge and tank, and it made siliconing it in place a breeze. The two baffle system works great and I haven't had any problem with microbubbles. I started out using an old Eheim 1262 as my return and at ~900 ghp....it was to much IMO. Now I'm using a OR 2500, and I've been very very happy with it. The pump is very quite, decent priced, and available at several places locally. With the reduced flow, my overflow has quited down which is an added bonus. I'm doing a single back drilled durso, and I don't think it's possible to completely silence it. I will always have some water/air mixing and sloshing occurring. You shouldn't have that problem with your ultimate (sweet tank btw!!!!) if you use the valved overflow with a emergency backup method. I like how I divided the sump. The skimmer side allows me room for a heater, skimmer, phos reactor, pH probe and temp probe. I then put all my extra liverock in the return pump side. With a large return side, I shouldn't have any problems with running the pump dry if something should happen to my ATO while I'm away. I do think it's important to have some sort of powerhead in the return side of the sump. It gives the liverock some circulation and mixes the kalk that gets dosed. It also seems to help with mixing any two-part I have to dose.

HTH!! :beerchug:

Jeff

 

[reeftanktime]

Nice looking tank. I like the aquascaping. Looks like plenty of room for the fidh nd corals.:goldfish:

 

[David Grigor]

Hmmmm........ I honestly don't recall every looking at the tank PH when lots of people come over( like for a meeting ). I may have the same type of issue but your house is much newer and probably more air tight to begin with. We do keep the central air/heater fan running 24/7 to move air around and there is a vent downstairs as well so hopefully Co2 isn't focused in just one room.

 

[freshfish]

Nice looking tank Jeff & Jess.

 

[wolrey]

Snapped a few new photos of the Tank. Might have a bit too much flow at the moment, but I can always pull the MJ mod until the corals get bigger.


Picked up some sweet new frags...now I just have to wait for them to grow up!

It's hard to tell, but this sps has very cool green polyp tips

One of my favorites right now....its outrageous when it is feeding.

Sorry for the delay...here is a pic of how I mounted the Aqua Controller Jr.

Thanks for looking!

 

[fivesmallworlds]

I don't even see a single ripple on the first pic...

 

[wolrey]

Ya gotta turn the pumps off to take pics :rock:

 

[David Grigor]

Ya gotta turn the pumps off to take pics :rock:

And apparently the ceiling light too.......

 

[wolrey]

Damn, totally busted...:gay1:....I even tried to remove it once using photoshop, but I couldn't make it look decent. I'll just have to remember next time!

 

[Zibba]

The tank is looking great. Is that a green slimmer right in the middle? The branches are HUGE! I really like the maze, is there anyway that you can take a picture when it's feeding? I'd like to see that.

I've noticed the same issues with pH dropping when we have company over for an evening. Just last weekend, we had some guests and I noticed the pH dropped from 8.3 to 7.8. My tank usually runs at a fairly high pH (8.3-8.5). Unless you're going to have a lot of company, causing the pH to shift frequently, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Temporary pH shifts into the 7's isn't going to hurt much.

Now that you've had the tank up for a month, how do you like having a barebottom tank? Did you prop up any of the liverock to avoid detrius build up?

Keep the photos coming!

:beerchug:

 

[wolrey]

The tank is coming along nicely, so I thought I'd update this thread and post some of the stuff going on.

I love having a barebottom tank. I do prop up my maze coral with a chunk of 1.5" pvc to keep it out of the muck. Right now, it's the only coral on the bottom, but I've heard they can be easily irritated and possible recede, so I raised it...plus raising makes it easier to see.

CO2 issues.

If you read earlier, you know I have CO2 issues. I calibrated till I was blue in the face and double checked with pH test solutions (almost worthless), so I'm pretty sure the AC Jr reading is accurate. I dose kalkwasser, but it doesn't do much for keeping the pH high. I even ran an air pump outside to push fresh air to my skimmer. While this seemed to help some, in the end, a room full of people overwhelms any help the airpump might provide. The only solution I have used that helps, is running the circulation fan (David G's suggestion) anytime I have company over or anytime someone is sleeping downstairs. The fan seems to be able to keep the downstairs CO2 levels at bay and the pH now stays about 8.0 with it peaking at 8.3 during the day if no one is around.

The tank seems to be maturing very fast this time. I had a few little mini algae cycles, but they all seem over and coraline is setting in nicely. I had some red turf type algae that I was afraid was going to overrun the tank, but it is now receding safely. :biggthumpup: The Coraline algae has almost completely covered the back of the tank. The old corals are growing as fast as ever, and all the new corals I picked up after setting up the have fully encrusted and are adding length. My only problem right now seems to finding the few softies I have a nice low flow spot......

Jeff

 

[wolrey]

Here are some shots that I took with my new camera. I'm still learning, but a Nikon D40 is a big step in the right direction compared to my old p&s.

This purple is very close to what the eye sees (at least with my bulb combination)

Why I hate xenia and don't recommend it to anyone......I keep pulling it off and it keeps coming back.......:mad_3:

This coral has been moved to different angels over it's life so has a somewhat strange shape.

Love the color on this one.

The pillar. This is the right 1/3 of my tank.

A fresh shot of my current sump configuration

 

[wolrey]

Here are a few of the tank inhabitants.

Everyone needs a clownfish right?

Not a very sharp photo...but this guys NEVER stops moving...he is the boss of the tank and was showing off here.

 

[NandKBlock]

I don't know what I like better, your tank or your pics. Both are phenomenol! Thanks for sharing. :beerchug:

 

[mattb]

Nice tank... I wouldn't worry much about your pH, its gonna do, what its gonna do... if you don't want to vent, everything'll be fine.

 

[Jessie]

Shameless plug...see it in person at the meeting on Nov. 22!

 

[wolrey]

I finally got a FTS that isn't too blurry......still not super sharp though...

 

[kpete4]

love it!