She's ALIVE!
After a thoroughly exhausting long 4 day weekend, I have finally got the old girl up and running. It really only took one day to get the rock and water in the box and about 1 hour to realize that I have a bulkhead leak in the overflow. That was no small feat to repair. As installed, it is VERY difficult to get to the bulkhead. Fortunately, thinking out o the box got me out of that jam. The bulkhead nut is in the overflow box not on the underside of the tank. It is actually easier to deal with potential leaks this way. Getting to the nut and holding the bulkhead alone is easier this way. I just had to make a "wrench" out of a 2x6 to get it done. Naturally, I had no silicone to place on the bulkhead seals so I had to wait until the next day to get that fixed. Naturally, as the tank was sitting overnight a leak formed on the return bulkhead out of the sump. A little mesy but not hectic and contained, for the most part, within the cabinet. Darn, I really thought I cranked on both those bulkheads. Fortunately, I was able to get both leaks fixed and the tank back up.
The return pump, skimmer, and the Icecap gyre's were hooked up to the wall outlets and not the Neptune Apex for the initial water integrity testing. All fittings and bulkheads thereafter were found to be sound for a period of 24hours. While the water integrity test was going on I decided to do some more serious aquascaping, and after relatively minor adjustments to 2 or 3 different iterations, I have come to be fond of the final design. The CFO approves as well though she approved the previous iterations as well. I'm sure this will not be the end of it. It never is.
The remainder of the "weekend" was dedicated to getting the Neptune Apex up and running all the components. With hours upon hours of time spent on the web with YouTube and the forums, reading the comprehensive manual, and writing notes and programming she is all hooked up.
I was FRETTING seriously my Apex hack on the SBreef lights and after hooking them up, next to the last step in the process, I was mortified to find only the far left light's white channel in operation. Good grief, I was worried about that thinking that I might have hacked it wrong and having soldered all the connections I got sick to my stomach. SOOOO close.... I looked at everything from the programming to the connection and was stumped. Time to break out the screwdriver and start the dismantling process and getting into the wiring with a meter. Hopped up on the lader and what did I find? All but that one channel on that one light had the master on/off switches in the off position. Standard on/off user error. Flipped the remaining 5 master switches and they all lit up. Tested the programming of the cycle and it was operational. WHEW! That was a huge relief. The final task was to program the Jebao to Apex module, then DONE! Well, almost. I still have the install the refugium. That will be accomplished today as I have no appointments. I water tested that for 24 hours outside.
I have found out that there are some serious shortcomings with the Neptune Apex email alert notifications while setting things up. You do not get a detailed notification of what Exactly happened only that something has happened. This is a SERIOUS disappointment! I have now set it to notify me only when I have a catastrophic leak. Super crappy! You would think that with this level of sophistication it could at the very least tell you what occurred not just that 'something' occurred! We have power outages often here and I would sure like to know when that happens.
At any rate, the following (read soon to post) are a few photos to let you marvel at the humble aquarium that sat dormant in a storage locker for more than 12 years.
