New Swiss 1900 liter (500G) Build

[Laith]

Nothing like child labour! ;Joyful

This gravel has a lot of dust so took quite a bit of time and effort to wash 90 kg of it!

Poor boy got tired after the first 20kg... so guess who washed the rest?

 

[Laith]

Slowly installing more of the equipment and the associated kms of cabling... ;Muted

 

[Laith]

Getting there but painstaking!

 

[Laith]

Tank emptied of the initial RO/DI water after about a week. Hopefully that will reduce any dust or anything else that comes off the ceramic rock!

Then gravel added and final fill started...

 

[Laith]

Four days to fill.

At this point I rearranged the aquascape a bit and decided to get rid of that column on the right side. It was driving me nuts ! ;Shamefullyembarrased

 

[Laith]

I figured that the best way to get a good estimate of the actual water volume in the system was to use the amount of salt I would need to get the water to 35 PPT.

So I measured out how much of my Fauna Marin salt was needed to get 1 liter of RO/DI water to 35PPT: 42g.

Then I added salt to the system until I tested 35PPT. That required 72kg of salt. 72kg divided by 42g gives just over 1,700 liters of water. I figure that once I added the old live rock from my old tank I would end up with a net volume of 1,600 - 1,650 of water.

So I'll be using 1,600 liters as the base amount of water for any future calculations (additives, etc etc).

 

[Laith]

Once the temperature was at 26 C and the water had mixed for a couple of days, the 22nd was the big day!

Old tank emptied... and inhabitants and live rock moved:

 

[Laith]

The two new RE pumps in the return chamber. They are running perfectly, each at 50% and as usual, can't hear a whisper from them ;Joyful. I added a bit of 50mm pipe and a slightly downturned 90 degree bend to each intake just to allow more leeway in the depth of the return chamber before they start sucking air.

 

[Laith]

Profilux, Profilux Expansion box and doser installed at this end. Air extractor is connected up and managed by the Profilux as well.

And cabling is almost finalized. The Profilux probes are still not in their final position as I'm waiting for another probe holder. I'll leave the temp probe in the overflow box but move the redox, pH and conductivity probes down into the skimmer section of the sump.

 

[Laith]

Some pics under the hood...

Here is where a lot of my old live rock ended up. You can also see that I've installed the two independent Tunze Osmolators. Currently using the Osmolator magnet system to hold the level sensors but have ordered the "rail" option from Tunze that I can glue to the side of the sump and slide the sensors up and down them. The magnets hold across the 19mm of the PVC side but not very strongly...

I also haven't had the time to install the RE reactor for my carbon so I just took the Aquaforest one I had running on my old tank and filled it with carbon. It just holds enough (about 900ml of carbon).

 

[Laith]

I'm in love with the skimmer... ultra quiet and pulls lots. And easy to adjust to wetter/drier skim. ;Joyful

Running the Swabbie for 5 minutes 4 times a day. Auto cleaning the neck is fantastic!

 

[Laith]

Sitting ontop of the fresh Saltwater reservoir is the GHL KH Director and it's associated doser. The white top bucket holds 25 liters of carbonate solution.

 

[Laith]

And this piece of equipment I am really impressed with. My AWC. Currently changing 1% of the water (16 liters) a day, spread over 150 times in the day. Everything just seems more stable: Redox, pH, KH etc. ;Joyful

In the previous picture I posted you can see the white RO tubing going into the return part of the sump... that's the fresh saltwater input.

And here in this picture the blue tube that's going into the white PVC pipe is where the litermeter takes out water.

 

[Laith]

Another positive on the Litermeter is that the changes have no effect on the ATO system(s) at all because so little water is taken out and replaced each time! ;Happy

 

[Laith]

So after two or three days this started happening, as expected... diatoms:

Covered all the new rock and much of the gravel.

But to my surprise, as of two days ago, that same area looked like this:

Can the diatom phase of the "ugly" phase already passed? If so, I'm not complaining! ;Happy

 

[Laith]

I've added about 18 Torchus snails, 6 conches and 10 nessarius snails so far. Another 12 Torchus, two more tuxedo urchins, three emerald crabs and a Foxface Rabbitfish are to be picked up this coming Friday.

Here's an FTS.

 

[Laith]

Among the many things still needing doing is for me to sort out and adjust the lighting. I need to get my Seneye PAR meter out and see what my current light settings is giving me, especially at the bottom of the 85cm of water...

But visually these lights are great! Very good coverage and not too much harsh shadowing, at least much less that I had with the Hydra 52s I had over the old tank.

 

[Laith]

Oh, and I measured NO3 and PO4 on the 24th, two days after the move... NO3 was at around 0.5-0.75 ppm and PO4 at 0.086.

Remeasured yesterday: NO3 is 0 and PO4 is at 0.031...

And I don't run any type of phosphate removal media.

I think I need to feed more ;Happy.

I have a batch KNO3 that I could always use to raise the NO3 if they stay at 0. I don't like 0 nutrients...

 

[Mortie31]

The Profilux probes are still not in their final position as I'm waiting for another probe holder.

If I were you I’d invest in the GHL measurement cell to hold your probes, I love mine a fabulous bit of kit

 

[Laith]

If I were you I’d invest in the GHL measurement cell to hold your probes, I love mine a fabulous bit of kit

How do you run the tank water through them? If I understand correctly they take 20mm connections so I'd have to put together a dedicated pump and piping to run water through it?