OK, a few new things to report.
First off, about five days ago I tested the tank, nitrates and phosphates were low. Likewise Nitrates. So, I put in five little chromis to get some poop going and see how things progress. Remember, I already put a starter culture in here. Today I will do another round of Nitrite/Nitrate testing. I expect it still to be extremely low. If all is well, I will add a couple of more "starter" fish to the mix and start bringing things up slowly.
Lighting has been determined. It will be a surprise. I don't expect it to arrive until around the second or third week of January. I have to get the "bones" of the canopy done in that time.
Warming the tank up has proven to be a bigger challenge than I had expected. I started with leaving the sump uncovered and using two 300W Azoo titanium heaters. These things are crap really. The thermister and the element are in the same end-piece so it cycles on and off every five to 15 minutes as the thermister misreads the tank temperature. So effectively they are probably like owning a 250W heater due to this unintentional duty cycle.
Those two brand new heaters were not enough - couldn't get the tank over 70 (over night temps were 33 and daytime at 56). So I went digging through my fish boxes and found yet another nearly the same heater. Guess what, no surprise, same off-on anomaly. I plugged it in and watched the EB8 toggle between 3, 6, and 9 amps depending on when these were cycling. Still not enough heat. Had to bring home a 300w Jager from work. Now I am running 1200W (prob closer to 1000w due to cycling of power on the crappy Azoo) but I still am only now slowly creeping pas 73. And that was with covering the sump now with 2" of foam.
So I decided to do the math. Turns out, there is a lot of surface area of water exposed. I have about 170+ feet of 2" pipe (85' each direction). That works out to be about 90 square feet of surface area with about 1/8" or less of PVC between the water and air. Also, the sides of the sump were not insulated. In total I figured about 120 square feet. That is like having a 10' x 12' single pane window in your room. No wonder I cannot get this tank warm.
So, project for this weekend: Insulate the pipe and sump. Not a lot of good choices that are economical for wrapping 2" pipe. So, I decided to simply cover every square inch of my body with something and go at it with standard rolled wall insulation. I will simply cut it down the middle, wrap the pipe with it, and use tape and/or zip ties to hold it together. For the sump I will use solid foam, cut to fit, and apply with liquid nails.
Fun Fun.
Thanks Terence. Great build, well thought out and I can't wait to see what you stock this masterpiece with.
