comycus

bro what lights are you using and what's your photoperiod? The main culprit in your case could be temperature swings or insufficient light. Was the bta full bloom 1 day and gone the next day or died a slow death? Mine slowly melted away when my lights went kaput and I didn't do anything for quite sometime due to work commitments. The good news is my tank didn't crash. All fishes still healthy and going strong, only my snails up lorry, probably more sensitive to changes. zoas, shrooms and other soft corals also not affected. I don't really think the bta death had much detrimental effect to my tank. The bad news is your tank volume is smaller than mine, so that may affect how well your tank copes as well. To play safe, I suggest running chemical filtration such as chemipure as a temporary stop gap, and do more water changes over the next few weeks.

Strongly suggest doing away with sandbed if you don't mind. Everyone likes clean white sandbed that mimics the oceanbed and looks more natural, but the reality is you will probably be fighting all sorts of algae growth like diatoms, red slime to name a few. Anyway to answer your qn: the easiest method would be add 1)sand, 2)scape rock, 3)NSW delivery. Just push the rocks deeper into the sandbed to prevent them from sand shifters. If you are using salt mix, unless you have a huge container to mix your salt (or its a nano tank), most likely is add 1) water into tank, 2) mix salt, 3)sand, 4) LR. If you are not going for SPS, strongly suggest going through NSW, less hassle and hard work. Check with LCK if they do delivery.

Sounds like ID from hell! Keep us updated. Btw, are we going to see a new tank build for your new place?

Once your tank is fully cycled, ammonia readings should be zero. Don't really need to measure ammonia. Anyway in my exp, this test stip is quite insensitive to changes. Probably will be too late once it registers ammonia readings. If you are serious about getting ammonia readings, the best is to buy one of those test kits to measure.

I have alternated between using the night mode for my MP40, and in reef crest mode. Made no difference to the tank inhabitants. My personal preference is to run in night mode.

Razali does provide many options to mount your stand, including the mazarra stands. imo excellent service at a reasonable price when I got mine from him some time back. Suggest you talk to him to custom build your stand according to your specifications.

lol full tank shot la, your coralline seems to be growing well!

Bro how about a fts?

Lol let's not bore TS with the various sch of thoughts for denitrification. It would be good if bros utilising plenum+sulphur beads chime in (perhaps in a seperate thread) on their successes with this system, otherwise, I'm as skeptical as bro eniram. My advice to TS if she's considering this in future is to consider running biopellets. I had my doubts initially but good user feedback prompted me to try and I have had moderate success in controlling nitrates. TS, your equipment list looks good.

Sulphur denitrification is not new, but haven't heard much about sulphur beads below sandbed. It just sounds messy to me. Anyone has any experience? TS should just keep it simple, save the $$ for lifestock.

If you are not keeping SPS, can consider running this tank with ventilation fans clipped on the back. I have seen a reefer keeping his temperature constant at 27-29deg with sump included. Key is to use energy efficient equipment. 1 small wavemaker, 1 return pump and probably MCE600 will do the trick. Just have to watch out for evaporation.

Neat setup bro! love the laminates you chose. Now I understand why you went for 4 sides crystal glass... Looking forward to seeing your scape!

maybe to broaden your requirements slightly, my preference would be to go for a tank maker who offers the following: Neat and minimal Silicon work Neat carpentry and laminate work Advice from tankmaker on tank and sump layout and dimensions Timeliness Warranty and after sales service Can give Coral Reef a call to ask for quote, many reefers here and myself have had good experience with them. PM me if you need contacts. btw, I suggest to go rimless (no bracing) if you don't intend to build a hood or built in cabinet. Its unsightly. Not necessary, but can go for bottom brace for peace of mind, its just an additional piece of glass surrounding the perimeter of the bottom inside the tank.

Bro candy appl and purple zoid still available? I'm interested.

bro, suggest buying another pump to chiller and back to DT. One of the disadvantage of pumping to chiller and back to DT compared to back to sump is you need a stronger pump due to head loss when travelling back to DT. If back to sump, can use a pump with smaller footprint. I have heard that the Europeans favour the 'closed loop' system. Water is drawn directly from DT, pumped into chiller and back into DT. This is a separate loop and water doesn't go to the sump. Advantage is your chiller can still operate when you are doing maintenance in the sump, and less head loss due to no head loss from the "suction and pressure side". No idea what it means, maybe the engineers can explain.

Nice setup pics with explanation. Keep it going! I have my reservations If there will be sufficient ventilation for your chiller. Do keep us updated! You will need more working space for your FRs.Try to unscrew the FR now to simulate changing the media.you will find it v awkward to do so. It will be harder when sump and FRs are running in future. Make sure you have sufficient flexible hosing to give you that leeway you need for maintenance.

Basically your questions show a lack of understanding of sumps. There is no "best" method. It's more which do u prefer? You can start an intellectual debate on which method is best and argue till the cows come home. It would be easier for you to post your sump design and ask for feedback. You can read http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html for more info. Basic sump design principle: keep it simple.

Now I understand the underflow. I was kinda worried coz without that piece of glass inside the overflow box, it wouldn't work! Do make sure that the overflow teeth is set at least 2-3" higher than tt piece of glass, or due to water pressure, the underflow might reduce the efficiency of your overflow. Not sure what grade sand you bought. I do suggest going BB. Probability of sandstorm in your tank is high. What mode are you planning to use on Vortech? with all your flow coming from 1 side of the tank, it might be quite laminar instead of turbulent. I'm currently running 1260, compact 3000, compact 1000 and aquabee 2000/1. My previous 3x2x2 build was run by a tr15, and that took approximately 1.5-2 hrs to cool down 1.5deg with Deltec MCE600, aquabee 2000, 2000/1, tunze 6025 and tunze nano wavemaker. My concern is not how long it takes before chiller kicks in but how long it takes to cool down to the set temperature to reduce heat generated in the house. IMO, your tank would be severely underlit with 1 unit of radion, not nice aesthetically. it would be better to create shady areas with overhangs and caves. But if you are happy with the light spread, go for it. Start the countdown!

I was contemplating a similar setup as well. You should get a reliable handyman to reinforce your false ceiling and hang your fixture. Eventually settled for custom built brackets mounted at the back of my tank as there was minimal drilling, and in my unqualified opinion, more secure than mounting on false ceiling.

The build looks beautiful! Lots of good ideas in your super custom built tank bro! I particularly like the return pipes placement. Do make sure the small hole is drilled in to prevent back siphon. I'm not entirely sure how the middle underflow works, care to share? I'm currently running a teco tr20 (1/3)hp on my 3x2x2 and it takes approximately 1hr to pull down my temperature by 1 degree. Not sure how a tr15 would perform in a larger tank. So have you decided on your lights yet?

If the canister has a built in pump you are not supposed to run it in this setup. So external pump should be before canister, otherwise your pump has to work doubly hard to suck in water through the canister. No way to tell u what the flow is. Either install a flow meter or put a pail and time how much water fills up in 30s and do the math.

bro what canister are you using and how big is your tank? If you want to connect an external pump, why not just use the classic eheim canisters which are almost fail prove and hook it up with your pump? To answer your question, pump before canister, you can choose to tee off to chiller or back to main pump and run another pump through chiller. Watch your flow rates as chillers require min. flow rate. Lastly, why not go for a sump? I started out with canister in this hobby... sump ftw.

OMG OMG OMG! 5k for 6 footer!?!? install golden tap ah?

Now I'm jealous! How come I didn't see the black one in madpetz! Black would have been a better complement to our tank cabinet... Btw I suggest you get a mini saw to saw those cable trunking, it's really tough to cut them! Mine wasn't really well done actually... Would be good to have sandpaper to smoothen the edges after cutting too. Photos!!!

Btw wanna ask about your standpipes. Do u have trouble with noise from your overflow? Ask this because durso is too slow for my overflow so no choice had to do the same thing as yours, sometimes get really noisy...