Jacob’s Blog

It’s been about 3 years since I first started this project and it’s still in the making of course. It’s amazing how times flies. I’ll post some updated build pics soon as well as some shots of the tank and current residents!

As I was explaining to my friends on Reef Central recently, I ran into my first technical problem with the plumbing. My divert valve is leaking at the seat. This means that most of the flow from my return pump is making it back to the tank, however a small trickle is being lost via the auto-water change drain line! I discovered this while working under the house to complete the air exchange system (more on that later). Since I had not tied in the auto-water change drain line to the house drain it was dripping to the ground. I noticed recently that I had been replacing more and more evap. water… which didn’t make sense due to the damp weather. Well now I know why, it wasn’t evaporation it was saltwater being lost!!

This is the valve that I have now, which has either gone bad or has been bad from the start. It’s a Chemtrol-Nibco model S51D2-E

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Not much new to say for the month of February. Between being sick for a week, all of the rain, and what little work I’ve had there hasn’t been any significant progress on the tank.

I am hoping to complete construction of the canopy before month end, and then will need to prime/seal it. After kicking around several ideas for raising and lowering the canopy by power I finally settled on a simple block and tackle style pulley system and gear motor. One consideration is how quickly I want to raise and lower the canopy; ideally 20 seconds seems good. The great thing about adding pulleys is the torque on the motor can be reduced by reducing the tension in the cable, but as I have realized overall motor horsepower stays the same and tends to govern the design. Here is why:

Pulleys trade force for distance. The work done will always be the same regardless the number of pulleys used; more pulleys just means more cable to be reeled in. For a given design, the more pulleys, the more cable to reel in, and if the time to raise/lower does not change with the number of pulleys, then the RATE of work stays the same, hence the motor power does not change… So I am currently looking for the ideal gearmotor and working towards finalizing the design. I’m hoping to have everything installed by mid March… check back soon!

Jacob.

After taking heat from just about everyone in our local reef club for the good part of the last year I’m happy to announce I finally have water in the tank! I started filling the tank with RO/DI water on Christmas day. My goal was to start filling on the 20th… so really I’m not that far behind schedule [wink]!

Here’s the last look ai it while dry

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Not much progress to report on the tank, “real work” and other projects at home have been keeping me busy. I did change my mind on the lighting setup. I was planning on running all T5’s but decided to go with halides at the last minute. My bulb choice was the Iwasaki 175w 15k. I’m running them on the new model Icecap 175w electronic ballasts. The spectral data and PAR numbers can be found on Sanjay Joshi’s site here.

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Happy New Year!

It’s been busy around the office lately; between the holidays and everyone wanting to deplete their ‘07 budgets I havevn’t been able to do more than think about the tank project lately. Today a friend came over to help me run some of the piping. With his help I managed to get the water lines and electrical conduits run from the office closet to the water room.

Let me just say, working in a small crawl space, on the dirt, sprawled out on chunks of concrete remnants and other odds and ends is not my idea of a good time… and I have to go back down there at least a couple more times (to finish gluing and to run ducting).

Here are a couple of pics of what we got done today, at least what was done above the floor, no shots from the crawlspace - the less I see of it the better!

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Pushing Forward

It’s been too long since I’ve updated so here’s the latest. When setting up an aquarium in your office it does help to actually have the tank IN the office… not outside next to the garage. With the help of some friends the tank is now inside! Prior to moving it in I spent 2 weekends polishing out the scuffs and scratches from the previous 6 years that the tank was set up. I used a Micromesh HP-100 kit. This is a hand sanding process that takes a lot of time, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again (at least not on a large tank) but the results are to my liking.

Tank In The Office

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