Non-Garbage Picked 210 Journal

[tekknoschtev]

Oh how I do love the idea of having a controller for a pump. Dangit Mike, now you're putting expensive ideas in my head. Perhaps we'll get something which will suffice for the time being and then upgrade later (truth be told, even in a 210, that Seio 2600 is a monster of a pump and gaudy looking).

3k GPH in any tank out of something that small is impressive! I'm surprised even ramping it up to 3000gph doesn't cause a sand storm. Sand storms are another concern given that we have an ever-so-shallow sand bed which just barely covers the eggcrate on the bottom. But its something to consider, that's for sure.

[Tim!]

Vortech on the side=sweet.

That's how I did it - and it's not "in the way at all" - it's a fraction of the footprint of a koralia, seio, or maxi-jet mod (have an MJ mod on the opposite side).

Biggest downside is the price - at $400 for the "full sized" Vortech, your out a good chunk of change. BUT - it truly is in a class of it's own with regard to volume of water moved, heat OUTSIDE of the tank, and quietness.

IMHO the only way to outdo a Vortech is a closed loop. Sure, a quad setup of Koralias or Seios would do about the same and cost a bit less, but you'd have FOUR powerheads hanging in your tank.

As for "aiming" - that's a non-issue, when you move that much water with that much dispersion, aiming is never an issue. You are moving BUCKETS of water, vs. "spitting" water with other powerheads.

BUT - it's ~$400. Worth it? YES! For everyone? NO!

[tekknoschtev]

Thanks everyone for the valuable input. I know the vortech is an excellent pump, and a great value, its just that after coming to grips with the cost of the tank alone, $400 is out of the question for a flow device. Sure it'd be nice to have some controllable flow pulses and some of the neat features (and for some more $$$ the battery backup because our generator is a manual deal, no auto start and switch over), but for now we're going to add two Koralia 4s to the Seio 2600 and the return for flow. They're stealthier than the Seio since they are already black plastic, and smaller. And with the magnet mounts we can safely put them on the back of the tank without too much worry (I think!).

My folks surprised me this past weekend when I got home and saw that they had installed new doors and the skin on the canopy. Granted, holes weren't cut for the doors yet, it was purely aesthetic for my sister's graduation party but it was cool seeing it closer to done. Still needs a coat or two of poly, but the looks are about perfect. I also brought home the hole saws so that next time I'm there, I can cut the vent holes for the 80mm fans we'll be using for venting the heat from the canopy. With three 400W halides, there's going to be quite a bit of heat generated in the canopy. Sadly, even with just the two (but remember, no vent holes) we're already pushing 84-86 degrees without the central air running. But, the middle halide may only turn on for a portion of the day, giving the "noon sun" effect, depending on how we set the timers up. Once the vent holes are cut and the fans installed, however, I don't foresee there being much more of a heat issue than we had previously.

Just some finishing touches on the stand and canopy left. Trim molding to cover up the edges of the skin and cutting the openings for the canopy doors and we should be all set. Then its just a matter of waiting out the cycle and moving some things back. Its turning more into a requirement that this happens sooner rather than later as some of the corals are suffering in the frag tank and puffer tank. Hopefully sometime early July it'll be ready but unless our test kit is faulty, I'm not going to be surprised if it runs longer than that

[tekknoschtev]

As promised, here's the photo of the bangup job my folks did on the canopy!



I think it looks amazing, and it'll look even better once we've got the rest of the trim on the whole setup.

[Phong]

Wow, that thing is looking sweet!

[tekknoschtev]

We got some more work done today. Finally, all of the doors on the stand are on hinges, and we also cut the openings on the canopy so we can actually get into there. We also wired up the 4x 80mm fans necessary for getting air moving in there. We also mapped out the location of where we might wind up putting three 120mm or larger fans for added ventilation.



That's how the lights are setup in the canopy. We need to get new actinic bulbs, but that's later.



We have less access to the tank, which may prove to be problematic. So much so that we might need to modify the canopy to allow the whole front to hinge open as I can't even reach the bottom of the tank through the existing openings, which means that my mom doesn't have a prayer of doing so.



It looks so magestic!



And here's the full tank shot. We're still bummed because it doesn't appear as though the ammonia has started dropping. According to the pet shop (unnamed on purpose) "It still has a bit of color but I wouldn't be uncomfortable putting a fish or two in there." To me, any ammonia is bad so we're refraining. We're going to bring a sample to Preuss for a second opinion since I think our test kit is a bit wonky. But we're hopeful that we'll be able to have fish in there soon, and get things put back together with the displaced anemones, corals and fish.

[John]

That looks really good.

IF you turned the reflectors, wouldn't that make the light spread more across the tank?

[tekknoschtev]

THanks. We did have the reflectors turned the other way on the 150, and it still left us with shadows from the cross braces. We're still toying with the idea of a third 400W halide in the middle (we have the bulbs, ballast, etc) but the heat and energy costs are keeping us content with two and a lower-light area in the middle. Truthfully, having lower light in the middle makes sense for us given the number of corals we have which are preferential to lower-light conditions so it might just work out yet

[John]

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just a suggestion though,if you add a center MH you could switch to 3X 250 Watt DE MH and have the same output with less heat and energy used.

But, I don't think putting a MH over a center brace would be such a good idea anyways

Or you could try to move the lights towards the center about 6" each, this way it would shrink the darker area in the center. but then it would create more gradual shadows on the ends of the tank.

[tekknoschtev]

No center brace to worry about as there are two braces dividing the top in thirds (the original inspiration to go with three lights). Were money no object I'd gladly drop to 250W halides as we don't have anything that NEEDS 400W halides, and most of the corals we have shy away from the 400W halides unless shaded or down toward the bottom (at least they did in the 150, the 210 is taller so who knows). Unfortunately, we already had the ballasts, bulbs, reflectors, etc. for 400W setups so for now we're going to stick with that but I will assuredly keep my eyes out for 250W setups. Thanks for the suggestion!

[John]

If only money were not object... *sigh*

The tank looks pretty awesome either way.

[tekknoschtev]

Houston, we have lift off. Er... rather we have life! We were approved yesterday by a third opinion to have life in our tank! All stats check out and we're good to go so my mom grabbed the only thing she could - the little urchin! My brother managed to fenagle the long spine urchin into the tank as well. For now that's all we're going to have because everything else requires us to take the canopy off and dismantle the other tanks to catch the blasted fish.

Next time I'm home, I'm bringing along a Koralia 4 and two silver scats for the 210. We dont currently have an aiptasia problem, but some of the rock and corals we're transfering into the tank will have some aiptasia on them and we want to nip it in the bud before it becomes a potential issue.

I have some photos sitting in my inbox right now but technically I'm still at work right now so I'm refraining from doing too much distracting stuff (waiting for files to finish rsyncing at the moment so I have a brief lapse in time where I can't do anything else ).

I also might bring home a surprise fish or two, depending on my budget at the time.

[Detroit_306]

swweeet

[igot2gats]

Sweet tank/stand/canopy....but aren't you concerned having it right next to a door with lots o' sun?

Thoughts?

[tekknoschtev]

Originally Posted by igot2gats

Sweet tank/stand/canopy....but aren't you concerned having it right next to a door with lots o' sun?

Thoughts?

Yes and no. We had the 150 in this same spot and the worst that happened was that coraline grew a little more and we had to scrape that side more. Truth be told, it doesn't get bright sun for much of the day due to being on the west side of the house, there being a large porch/overhang on the front of the house and the garage blocking most of the evening sun. It does get some direct sunlight but only for a short period each day.

Thanks for the compliments - the stand and canopy can be 100% attributed to my parent's efforts. They did a knock out job getting them skinned and stained, and I am very happy with them too!