Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[XtraKargo]

My next mixing station
:rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

The rust is a nice touch. Just needs some salt creep! LoL!

 

[LiverockRocks]

Happy to be part of the Tank & Learn journey!

Randy chose the Original TBS Package for his build. This is an olde school ratio of 1lb live sand, 1lb base rock and 1lb premium rock per gallon of the display tank. It is ALOT of rock. The good thing is that the Original Package is based on gallons in the display aquarium and not the whole system, so extra rock can easily move into the sump (refugium or cryptic chamber). Randy mentioned the Brute brigade as an option for extra pounds, and there we have it.

The great thing about the "Package" is that it ships in 2 phases. Phase 1 cycles the tank effortlessly with live sand and ocean farmed base rock. No guessing if the tank is cycled, no sacrificial fish, no stinky shrimp, no bottled bacteria and best of all, no worries! Phase 2 bolsters the microorganism community with the addition of premium rock and a general clean up crew. It is important an aquarium be cycled / established with sand & base rock before the addition of delicate premium rock hitchhikers like corals, bivalves, sponges, tunicates, macroalgae, etc.

When following this recipe most large tanks experience no ammonia spikes / ammonia readings. This is because used in the appropriate ratios, healthy ocean lifeforms are processing ammonia as they should. Shipping live rock submerged is vital to keep these beneficial organisms alive and ready to get to work in a sterile environment / new tank.

Jocelyn selects rock specifically for EVERY order. In general, she will choose a variety of shapes, mix of sizes and diversity of hitchhikers. We do our best to accommodate customers' specific requests in terms of rock sizes, shapes and hitchhikers. Now is the time to let us know if you have a request, as the team will be harvesting soon for the next shipping groups.

Looking forward to it and Rock on.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Happy to be part of the Tank & Learn journey!

Randy chose the Original TBS Package for his build. This is an olde school ratio of 1lb live sand, 1lb base rock and 1lb premium rock per gallon of the display tank. It is ALOT of rock. The good thing is that the Original Package is based on gallons in the display aquarium and not the whole system, so extra rock can easily move into the sump (refugium or cryptic chamber). Randy mentioned the Brute brigade as an option for extra pounds, and there we have it.

The great thing about the "Package" is that it ships in 2 phases. Phase 1 cycles the tank effortlessly with live sand and ocean farmed base rock. No guessing if the tank is cycled, no sacrificial fish, no stinky shrimp, no bottled bacteria and best of all, no worries! Phase 2 bolsters the microorganism community with the addition of premium rock and a general clean up crew. It is important an aquarium be cycled / established with sand & base rock before the addition of delicate premium rock hitchhikers like corals, bivalves, sponges, tunicates, macroalgae, etc.

When following this recipe most large tanks experience no ammonia spikes / ammonia readings. This is because used in the appropriate ratios, healthy ocean lifeforms are processing ammonia as they should. Shipping live rock submerged is vital to keep these beneficial organisms alive and ready to get to work in a sterile environment / new tank.

Jocelyn selects rock specifically for EVERY order. In general, she will choose a variety of shapes, mix of sizes and diversity of hitchhikers. We do our best to accommodate customers' specific requests in terms of rock sizes, shapes and hitchhikers. Now is the time to let us know if you have a request, as the team will be harvesting soon for the next shipping groups.

Looking forward to it and Rock on.

Thanks very much, TBS, both for providing it and giving folks a run down on it! I'm looking forward to receiving it! :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The jebao DEP 8500 arrived today and I got it installed. Very easy with the including tubing adapter, the flexible food grade 1" silicone tubing that was waiting for a pump, and some nylon hose clamps from Amazon (may someday upgrade to titanium or 316 stainless, but for now it seems plenty tight).

First thing to note: Randy, read the directions before turning it on. lol

It has plenty of power to send water to my tank, but I could not understand what was wrong that the flow kept stopping and restarting as I watched it from my tank. Duh, old AC pump guy. Yes, it starts up in a wave mode. Switching to full on, it emptied the Brute in less than 5 minutes and filled the tank about 1/4 full. Very quiet. I don't think I even heard it over the smaller pumps in other Brute cans mixing salt and water. Aside from not having the ability to see anything about it remotely (at least outside of bluetooth range, which it claims to have), it will be fine in this application. Fingers crossed that it keeps working as is. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My next mixing station
:rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

Like an underwater version of the Wizard of Oz. lol

 

[Projects with Sam]

Return Pump Turnover Rate



Perfect topic for a discussion. :)

I'm expecting to have pretty low turnover. 1x per hours seems plenty to me for these reasons:

1. In tank flow is provided by in tank powerheads (the Tunze stream 6105 eco). Each provides 3,000 to 12,000 L per h flow. In a 120 gallon tank, that's 6.6 to 26 x turnover on each one. I do not anticipate running them near 100%.

2. I cannot think of anything that would change in the water in the tank in less than an hour that necessitates it being run through the filtration system. Not temperature, O2, pH, organics, waste products, etc.

3. Lower return flow is easier to accommodate from return pumps and from overflows and return pipes, with potentially lower sound.

Does anyone see a reason to want higher than 1x turnover per hour?

Why not optimize throughput. if the filter & sump can handle the flow why not treat your return like a powerhead?
I've been doing it on my system; also an Oceanic 120. I was running a 3500 Gph pump on it without issue. recently I added two 70 gallon frag tanks and another 3500 gph pump for those.
The pumps have variable flow so they are pretty effective at generating flow with random flow nozzles.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why not optimize throughput. if the filter & sump can handle the flow why not treat your return like a powerhead?
I've been doing it on my system; also an Oceanic 120. I was running a 3500 Gph pump on it without issue. recently I added two 70 gallon frag tanks and another 3500 gph pump for those.
The pumps have variable flow so they are pretty effective at generating flow with random flow nozzles.

The drawbacks would be noise (pump and overflow), electricity cost, and how fast something might go wrong with partly clogged overflows. All of those might be appropriately handled or not a big deal, I'm just not thinking I need any more flow. :)

Still, once I have a pump in place running normally, I'll adjust it upward until something seems suboptimal. The electricity just becomes heat, and most of the year I'll be heating so that's not the main driver. Noise and failure modes are bigger concerns in my situation.

 

[vitaliyphoto]

These are the most exciting news!!! I was a bit sad to hear you took down your tank, felt like an important part of our community was out of the thing that is most enjoyable about this hobby- owning a tank. You were always engaged with everyone on here but I couldn’t help but keep thinking your tank was down. Now this made my day brighter! Enjoy the journey!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Refugia

Here are two pictures of what the early stage refugium looks like. It will normally have the lid on with an exhaust fan pulling air out (more on air handling later).

The led bulbs are suspended from the ceiling and shine through holes in the Brute lid. Right now I’m using a too-small lid since I came up one short on the 9 cans I’m using.

All of the dark color at the bottom are the macroalgae. Too soon to tell how it is doing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are several types of macroalgae that I collected, including the biggest amount being Mastocarpus stellatus (false irish moss). I collected them on the North Shore of Massachusetts on a very cold day a few weeks ago. They grow tightly attached to the rocks in the picture, so I yanked them off. Hopefully that doesn't kill them. lol

 

[Faurek]

Following this, I see native macroalgae already, if this will have SPS and Macroalgae will be like mine but different. Interested on the types that will be chosen.

 

[BryanM]

Refugia

Here are two pictures of what the early stage refugium looks like. It will normally have the lid on with an exhaust fan pulling air out (more on air handling later).

The led bulbs are suspended from the ceiling and shine through holes in the Brute lid. Right now I’m using a too-small lid since I came up one short on the 9 cans I’m using.

All of the dark color at the bottom are the macroalgae. Too soon to tell how it is doing.

This looks like rock behind the brute, like you're in a cave. If it is cave-like, I am jealous!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This looks like rock behind the brute, like you're in a cave. If it is cave-like, I am jealous!

lol

No, a stone basement foundation. It's thickness and my lack of appropriately estimating it was why the holes cut into the living room floor ended up over the sill and not just a straight drop to the basement. Would have been so much easier if they were a foot further into the room, but then would also be harder to hide later if the tank is down.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Overflow Design

Tank has two overflows, each with 2 holes in the tank bottom.

There are all sorts of designs for overflow pipes, including a very sophisticated 3 hole design by beananimal

Silent & Fail-Safe Aquarium Overflow System | BeanAnimal's Reef

Build the world famous "Bean Animal" silent and fail-safe aquarium overflow system. No noise, no adjustment, no floods. A truly set and forget setup that makes the Durso and Stockman style of standpipes obsolete! Build your own today!

beananimal.com

With two holes in each overflow, I went with a design that has two straight down emergency overflows (using the 3/4" pipes, expanded to 1" diameter at the top to reduce chances of a single piece of crud clogging it) that would go full siphon if needed, and two 1" pipes that have a top that looks like these (forget the name).

I used this setup in my previous version and it worked fine, perhaps because I do not run a ton of water through them. Very quiet.

 

[twentyleagues]

Overflow Design

Tank has two overflows, each with 2 holes in the tank bottom.

There are all sorts of designs for overflow pipes, including a very sophisticated 3 hole design by beananimal

Silent & Fail-Safe Aquarium Overflow System | BeanAnimal's Reef

Build the world famous "Bean Animal" silent and fail-safe aquarium overflow system. No noise, no adjustment, no floods. A truly set and forget setup that makes the Durso and Stockman style of standpipes obsolete! Build your own today!

beananimal.com

With two holes in each overflow, I went with a design that has two straight down emergency overflows (using the 3/4" pipes, expanded to 1" diameter at the top to reduce chances of a single piece of crud clogging it) that would go full siphon if needed, and two 1" pipes that have a top that looks like these (forget the name).

I used this setup in my previous version and it worked fine, perhaps because I do not run a ton of water through them. Very quiet.

Durso I believe. I run mine like this too, except in both my tanks with internal overflows I have 2 1" holes.

 

[Miami Reef]

Agreed. I think it’s a carry over from long ago before powerheads ruled the tank. :)

Is it true that I don’t really need that much turnover to my sump? I always ran a high turnover because I thought my skimmer would remove more waste.

I think I’m running 7x turnover.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Is it true that I don’t really need that much turnover to my sump? I always ran a high turnover because I thought my skimmer would remove more waste.

I think I’m running 7x turnover.

It is true that bringing dirty water to a skimmer faster will remove more waste. But how much dirtier does the water get after 30 minutes in the display compared to 5 or 10 minutes?

My expectation is that the skimmer brings the whole system down to a cleaner level than before using one, and that at a steady state, the skimmer effluent is only a little cleaner than the skimmer input. That may be wrong, but it’s how I think of it.

To be clear, there’s no drawback to higher turnover to the sump with regards to a skimmer, so it may help some. I’m just not thinking the effect is substantial.

 

[backbayreef]

Is it true that I don’t really need that much turnover to my sump? I always ran a high turnover because I thought my skimmer would remove more waste.

I think I’m running 7x turnover.

I’m at 10x since Bob, my next door neighbor, is only at 5x. I think that I’m happier and so is my tank! ;)

 

[Projects with Sam]

I’m at 10x since Bob, my next door neighbor, is only at 5x. I think that I’m happier and so is my tank! ;)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I learned something very important reading the Jebao manual. It says the pump is

Exquisite and compact. Beautiful and generous!

Who could ask for more in a pump!