Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

[Baxreefs]

Jim

It's an MRC MR4R
There are three fitting between the Becketts. At the top is the skimmer pump discharge to the Becketts. Between the Becketts on top of the box is the feed pump inlet. Feed the skimmer here with 1.5x your system volume. the fitting below that on the face of the box is the feed to the skimmer pump. The yellow skimmer pump is a PanWorld PX200 (if I remember correctly) There is a video in my old thread of the skimmer running

 

[jimroth]

Thanks Bax. I got the gate valve yesterday so it should all be working in short order. Where do those curved pipes in the box go?

Jim

It's an MRC MR4R
There are three fitting between the Becketts. At the top is the skimmer pump discharge to the Becketts. Between the Becketts on top of the box is the feed pump inlet. Feed the skimmer here with 1.5x your system volume. the fitting below that on the face of the box is the feed to the skimmer pump. The yellow skimmer pump is a PanWorld PX200 (if I remember correctly) There is a video in my old thread of the skimmer running

 

[Baxreefs]

Those 1" spaflex pipes are the inlet and outlet to the PanWorld.
Inlet comes off the side of the skimmer box to the PanWorld inlet.
Outlet goes from the PanWorld volute to the T between the top of the Becketts.

 

[jimroth]

Those 1" spaflex pipes are the inlet and outlet to the PanWorld.
Inlet comes off the side of the skimmer box to the PanWorld inlet.
Outlet goes from the PanWorld volute to the T between the top of the Becketts.

There's a couple of 90° bends sitting in the skimmer base. I assume those go on the Beckett outflows...

 

[Baxreefs]

Yes they direct the flow around the box I added them to reduce turbulence I pointed them down on an angle about 45 deg to the right, or away from the discharge of the skimmer.

Check out my office thread page 61 shows a few pics of the skimmer plumed in

 

[jimroth]

Yes they direct the flow around the box I added them to reduce turbulence I pointed them down on an angle about 45 deg to the right, or away from the discharge of the skimmer.

Check out my office thread page 61 shows a few pics of the skimmer plumed in

Thanx Bax.

 

[jimroth]

Back from a long train ride and visit to the West Coast, and finally plumbing in the skimmer. Of course, the way I work, it's got to take 5 days and 6 trips to HD. Much head scratching until I remembered the 1" Spaflex I had on hand, and discovered a 1" gate valve I must have bought ages ago for some forgotten project. Connecting the 1" pump outlet to the 3/4" skimmer feed has been difficult but I think I have it beat.
The dinoflagellates/hair algae combo is back and driving me insane. Siphoned 25G out in the process of removing the crap, just filthy. I have brought my GFO reactor back online for the first time since the post-sandy crash to see if that helps. Next step is a few days with the lights out, the tank looked great (at first) after sandy! Running a brand new DI cartridge on the RO, feeding minimally, running a carbon bag, it's mysterious. Last resort, once the new skimmer is online, will be a big peroxide treatment but let's see if I can beat it another way. Maybe time for a 'fuge at last, I have everything I need.
Lately, when I feel frustrated, I try to remember the problems Sanjay Joshi has been having, and he has more brains in his earlobe than I have in my head.
I think every hermit crab I got in the last cleanup crew died. I can't help feeling there is something toxic to inverts in my reef. I bought a diadema urchin, acclimated it carefully, and the thing croaked in a couple of days. Although the urchins that have been in there though everything are still okay. I bought a hunk of polyfilter which I'm going to run to check for mystery pollutants. I'm also going to get some crabs from Sea Level and keep them in a critter container in the tank for a while, to see if they kick the bucket spontaneously. After that, I dunno, maybe send some water out to be tested professionally?

 

[jimroth]

Bought some test hermit crbs which I am going to watch to see if they die. The guys at SeaLevel aquarium recommended ChemiClean for my HA/dinos issue, so what the hell, I'll give it a go. Should at least hurt the dinos, since it's meant for red slime.
Bought a little naso tang a couple of days ago, because the price was right and I need algae control. He came in skinny but has fattened right up on an algae diet!

 

[jimroth]

Back from a week away. Stopped the skimmer to run ChemiClean to treat my massive coating of dinoflagellates and hair algae. Nobody knows what the stuff is but it might be erythromycin. It seems to have killed a lot of the dinos, their bubbles are gone and the water got pretty cloudy. All fish and corals are okay. I have a 60G water change ready in the garage which I'm going to apply later today, taking the opportunity to siphon out a bunch of the HA/dino muck. Debating plumbing in the new skimmer, this would be a good time to do it.

 

[jimroth]

The ChemiClean process was helpful. Here's how it went. I shut down skimming for 48 hours and removed carbon. I added the entire package of powder (said it treats 300G, my system's around 240, figured close enough.) The tank got somewhat cloudy, but the fish did not seem stressed. Something happened to the dinos or cyano or whatever that was. All the bubbles in it disappeared. I think it died. A recent purchase (small naso tang) died shortly after the process but that may just be a coincidence. After the 48 hours I resumed skimming. The skimmer went extremely crazy and I had a small flood. I had to detune the skimmer to avoid another flood. Lots of skimmate was produced and replaced with fresh SW. I performed a large (60G) water change, which gave me the opportunity to siphon out lots of the loose hair algae and dead muck. When I was done, there was still hair algae but I could see the green color, instead of the tan of the dinos. Days later, a remarkable thing is happening. My faithful crew of urchins are eating the hell out of the hair algae. the purple tang and foxface are eating more too. I think the dinos protect the hair algae by being poisonous or tasting bad. I can see bare rock again in a lot of places!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Jim, sorry for the loss of the fish, but did you run a bubbler as they suggest? It’s my understanding that Chemiclean depletes oxygen levels in the tank. Maybe that contributed to the fish’s death.

However, sounds like you’re on you way to a cleaner tank.

 

[jimroth]

Well the new skimmer is finally running. I 'm having the usual new skimmer problems with it, but it has one really bad issue and that is the skimmer box is leaking from one of the seams. I'm hoping it stops on its own but if it won't, I'll have to pull it out and reglue the seam. I have sprayed and leaked gallons of SW around the garage getting this thing plumbed and dialed in, always an adventure. Thank god for the waste collector. I don't know what you'd do if this thing was in your living room. Probably cry a lot. I got so used to the ETSS 1000, it was hard to let it go. You learn all of its little quirks and foibles, like taking care of an old person. The last straw was it needed to have the bioballs taken out of the tower and cleaned or replaced following the ChemiClean treatment, and probably sucking up a lot of detritus. I started to remove it and just decided to go ahead and install the big MRC Beckett skimmer.

I also replaced my American DJ switchbox, a couple of the rocker switches are broken. If I can find replacements it will be good as new.

 

[jimroth]

Jim, sorry for the loss of the fish, but did you run a bubbler as they suggest? It’s my understanding that Chemiclean depletes oxygen levels in the tank. Maybe that contributed to the fish’s death.

However, sounds like you’re on you way to a cleaner tank.

I ran the vortechs the whole time, figured that was equivalent. No other fish was stressed, although I have some pretty tough fish!

 

[jimroth]

Leaking is less today, I've been shutting it off at night so I don't wake up to any surprises, that may cause salt to harden in the joints. In the meantime, I've been getting my old MRC-2 skimmer ready as a stopgap. Still no real foam production, probably since it's in break in. I think I'm getting siphoning in the drain and that may not be helping. I need to redesign the drain a little, and shorten it up so I can route it into something to trap the microbubbles, which are also a problem. There are so many they are running right through my bubble trap. I will probably need to make one of those PVC pipe-filled-with-rubble gizmos Bax used to use.

 

[jimroth]

Ran the skimmer overnight, made some skimmate. Readjusted it today, now it's kicking out a beautiful custard-yellow, foam collapsing into delicious (looking) cider colored skimmate. Still leaking. Some of the leakage now is coming from pipe joints, which I will need to disassemble and re-tape. Began the process of cleaning six years of calcium out of the skimmer box of the ETSS 1000.
Now I am going to concentrate of the elimination of the remaining hair algae, manually, chemically, and through the use of critters. I had bought an expensive diadema sea urchin locally when the crisis was at its worst. It immediately dropped all its spines and I figured it had just died right away. Yesterday, lo and behold, there it is, tucked into a crevice with a new short crop of spines! Plenty for that guy to eat.
The next step in revitalization is going to be the return of the calcium reactor, and that is gonna be tricky.

 

[jimroth]

SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THIS THREAD!!!! (yesterday) WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Congratulations Jim!


The traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is candy and iron……I not lying here….look it up.


So to honor you I have a stale Baby Ruth left over from Halloween and a rusty nut from my exhaust system on my car. (Or do they mean like iron your cloths kind of iron???…..can’t be….that would certainly end in a slap to the face if you presented your wife with a cloths iron on her sixth….Oh, am I saying this out loud!....I've got to stop talking to myself......Who said that!)

 

[magic]

Congratulations Jim!


The traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is candy and iron……I not lying here….look it up.


So to honor you I have a stale Baby Ruth left over from Halloween and a rusty nut from my exhaust system on my car. (Or do they mean like iron your cloths kind of iron???…..can’t be….that would certainly end in a slap to the face if you presented your wife with a cloths iron on her sixth….Oh, am I saying this out loud!....I've got to stop talking to myself......Who said that!)

Paul

Always amusing!

Bob

 

[JRWOHLER]

Congratulations on 6 years!!

 

[TanksNStuff]

Congrats on 6 years Jim! That's almost as hard as keeping a wife that long.

Hope the skimmer issues and the HA problems get fixed soon.