40 breeder build

[Reeflogic]

I have a mixed experience with the Flex Seal.

Thanks for being my guinea pig!! If it doesn't hold up, I owe you and the wife a steak dinner! :D:p

 

[BlueDevil]

Thanks for being my guinea pig!! If it doesn't hold up, I owe you and the wife a steak dinner! :D:p

Haha!! I was just as curious as you were. In theory it's a great concept. We shall see how it
Holds up in practice! [emoji4]

 

[BlueDevil]

Yesterday was day 7 after the initial dost of a cube of frozen fish food. I added some ammonia to bump up the level to 3 ppm and today's test showed up at 2, maybe 2.5 depending on the color interpretation. So I still have a ways to go with the cycling process. Nitrites and Nitrates both checked out at 0.

 

[BlueDevil]

The sump is finally complete! Ran a water check complete and all the baffles are water right!!

 

[Reeflogic]

The sump is finally complete! Ran a water check complete and all the baffles are water right!!

Beastmode!!

 

[BlueDevil]

I just measured the phosphates in the rock that I'm curing and they're at 0.09!!! Ugh! I am so frustrated!! How could this be after an acid as well as LC bath?? Do I need to go back to another LC bath?

 

[BlueDevil]

@cee - since you're quite familiar with the LC bath process, any thoughts on my phosphate issue and what my options are at this point? I take it just a reset and do another LC bath or is there another option?

 

[Reeflogic]

Yash, you put in cubes of frozen "stuff", anything else? Did you check phosphates prior to adding ammonia? What test kit are you using? If you are using anything other than the low Po4 Hanna, I wouldn't consider it very accurate. Have you ever once checked the mixed water you get from the aquarium? Time to set up that bad boy 150 GPD and run some tests. If you get zero reading, replace the current water and then check again in a few days. My guess is the water you get has PO4 and the cube of whatever you added has Po4. I'm very confident that your treatment of the rocks eliminated PO4.

 

[Chriscrna]

You are a modern day Picasso!

If you had hair, I'd run my fingers through it and say [emoji1437][emoji1437][emoji1437] cha cha cha! Brilliant maestro, brilliant!

 

[BlueDevil]

Doug - you might be on to something here. I still had a 5 gal container of the same water I used for the cycling that I bought in the same batch from the Aquarium. Just tested it and it checked out at 0.05. I am using the Hanna ULR meter.

So the question I have is - when you mix your own SW is it always 0 or very near 0 phosphates? Or are some residual phosphates to be expected?

The fish food might be a cause of the remaining 0.04. Unfortunately I didn't test the phosphates before adding the food as I thought the baths would surely have knocked it out.

 

[BlueDevil]

I tested another (newer) batch of SW I got from the store. It checked out at 0.027. So I wonder if it was just the water and food combination that caused the 0.09 reading? I might dump this water out and set a baseline reading before I resume the cycling. And this time I'll use pure ammonia liquid instead of fish food.

 

[BlueDevil]

You are a modern day Picasso!

If you had hair, I'd run my fingers through it and say [emoji1437][emoji1437][emoji1437] cha cha cha! Brilliant maestro, brilliant!

LOL! You crack me up Chris!

 

[BlueDevil]

A little bit of an update: I got some more SW and this time tested it before adding it to the rocks. The water reads 0 phosphates. I emptied out the Brute and replaced with this new water. I will also only dose pure ammonia to eliminate the chance of phosphates due to fish food. We'll see what the reading is in a few days.

 

[Reeflogic]

Good to know that the water from TA was PO4 free man! Hopefully, it was just the food! A lot of the frozen food makers use a phosphate-based preservative, especially frozen shrimp/seafood from the grocery store, as well as many of the "cube" varieties. Are you onto plumbing today???

 

[BlueDevil]

Good to know that the water from TA was PO4 free man! Hopefully, it was just the food! A lot of the frozen food makers use a phosphate-based preservative, especially frozen shrimp/seafood from the grocery store, as well as many of the "cube" varieties. Are you onto plumbing today???

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the water or food was the source of the phosphates. It will so frustrating if it was the rocks still leeching as well.
I would have liked to do the plumbing but I still need to finish the stand so I can put the tank on top of it to measure the lengths of PVC I will need.

 

[BlueDevil]

Painted three panes of the sump. I love how it turned out! Excuse the messy silicone job. My first time working with silicone and the narrow gap on the baffles didn't allow for much room to maneuver the silicone gun.

 

[Reefrookie220]

Looking good yash!

 

[Brian Mountain]

Painted three panes of the sump. I love how it turned out! Excuse the messy silicone job. My first time working with silicone and the narrow gap on the baffles didn't allow for much room to maneuver the silicone gun.

Is this the same type of paint you would use on an aquarium?
What kind of paint did you use?
Opinion Paint vs tint for aquarium?

It looks awesome!

 

[BlueDevil]

Is this the same type of paint you would use on an aquarium?
What kind of paint did you use?
Opinion Paint vs tint for aquarium?

It looks awesome!

Thank you! I tried a tinting film first and it didn't work for a couple of reasons:

1. The tank has those black brackets on the top and bottom. The lip on those brackets would not allow me to tuck the film under it. As a result, I could never get a precise cut all the way up to the bracket, whereby there would be not even the slightest gap.

2. The bigger issue was on the side panels. This is where the panes of glass overlap and its not a clean overlap. The back is one solid pane so this wasn't an issue on the back (the bracing still was). As a result of the uneven edge on the sides, the film did not have a good seal on the edges and kept lifting off. The only option was to cut it before the overlap, though this would leave about a 1/4 gap again.

I tried the films multiple times - laying it on and then cutting it, cutting it to the exact measurement and then putting it on, using a razor blade to cut slightly under the bracket etc etc... None of the attempts gave me a uniform seal without an gaps. What would end up happening with the edges that didn't seal was that over time the film would slowly start to peel away, especially when you factor in moisture from the sump etc...

So, I decided to go with the paint option. I got a couple of cans of Krylon matte black paint from Walmart since this is the brand that I found is most commonly used by folks to paint their tanks. I used construction paper and tape to cover the open top and the front panel and then sprayed away. I really like how it turned out - its a really nice even coat all the way around. I didn't stray too heavy to avoid drips so I needed three coats to completely cover it.

The advantage of paint is the ease of use, after you have done the hard work of masking the areas you do not want to paint. It goes on super easy. The disadvantage is that it is not easily removable. This is not a big deal if you are set on a color you want to go with (like I was with black). I'm sure if you really really needed to remove it, you could with a razor blade, but it will involve a lot of work. The other advantage is that there is no room for salt creep to slide in between the film and the glass. This is typically not an issue if you have a nice good seal on the films. But given that I was not able to get that, paint would give me that protection.

The advantage of film is that it is easily removable in case you want to try different colors or would like the option to remove it completely. You also wouldn't have to tear down the tank, or move it in order to take the film off, as long as you have just a little bit of room to access the back of the tank.

If you are only doing the back of your tank, and it is a rimless tank, film should go on very cleanly and without any issues.

Hope this helps...

Cheers!
Yash

 

[glb]

Looking good! Now you're ahead of me!