360 gallon logistical nightmare and no spare time!

[nsamouroux]

Damn, you're more demanding than my ex :badgrin: Fine! I'll go get the camera and take a few pics of the Horchata Reef for you I just buried some eggcrate grids under the sand to place the rock on, and have ALL the powerheads / pumps turned off right now to let it settle back down overnight before hopefully putting the rock and everything else into it tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Saltyfish]

Still no pictures? ha ha

 

[nsamouroux]

Just hold yer horses spanky, Photobucket is being a pile and taking forever to upload them

 

[nsamouroux]

Behold, the first large reef tank utilizing coconut milk instead of water. I'm sure it'll be the next big craze in the reef hobby scene :lol:

There's a water polishing filter in there somewhere...

Not much for the skimmer to do. I actually dumped a small amount of wet skimmate from my 100g tank into the big system to try and speed up the coating of the sand with filmy bacterial goodness.

Cleaning the filter socks. Icky.

And just so I have something to look at, a FTS of my 100 gallon nano tank.

 

[Saltyfish]

Hey why you keep playing with the sand? Dang it should be clear by now!

 

[nsamouroux]

I know, I should have just turned all of the pumps off until it was clear, but messing with the sand is like picking scabs or chewing fingernails My first idea of blasting the heck out of it with 17,000 gph and letting everything settle in the sump to be removed by the skimmer / canister filter was flawed (to say the least...), so I'm back to the time-honored tradition of "turn the pumps off, dummy!" until it settles out and then I'll start moving rock and whatnot over. I'll run just the sump return for a while (wide, dispersed flow from modified PVC fittings) after everything is transferred into the big tank, until the sand starts to liven up and the sand sifters / cleanup crew can plow through it. Then I'll start turning on the Koralia Monstrosity 8s (or was that Magnum?) in pairs and gradually letting the filter socks / canister filter take care of the stuff that does blow around.

 

[nsamouroux]

Oh? Oh! What's this that greets me when I get home? An almost clear tank!

Rocks I put in to seed the sand bed with "reef stuff"

left side viewing panel, and the far left Koralia Magnum 8. It'll be moved down quite a bit and remain pointed upwards based on some ideas I pilfered from Saltyfish's closed loop thread over in Tank Design. Shhh, don't tell him!

Sand dunes.

Seeder rock sitting about 1' from the front panel

Other rock, a bit closer

Sump actually cleared up after only one night with the main return pump turned off and only the skimmer running

Looks like I can transfer everything from my 100 gallon tank any time now. I'll probably wait for the weekend when I have more free time, or I might get impatient and do it as soon as I finish typing... ahhh... Dilemma! Now I just need to start stalking the Barrier Reef crew until my last few bulbs get in from Reeflux. It's annoying to have three different color lights on the tank!

 

[Myteemouse]

Oh my gosh, you have some visibility..
Very nice..
In good time my friend
Next time lets rinse our sand really good huh?

 

[nsamouroux]

Actually, the token rinsing was exactly what I wanted to do since I only wanted to get the potential "garbage" out of the sand. Based on some research and threads over at Reef Central discussing sand beds I wanted to leave the majority of the silt to get the benefit from it, but I turned all the circulation pumps on before letting it fully settle which is where I screwed up. The fine particulate / silt stuff is extremely beneficial to the tank, since it has more surface area for bacterial film growth (biological filtration) and breaks down easier / quicker in saltwater (PH buffering effect). I completely misjudged how the silt would behave however, and turned on my circulation pumps / sump return WAY too early :lol:. If I had waited 3-4 days for everything to settle out I would have already had the tank stocked instead of waiting two weeks for the cloud to go away. Live and learn! I've never used this fine grain sand before so I didn't really know how I was supposed to handle it, and made some mistakes with it that cost me a lot of time.

 

[Myteemouse]

Well the time will help you appreciate the finished product more.

 

[nsamouroux]

Very true! The pics look a lot more cloudy than it actually is, I can see the overflow on the back wall and all of the powerheads from where I'm sitting across the room, so it's not too bad right now. I'm sure it'll be totally clear in another day or two if I leave the pumps off. I really like the look of the sand dunes in it, and wasn't expecting this sand to look so bright white since it looked sort of like an eggshell color when it was in the boxes (see earlier pics somewhere in this thread ).

The silty stuff does work to best effect in a deep sand bed of course, but I figured a 2-3" sand bed in my tank would still at least get some benefit from keeping it instead of washing it all out. I should have paid more attention and read up on the oolite sand however because I figured the filter socks would catch it all if I only turned on the pumps and let things flow normally. Instead, the larger particles do indeed get caught by the filter socks, but the actual silt stuff goes right through anything larger than a 1-5 micron filter.

Another thing I found out was that the Araga-mite / Araga-milk products contain nothing more than this same silt that most people try to get rid of I figured I could save a few steps and just leave the silt in there from the beginning, but didn't really do my homework for how badly it would cloud things up. Bleh.

 

[nsamouroux]

Just in case someone else can benefit from what I've learned....

After seeing the troubles Saltyfish went through on his 300g peninsula style tank and a couple of Koralia Magnum 7 pumps blowing around his sugar grain / oolite sand, and some other information brought out regarding prop-based powerheads in his "Closed Loop" thread, I decided that I needed to re-think my powerhead placement.

Instead of having the powerheads at the top of the rear panel pointing downwards at an angle towards the rockwork, or pointing straight across to rebound off eachother or the other panels, I decided to try and replicate a rolling flow pattern. Since my overflow is 4' long and at the top of the rear panel, I need to flush detritus and other "icky stuff" from the bottom of the tank and rockwork upwards so that it goes through the overflow. As such, I'm going to set up the powerheads so that they're at the very bottom of the tank (just high enough to avoid sucking in sand) pointing sharply upwards towards the front panel directly ahead of each pump. This will reflect the water flow upwards off the front panel to the water's surface (surface agitation an added benefit as well) and flush the garbage into the overflow where it'll go down to the sump and be processed by the filtration equipment. In effect, the powerheads placed this way will create a constant "barrel roll" flow pattern with the detritus and waste pushed from the bottom rear of the tank where stuff like that normally accumulates and send it where it's supposed to go. Having the powerheads aligned this way instead of at the top of the tank pointing downwards should also insure that the sand doesn't get blown around or disturbed too much as long as I don't place them too low on the panel to the point where sand gets picked up and sent on a joyride to sandblast the front viewing panel

The 3' depth of the tank and rear horizontal overflow is almost perfect for this type of flow pattern. Since I plan on using a minimum of rock in the display itself (probably just two large islands and some open rockwork piles here and there) the rocks also won't block the flow but the corals will still get enough of it to carry food to them and waste away from them. I'll have to fiddle with it to see how everything works as it grows in, but at least I've got a plan for the time being!

 

[nsamouroux]

Just finished transferring everything over last night, and it's finally starting to clear up from when I disturbed the sand while adding rock. I haven't done any of the aquascaping yet, which will have to wait until the sand settles back down and I can see things again. The corals all have polyps extended despite the silt cloud, and the anemones are looking fine. The fish seem VERY happy with all the new space, my two hippo tangs, a sailfin tang, naso tang, and yellow tang are doing laps around the perimeter of the tank and surfing on the sump returns. The coral beauty and other fish are somewhat more sedate and are staying towards the bottom of the tank checking things out. I had a LOT more hermit crabs than I expected, the rocks had hundreds of them on it and they're all cruising the new sand bed looking for scraps.

The last half of my lighting purchase also came in, so now I have two 250w Reeflux 20k SE lamps on the outside fixtures and two 400w Reeflux 20k SE lamps on the mid-section of the tank since it's the most area to cover. Everything is very evenly lit and there's no visible difference between the bulb wattages so I'm very happy Can't wait to see what it looks like when everything clears up and I can start doing the rockwork and placing corals!

 

[roscoe]

Looking good. That sand storm hasn't cleared up yet? I used all dry everything too and the tank cleared up within 3 days.

 

[nsamouroux]

It was actually clear when I transferred all the rock and whatnot from my other tanks into it, but since I was putting fish and such into the tank I had to turn on the sump return which is why it hasn't settled back down yet. I can see about 1/2 way into the 3' depth of the tank so it's actually much clearer than last night when I put everything in. I figure another day or two and it'll be clear again so I can start stacking rocks and mess up the sand one more time :lol:. I actually did not use dry rock in this tank if that's what you're referring to. I had 300 lbs of live rock that had been in my other tanks for 2+ years now that I consolidated and put into this new system. The only thing in it that didn't come from one of my other systems (besides equipment of course) is the 340 lbs of aragonite sand that I got from Marco Rocks. Now that my 100 gallon tank is finally empty I can either sell it off or turn it into a large refugium if nobody wants it

 

[roscoe]

It was actually clear when I transferred all the rock and whatnot from my other tanks into it, but since I was putting fish and such into the tank I had to turn on the sump return which is why it hasn't settled back down yet. I can see about 1/2 way into the 3' depth of the tank so it's actually much clearer than last night when I put everything in. I figure another day or two and it'll be clear again so I can start stacking rocks and mess up the sand one more time :lol:. I actually did not use dry rock in this tank if that's what you're referring to. I had 300 lbs of live rock that had been in my other tanks for 2+ years now that I consolidated and put into this new system. The only thing in it that didn't come from one of my other systems (besides equipment of course) is the 340 lbs of aragonite sand that I got from Marco Rocks. Now that my 100 gallon tank is finally empty I can either sell it off or turn it into a large refugium if nobody wants it

Yeah sand I say a nice large refugium would be nice.

 

[nsamouroux]

I agree! I had planned on getting a 100 or another 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tank to use as a refugium, but I might just turn my old 100g acrylic tank into a refugium instead of buying a bunch more stuff. An acrylic tank is MUCH easier to put bulkheads into :lol:. Plus it would be nice to be able to see all the little critters and things in the tank instead of it just being a tub full of chaeto. The tank is 60" long x 18" deep x 20" tall so it would probably make a very nice macro tank for export.

 

[roscoe]

Yes it will!! I plan on incorparating a old 55g into a refugium. I hope too get that done soon.

 

[tdgates10]

I can't wait to see that thing clear and full! Great setup!

 

[nsamouroux]

Saturday morning the tank was completely clear, I was pretty surprised! I had shut the pumps off overnight hoping for that result so that I could start stacking boulders Of course I didn't think to take photos of the crystal clear tank... but it had a bunch of random rock piles sorted by size / position across the entire bottom so it's no great loss. I formed the rock from all my other tanks into two islands, there's at least 1' of open sand bed on all sides of each island and about 3' of space between the two islands where I placed the Anemone Isolation Mounds. Each of my two large anemones remained attached to it's favorite rock (about 20lb chunks with caves on the underside for the foot to attach to) so I set them towards the middle and between the two 400w halide reflector centers so they should get plenty of light.

Since I was swirling rocks around and generally making a mess, it's a bit cloudy again... bah! :lol: Here's some pics anyways. I'll take some others tomorrow after work or tonight after everything clears up again. I haven't been able to turn on the primary circulation pumps (four Koralia Magnum 8 powerheads) because even with them aimed almost straight up they are still so strong that the current rebounds off a panel and digs a trench in the sand. I'll have to play with them a LOT more, perhaps even replace them with smaller pumps (10 or 12 Koralia 4s to get the same turnover? ).

Alternate settings on camera (white balance) to try and show the actual water condition / color:

Left-side large island mound with gradual slope and lots of caves at the base / middle and a flat-ish top for coral placement

Right-side island mound with steep slope, almost volcano-shaped, with a few caves, this island will primarily be for soft corals or tabling SPS