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Riddle's 240g


Riddler

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This is my new 240g acrylic display with diy T5 and VHO canopy. This was taken just before I added over 200lbs of live rock from my old 180g system. The sump is in the basement and made from two 75g tanks. The system utilizes two 1" seaswirls powered by a sequence pump for closed loop, and Iwaki 55RLT for a return.

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This is my DIY sump system. The 75g tank on top is divided into two sections both receiving overflow water from the display. The section on the right is a refugium that overflows into the frag section on the left. The frag tank then overflows into the last section of my sump (bottom right) in order to bypass all mechanical filtration. The remaining or majority of the overflow water flows into the two 200micron filters socks (bottom left), into the ASM G4 skimmer section, through the bubble trap, and then back to the return section. My Calc reactor is fed by my return pump with the output valve routed back to the skimmer section. The lighting for the frag tank is a 400w MH pendant.

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Do you have any pics now that the rock is added?

 

Also, are the PVC stands in the tank only to support the rock work, or is there some other purpose to them?

 

I will post some pics of the aquascape tonight. The PVC stands are simply live rock racks. The two 90 elbows in the back are inlets connected to a sequence pump that returns through the two modified seaswirls for the closed loop system.

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Its so clean. How long has it been setup?

 

Zero TDS RO/DI water has been circulating through this system for about four weeks. I had added Tropic Marine Pro Reef salt two weeks prior to this picture. My salinity or specific gravity is at 1.024. I started adding live stock this past weekend. Basically this system started on September, 11th or 9/11 of this year.

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When you’re moving live rock that has been in your tanks for more than 12 years and your buddy suddenly shouts "DUDE WATCH OUT", he might be talking about a very large bristle worm next to your hand.

 

Does anybody have some valid data regarding this thing? My buddy thought that I should keep it in my 180… Now I know why I'm an engineer and not a marine biologist.

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Yes, taking pictures of an 8' tank presents its own challenges. Now taking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room is on my to-do list. I had to build a closet in the basement for the filter, build supports for the floor, hard wood flooring, diy tank furniture, lighting, over 100’ of plumbing and now another wall... she is right,I'm crazy... oh well... I think I will knock down the wall after I put the bar in front of the tank and install my diy keg orator next to it.

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This is a pic of my new lighting system. It consists of 6 rows of florescent lighting driven by 3 icecap 660 ballasts.

 

Front

VHO T12 Super Actinic

HO T5 14k or icecap deepwater

HO T5 12k or icecap midwater

HO T5 454 or icecap twilight

HO T5 10K or icecap reefcrest

VHO T12 Super Actinic

 

I've been using MH lighting systems for more than a decade and on paper this system should outperform all of them, but I will keep my fingers crossed and let my inhabitants be the judge of that. Now to be fair to MH, I have never ran an MH system with 5 differnt types of bulbs, and due to initial and continous operation costs, I probably never will. Oh, and sorry German T5 fans, this system is 100% made in the USA. ...I'm just tired of reading about all of these ATI setups

 

Though PAR maybe our most commonly available and valid unit of measure when analyzing or designing our lighting systems, it may not be the metric to live by. The PAR meters being used show the intensity of light for any wavelength within the photosynthetically active radiation spectrum (400-700nm). Should we care if a bulb measures a PAR level of 1000 for a very narrow width of the spectrum or should we demand a spectral analysis and purchase bulbs that can provide a more balanced intesity over a wide portion of the PAR spectrum?

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Another quesiton on the rockwork / PVC stand.

 

Did you ziptie the rocks to the PVC, or epoxy the rocks to together? Maybe both? Maybe somehting else?

 

I did zip tie one large rock to the PVC rack but mostly it’s just stacked. I’m now going back and adding epoxy putty but this is mostly for cosmetic purposes. I considered utilizing the Pond Foam method but after playing with a can of it I decided not to put that stuff in my tank. I would recommend the acrylic or nylon rod and epoxy method if starting with new dry rock. For this system I needed to transfer my existing rocks without allowing time for the tank to begin some form of cycling. The PVC tower method is defiantly a good choice as well. In the past all of my aquascapes end up being tweaked until they become a leaning wall. This design presents a lot of room for corals in front, fish behind the rocks, and exposed live rock surface area for great biological filtration.

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