Zechenia’s Upgrade to 90 Gallons!

Sump Filled. Fuge Filled. Overflow chambers filled.

Rock on the truck for delivery today. 60 more gallons of RO made up. Time can’t go fast enough til tonight

 

So, my rocks took FOREVER to get here. Was getting super frustrated.... but he more than made up for it. He ended up sending me 50 extra pounds, and some AWESOME pieces. Now I have enough to fill the nano once I move all it's rock to my sump.

Didn't have my camera, so I went with videos (Sorry, basement is fairly low light, so the video looks really grainy).

First, showing the rockwork (just realized song in the background uses profanity like 5 seconds into the video. Apologies for that!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upWRCFM7TwY

Then with everything running:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzOACMchBb0

There is a slight leak on the return, so I need to fix that. Also I need to figure out a way to fix the vibrating from my return pump. Then it's time to throw on the hood, and leds. One other thing, my tank slowly lost being level while it got filled (not surprised). Ended up the water being about half an off. This means the front is all the way up to the frame in order for the overflows to be working :S

 

I was messing with my pump, and caused a small leak in the bulkhead of my sump. The sump is the one that came with the tank initially. I am thinking of ditching it and starting fresh. The problem is the overflow piping from my fuge comes in fairly low, so I don't have much height to work with.

I am thinking I will see if I can pick up another tank (40b?) from petco's dollar a gallon sale. If not, I'll repair the sump, then keep my eyes open for a used one.

 

Front:


Side1:


Side2:



There is somewhere around 1/2 to 3/4 cm difference in water level with no pumps on (closer to half). I'm thinking either A) the carpets settling, B) the flow from return made it look like a bigger difference or C) I was just freaking out about it being unlevel.



Is that close enough? :S

 

The rock structure is the bomb. Congrats!!!!

 

Congrats on the rocks arriving and getting it up and running. Good luck finding a solution on the sump.

I think you may have a combination of all three. Also your frame may not be on level. If you have a difference without any water movement then you could have issues with that difference. Hard to say how much of a problem it will be. Generally the larger the tank the more the difference is likely to be an issue.

 

Two steps forward, 1.5 steps back.

I fixed the 2 leaks I had before, hung my fuge light, and got my return pump to stop vibrating like crazy which is my 2 steps forward.

However, I have one minor one from one bulkhead on the overflow from the display (think it’s from where my PVC screws into the bulkhead since it didn’t seem to leak when I didn’t have waterflowing.

I have a large leak in my overflow from the fuge. Only happens when tank is mostly full. I might have the order of the pieces wrong (PLEASE correct me: I have inside part of the bulkhead -> Overflow box -> bulkhead washer -> glass -> outerbulkhead nut EDIT: Also tried Bulkhead -> gasket -> overflow box -> glass -> bulkhead. Leak was less but still dripping).

Additionally, I hooked up the float switch in my sump. Didn’t seem to function so either my floatswitch is bad or my wiring (I’m counting this as the half step lol)

Also, when my return was running it was clear to see that the tank has settled a bit and it was no where near as off level as it looked day one. Huge relief!

Crossing my fingers that my leak fix works tomorrow so that all I have left is the fuge left to fix, and the ato. Slowly getting there.

 

You do want the gasket on the wet side, so the second way you tried it is correct.

 

Definitely noticed the stream of water went down to a drip. That's helpful to know I did it the correct way. I am going to pick up an extra gasket as the one I have also seems a little beat up.

 

Updates: I still have a tiny leak in my fuge. After 2 hours with it, I decided screw it, and am siliconing around the bulkhead.

I have the canopy up, the LEDs up, and the return pump flowing . Apart from the fuge, no leaks.

[STRIKE]Now, my overflows are cavitating (slowly filling overly full, then quickly emptying too low, sucking air, then repeating) really badly. One side I can attribute most likely to the fuge piping being closed. I'm not sure what's going on with the otherside. Any pointers?[/STRIKE] Realized that my holes weren't big enough. Running awesome now!! I also need to figure out a way to dampen the sound of the water hitting the sump (none of the outputs are underwater. I hear that is even worse for cavitation).

Also, I will need to figure out a good way to raise my LEDs higher, and likely will be removing the lenses from the red and green ones since they're spotlighting. Additionally, when I remove the powersource from the LEDs I am getting an intense flicker from them for half a second. Not sure what's up with that.

Apart from that I still need to figure out the ATO. But I feel like I am slowly making progress.