dave's first system

Jimbhoy13 · Aug 7, 2020

Well done. Coming on well.

dbowman5 · Aug 9, 2020

looking at my return spray bar. all of the holes face the same way. I did this to push scum toward the overflow. but as you see there is a lot of turbulence at the pump setting i have now. It acts as a gyre which is good but i was just realizing that i might be missing some functionality by just having drilled holes this way. i am considering putting some holes along the backside and angled at 45 degrees. I'm thinking that f currently i have 14 holes facing left at slightly above the horizontal i could drill 4 facing right slightly above the horizontal with 4 aimed at the bottom corner of the tank to the right. these holes could be placed in groups or spaced along the entire bar.

RichtheReefer21 · Aug 12, 2020

dbowman5 said:
looking at my return spray bar. all of the holes face the same way. I did this to push scum toward the overflow. but as you see there is a lot of turbulence at the pump setting i have now. It acts as a gyre which is good but i was just realizing that i might be missing some functionality by just having drilled holes this way. i am considering putting some holes along the backside and angled at 45 degrees. I'm thinking that f currently i have 14 holes facing left at slightly above the horizontal i could drill 4 facing right slightly above the horizontal with 4 aimed at the bottom corner of the tank to the right. these holes could be placed in groups or spaced along the entire bar.

Thats sweet ingenuity. Keep the updates coming please sir

dbowman5 · Aug 15, 2020

i just realized that a year ago yesterday i started the SW spending with a return pump($150) and two used tanks($51).
Today i just topped $4600 total spent. pretty economical for what i have gotten out of it.

dbowman5 · Aug 17, 2020

diversity is beneficial in my tank. My photographic skill is limited to being able to document changes not to artistically celebrate them. (i can tell what is there even though it looks way better in person).
colt coral with bristle worm
paly
GSP
my first successful super glue attempt
closed paly
pillar
staghorn
montipora
blue mushroom
purple mushroom
feel free to correct me or expand on my id's

RichtheReefer21 · Aug 19, 2020

The blue in that mushroom looks vivid! Nice start to the stock list!

dbowman5 · Aug 19, 2020

RichtheReefer21 said:
The blue in that mushroom looks vivid! Nice start to the stock list!

thank you, that one has gone missing i think it fell into the rock, hopefully it will open up and come out to play. it was just laying there then it wasn't.

RichtheReefer21 · Aug 20, 2020

dbowman5 said:
thank you, that one has gone missing i think it fell into the rock, hopefully it will open up and come out to play. it was just laying there then it wasn't.

I had a disco mushroom that started 2 years ago in a 55g. It made it through the transfer but released from the rock and it was gone for 2-3 months. Then one day, it crawled up out of the rock work into the light and now that same rock has about 20 clones encasing it. They are robust and can move around like a nem.

It may pop up one day, in fact its quite likely.

dbowman5 · Aug 23, 2020

my zoa has not been opening. when i look at the parameters the major change that i have seen since it was growing has been the ALK; the reading in May of 8.9 had risen to 12.5 by July 12. I have made WC's that have brought it to 10.9. I can turn off the return, remove 15 gallons from the sump, refill from my mix tank, and restart the return pump. This allows me to actually replace 15 gallons of old water in my @100 gallon system. i have done this Thursday 12.1 to 11.2 and Saturday getting me to 10.9. if i do it again every other day I should get the KH to 9 where i will try to hold it. the salt premix is 8.6 so adding it to achieve 9 might not work. We will see. I premix 30 gallons so two WC can be done every time i mix. i can make the 30 gallons of RODI on the day i refill the SW drum.

RichtheReefer21 · Aug 27, 2020

Dosing calcium can also aid in dkh reduction in small steps. But doing the wc's works too. Gl on the rebalance... hopefully u caught it in time and the zoas will be open before ya know it.

Daniel@R2R · Aug 27, 2020

Following along!!

dbowman5 · Dec 30, 2020

prompted to update the thread before the end of the year. ok i will lol
a lot has happened since august i haven't added a lot to the population
i bought a couple of gyres to replace my current wave pumps that started acting up
i have a 4k and a 2K running off the ice cap wifi controller
i tried to peroxide treat the zoa to get it to reopen. it helped i thought but then subsided. i reashed it before it nked the tank by dying. probably over reacted but there ya go.
flat worms ate the stag coral before i could dip it they dont seem yto be intrerested in the pillar or any of the other corals enough to kill them.
My anemone is moving around and i am growing a lot of coraline

dbowman5 · Feb 20, 2021

switching out from glass top

going to try eggcrate before mesh, candid camera is how i roll. I did not think to clean up salt spots from light fixtures or stand before taking the shot. I did scrape coraline though.

dbowman5 · Feb 27, 2021

thanks to my reefing chums i decided i needed more poopers no appropriate black mollies avail so ...

dbowman5 · Mar 3, 2021

I installed my auto feeder in the eggcrate replacing my jif jar cutoff manual pellet keeper (front right corner)
A. until now i had no place to put it on the front or side with the glass tops,
B. the jif plastic was covered with coralline and the fish had stopped going inside for the pellets.
C. i hadn't realized this until i added the Chromis and the only one interested in the pellets before they sunk was the shrimp, and the amphipods and snails.

dbowman5 · Mar 5, 2021

in the last couple of days i have noticed what I believe are ball anemones in the DT
1/4"

edit 3/5/21
today i noticed that all of the tentacles have been retracted and there is a body like anemones have, so I am more confident of the ID

dbowman5 · Mar 6, 2021

moving forward with my top configuration, I am trying egg crate. the next step was to replace the right-hand glass with a two piece. this allows access for glass cleaning, siphoning and using a grabber to feed chunks to the RBTA.

the two pieces interlace and would allow zip ties to be used to create a hinge, i will do something similar on the left if i think that this is the longterm solution. otherwise i will move on to a mesh design.

WiscoFishNut · Mar 10, 2021

Quick question - If you had it to do over would you stick with one return line, or go with two? I'm about to drill my 75g and was thinking about a center placement for the overflow and having a return line on each side pointing towards front/center. Pro's/Cons?

dbowman5 · Mar 10, 2021

WiscoFishNut said:
Quick question - If you had it to do over would you stick with one return line, or go with two? I'm about to drill my 75g and was thinking about a center placement for the overflow and having a return line on each side pointing towards front/center. Pro's/Cons?

very quick answer: DO IT
lol

my single return line plumbed into the back of my tank may have been a mistake. trying to stay low enough to avoid cracking the glass and not lower the diameter of the 1 1/4 " return from the basement to prevent flow loss was a gamble. the short answer to your question is that i would like to know if your idea would be better. because of my tank placement i did not want the overflow box on the end so on the back was the best i could do. i wanted to have the return through the back too so that i could reach all of the plumbing if i needed to. the problem i found was that size pipe would not be under the. glass top if i tried to elbow up to create an anti-siphon and prevent fish or inverts to be able to swim in when the pump was off.
what sizes of pipe are you thinking of? if i was going to do it now without re-drilling i would drop my return line to 1" from a tee inside of the tank and run those lines behind the top trim to whatever points i thought i would like and maybe tee again to 3/4" for loc-line nozzles maybe on the corners. i would dry fit them to test and once i liked it maybe glue them maybe not for the ability to clean. in your case coming in to the sides of the overflow would keep you from blocking it.
the way i have my spraybar the water flow moves right to left across the top. the spraybar is submerged so the oil on the top to the right is pushed over the bar and then toward the overflow. i have gyres to push left to right along the back wall vertically and the other, across the top to the front and down the front i think i have pretty good flow

dbowman5 · Apr 20, 2021

here I am , again.
I have added another current USA LED to replace the marineland LED. It is an older Orbit Marine v1 with a remote. i just matched the timer to the sunrise/sunset schedule on the other LED.
i finished the egg crate top by cutting the other side so that I can access the full length and clean the glass front without moving the lights
i updated my return line. i added a piece of 11/4" pipe to move the spraybar to the right end of the tank. I may adjust the orientation of the bar to aim above the horizontal to add more surface turbulence. right now it is just below horizontal.
finally i am monitoring a serpent star that i bought with some short arms to see if they are regenerating. fingers crossed.