Miracles 144/125 Rimless

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 9, 2011

The leak was on this plenum, right in the middle on one of the tee joints

So what I did was take the plenum off (which I hope I never have to do again) and then cut a piece of spa flex so that it wraps around the pipe and fits tight to the tee. Then I primed it so it was good & soft and smeared on a thick coat of PVC cement to both pieces, put the patch in place, and held it in place with a couple of zip-ties.

I let it sit and cure for about an hour, at which time the joint between the patch and the tee was still pretty soft, but I opened all the valves so that no water was flowing past the tee and fired it up. It held, and 2 days later I cranked the valves closed and put everything under pressure and it's been fine for a couple of days now.

The sump flow is still mad. On Thursday it evaporated 3 gallons. Today I only had to add 1 gallon. Weird.

Fragtastic Reef · Dec 9, 2011

That looks like some crazy flow through the sump! WOW!

Awesome build so far. What is plans for skimmer and other "goodies"?

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 9, 2011

The only goodie to add yet is the Algae Scrubber, which I have to mod a little bit. That has been the only filtration on the system for over a year. I might run Purigen too. I'll run a canister and foam after adding the sand to clear the water, and will continue the foam and carbon and maybe GFO after the move until I am satisfied that everything made the move safely, and the scrubber growth picks up, then I'll pull everything else.

Troylee · Dec 9, 2011

Nice man the sump looks great..1smile1

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 9, 2011

It turned out pretty good, and thanks for the advice. I've built a few more since then that turned out great too, and I've got 2 more in the works and designing probably 2 or 3 more on top of those!

dallas reefer · Dec 9, 2011

You should look into using either turf-tite or christy's blue glue for PVC in the future. I'd have to say those two are the best glues I use. And that's everyday. Also, it cures in about 10-15 minutes tops.

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 10, 2011

The move has begun!

Temp "Frag" tank. Wife said "those don't really look like frags

Ready to tear out all the base rock and pluck all the Xenia and Anthelia.

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

10am - 11pm...WHEW

minor salt creep...

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

Weird video of a bristleworm spazzing out. He got sucked through the pump and shredded

144 Reef - Installation 2011/12/10 Part 1 - YouTube

Rocks and sand in

144 Reef - Installation 2011/12/10 Part 2 - YouTube

Fish in!

144 Reef - Installation 2011/12/10 Part 3 - YouTube

Kyle22 · Dec 11, 2011

Looks good. How much difference on water pressure is there from The first return compared to the last?

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

There are valves on each one, but if I open them all up full open water only flows through the first 5 or 6 valves. The ones on the end get zero flow. I have to crack them all about 1/2 closed to push flow to the end. However that is with the pump valve throttled back (sump flow is splashy at full throttle so I need a splashguard or something.

dallas reefer · Dec 11, 2011

If you had room for a looped return bar up top, you'd be able to open all of them up full and no loss in flow.

Then It'd be to busy looking.

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

I'm not sure if I buy that. If I had made a loop instead of a straight bar, there would still be no difference if all the valves were open. Pressure is pressure and there would still be none at the end. Right?

dallas reefer · Dec 11, 2011

It actually pertains to flow/ hydraulics. If there was a loop instead of the straight bar, you would have '2' feeds instead of one. Splitting your demand in half. Now I'm actually going off what I do in my industry(irrigation).

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

Ahhh...yes that makes sense now...but still I think you would have higher flow on the ends and lower in the middle, with all valves open. I am getting quite a bit of flow out of the last jet currently. We'll see how it all shakes out when I get everything set up for full flow off the pump

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 11, 2011

I stopped in tonight to install a screen on the weir and found the peppermint shrimp in the sump. Luckily I had screening up in the sump to keep him from the pump!

Did a power-off to install the screen. Miracles included a black acrylic insert for the overflow box, which had slots and kind of defeated the purpose of the weir, so I cut out the slots and used Weld-on 16 (it has a purpose) and bonded some 1/4" nylon screening to it (usually used to make tank tops). Worked out pretty good.

I mounted the power strip for the lights and ran the wiring so I could close up the cabinets.

The sand bed has been rearranged. Apparently the Engineer Goby has decided that a 10" mound of sand, right in the middle, is a much better layout. Had to run before I could take a pic, so I'll have to get one tomorrow!

Tank temp is set at 76, the JBJ True Temp system does a 2 degree range so it drops to 75 then turns on until 77. Every time I've been in there it has been in that range so high temp is not an issue so far, but it never was in the winter before. So far it seems the glass tank does not hold the heat as well as the acrylic tank (to be expected). The old system had some bad high heat issues what with a closed upper cabinet area with trapped heat from the light, 3 power heads, and a submersible pump. Now just an external pump and open cabinet, we'll see how it goes.

Flow seems to be pretty good even with the pump cracked back. I have some mad plans for keeping the sump spray down with the pump on full, but didn't get time to install them.

Will be bringing in the rest of the top-corals this week, and installing the scrubber ASAP.

Fed the fish, they ate, a little skittish but OK otherwise. Tomorrow is the intro for the office and I'll be stopping in to get praise from everyone LOL!

dallas reefer · Dec 11, 2011

Awesome!

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 12, 2011

Today I stopped in an added about 1/2 of the 'removable' corals I still have at home, and snapped some pics

I should stitch these together...

bige · Dec 12, 2011

Looks good! You got some serious blue shrooms in there.

Turbo's Aquatics · Dec 12, 2011

The clowns hang out in the corner. I think the need a home (anemone)

Lighting hanging system

Overflow box. I added the black acrylic insert yesterday (as previously mentioned) and also stuck in a piece of plastic canvas, the untold wonder aquarium product. In this instance, it prevents the wall of water coming into the overflow box from causing bubbles that get sucked into the siphon (which get decimated into microbubbles). This because a little more of an issue when I cranked up the flow today.

And yet again, another use for the plastic canvas. In this case, when I really opened up the flow on the pump originally, there was so much turbulence in the sump that water was splashing up onto the wall (little drops, but enough of them to be a problem eventually!). I took a big piece (13.5 x 26 I think) of the #7 mesh plastic canvas and cut it to fit through the baffle compartment, then made cuts on the end so that it stuck in between the drain pipes. This serves several purposes - it blocks splashing by 'calming' the top of the water down, catches microbubbles and allow them to pop without a little drop of water going up and landing wherever (decreases salt creep)