drauka

Oh and apparently one of my Fire Shrimp did make it through the long sabbatical in the counter top 20 long. Also added 3 bangai cardinals a week ago and a helfrichi firefish this weekend. Everyone is doing well. The tank does have a pretty bad algae bloom going. Also bryopsis on the rock my GF brought with her. SO... will be dosing flucanozole in a bit to see if we can knock that out and possibly help with the hair algae too.

Did the second water change with they system in place. Takes 45 minutes to do a 45 gallon change. That could theoretically be cut in half with me refilling as the sipon was pulling water out but 1 gallon a minute total time seems fair to me and with no buckets its mostly just watching the water levels. Just a few hoses and flipping a few switches

Did a 45 gallon water change on Sunday afternoon. The best part.... NO BUCKETS!!!! Setup one of the switches on the APEX breakout box to turn off the return pumps, heater and skimmers. Mixed and warmed up ~55 gallons of new saltwater in the #2 barrel, turned on the mixing pump with the other switch on my APEX breakout box. Calculated after the water level settled to where the water line would be on the display for the 45 gallon change, Hooked up the Phyton water change hose to a faucet and pulled out water to the line. Shut that off. Flipped off the mixing pump and hooked up a hose to the pump out port on the mixing station. Flipped a few valves, filled the sump to where I was comfortable and then switched back on the returns with the same switch that turned them off (the skimmers and such are on a delayed start). Once I hit my normal sump level I flipped the mixing pump switch off and flipped a few valves to refill the mixing barrel. Did that with one more flip of a switch and then put everything away. Tonight I'll get the rodi barrel completely refilled and be ready for another water change when its time. A few kinks that need to be worked out but for that large of a water change it went very smoothly and probably took less than an hour. I'll time it next time. 45 gallons is about 15% of the total system volume.

Few more updates. Tank is running with salt. Upped the Varios 8s to setting #2 on the 1-5 (5 max) they only pull about 44 watts each and move a lot of water. Hung the lights over the weekend. I like them. 2018-07-09_12-38-25 by drauka99, on Flickr Also got the mixing station plumbed. Using an external pump, can direct the flow into either barrel to either mix or move water as needed. Should be able to do some water changes pretty fast. 2018-07-09_12-41-33 by drauka99, on Flickr the barrels are completely open top so i can remove the lid and dump in salt easily or inspect the inside of the barrels easily from a step stool.

Best seat in the house.

I have 2 - 48" AquaticLife T5/LED Hybrid units. The LEDs will be 3x Kessil 360e and each 48" unit has 4 T5 bulbs, the bulbs should give me a 10-12K look - 2 Blue Plus, 1 Aquablue Special and 1 Super Purple There may end up being 2 AI 23 Hydra HD's added as well I am hoping in a couple weeks to have a mounting board installed under the tank and all the Powerhead controls and such in place on it. (So far I am really liking the Tunze pumps) Plus I need to drain the freshwater and refill with RODI and salt and get the cycle started. I have some already cycled rock I plan on adding in the sump to get things kicked off a little faster.

It's Alive!!!! 2018-06-11_12-37-59 by drauka99, on Flickr 2018-06-11_12-37-30 by drauka99, on Flickr Did some leak testing this weekend (passed all with flying colors) and Ended up filling the tank up with tap water (ours is surprisingly low TDS) onto the dry rock I had. Going to let it soak for a week or so and then do a 100% water change with good RO/DI water and get it cycling. I did go a bit overboard on my return pumps. 2 Varios 8's are a bit much. even with 1-1/2 drains they struggle to keep up. I have both set on the lowest setting on thier controller and there is a bunch of flow through the sump. 2018-06-11_12-39-13 by drauka99, on Flickr

Got most of the plumbing done this weekend. Picture doesn't show it but the return pumps are connected with vinyl hose to dampen vibrations. 2018-05-14_07-06-41 by drauka99, on Flickr

Says the guy with how many guppie tanks in his house?

I have a MP40 I am looking to sell, no need for any other powerheads. Its been upgraded with a QD wetside and controller. Price is $250. Also have a Gen2 (horizontal controller layout) MP40 that needs a wetside. (Is up-gradable to a QD controller as well) I'd part with for $150.

Turned out the glass shop got the holes perfect. Was able to bulkhead the tanks together with no pressure.

yup, went ahead and had the local glass shop handle the drilling since I needed a bunch of glass cut as well. sump and refugium are drilled and did a water test last night. both passed. Need to get them plumbed together and the rest of the plumbing done and get this beast full of water.

Thanks, Got the Apex running to make sure its stable and operating correctly for a few days before I start programming all the outlets. Only have the temp probes hooked up for now. One is measuring the water temp in the mixing vat I have beside the sump area, the other is the room temp. (One thing that hasn't been made very open by Neptune is that the temp probe works just as well out of water as it does in. I like this because i can set an alert if the room temp gets high, like if the AC goes out) There will be 2 more EB-8's as well as a VDM module under the tank for powerheads and light control.

2018-04-29_11-33-03 by drauka99, Got some stuff mounted.

Looking Good