Liquid's Equipment

 

Here's a summary of my equipment as of 08/03/2001:

Canopy: custom made canopy (DIY) made out of 1"x12" #1 pine from hardware store. Stained with dark stain and finished with satin urethane.

Lighting: 250 watt metal halide PFO dual ballast equipped with a single 250 watt 6500 K Iwasaki bulb. The second socket is not used at this time as the dual ballast was purchased for a future upgrade that I have in mind. Actinic lighting via 2 VHO 95 watt VHO's powered by an IceCap 660 ballast. Icecap waterproof endcaps and standoffs are used to hold bulbs in the canopy. Moonlight simulation via one (1) 7 watt blue Christmas tree light in a nightlight socket. Actinics are on a 12 hour photoperiod along with the cooling fan. Metal halide is on 10 hour photoperiod. Nitelite on for 24 hours continuous.

Canopy Ventillation: One (1) 65 cfm cooling fan with cord purchased from Hosfelt (http://www.hosfelt.com/) for $12. Btw...HOSFELT rocks! The back of the canopy is completely open, so 1 cooling fan is all I find necessary.

Calcium/Alkalinity supplementation: I have used two methods:

1) Kalkwasser Drip: March 2000 - November 2000: Kalkwasser drip used to supply both calcium and alkalinity to the tank. Continuous drip of 24/7. I dripped about 1 drop every 3 seconds to keep up with evaporation and I used the el cheapo plastic needlevalve that came along with my BakPak skimmer to control the drip rate. I used Kent Kalkwasser at the time. Kalkwasser container made from an old 2.5 gallon water jug. I plumbed in a nipple at the base of the container for the dripline. Adhering the nipple was a challenge as the container is low density polyethylene and the nipple was nylon. I couldn't find a gasket or nut that would fit the thread of the nipple, so I had to actually "weld" the nipple in place. I used my woodburner tool and thin strips of polyethylene from an old discarded milkjug and used the woodburner to melt the strips of polyethylene around the circumference of the nylon nipple. To get good adhesion I had to slightly melt the 2.5 gallon jug. No problems with leakage at this point and I've been using this container for about 1 month.

2) B-Ionic Two Part Additive: November 2000 - February 2001: Switched to B-Ionic as I could not maintain both calcium and alk demand solely with kalkwasser even when dripped 24/7 and pushing my evaporation to the max. B-Ionic is doing a nice job of keeping my ca/alk levels to where they should be.

3) February 2001 to May 2001: Found that when I quit dripping kalkwasser that I started having problems with cyanobacteria and hair algae. Concluded that this was due to excess phosphates building up in the system. Went back to dripping kalkwasser as my sole mode of calcium / alkalinity maintenance. Also realized that the reason that I couldn't maintain my calcium and alkalinity from March 2000 to November 2000 was because I was making up too large of a batch and much of my calcium precipitated out as calcium carbonate within that time period. I went back to making kalkwasser nightly and that seemed to do the trick.

4) May 2001 to present: Purchased dosing pump off of E-Bay and put together a DIY Kalkwasser Auto-Topoff System. I switched over to using Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime as my calcium hydroxide source instead of the expensive Kalkwasser that the LFS sells. It's a LOT cheaper ($1.69/lb for pickling lime vs. $18/lb for Kent Kalkwasser). The system is doing a fine job currently. I'm still dialing it in but for the most part it's working fine. I have had some sandbed clumping / cementing but I believe that I've deduced where the problem lies. I believe one of two things happened: 1) my calcium / alkalinity got out of whack by either dripping too much kalkwasser or by overdosing baking soda as buffer thereby driving my calcium out of solution or 2) some sort of calcite bacterial cementing. The cement is definitely not an organic biofilm as neither bleach nor boiling in water for 30 minutes on my stove broke the aggregates apart. I've also started adding about 200 mL white distilled vinegar to my kalkwasser tub to aid alkalinity and so far things have worked out rock steady with the calcium hovering around 400 ppm and alkalinity right around 10 dKH.

Whenever running kalkwasser, I *always* recommend that the person also get a pH meter of some kind to actively monitor their system pH. Personally, I use a PinPoint pH meter. I calibrate it every 1 to 2 months and I clean the coralline off of the probe using a dilute solution of muratic acid. My system pH runs at 8.3 (night) to 8.6 (daytime).

Salt: I use only Instant Ocean Salt. I've used only this brand from the very beginning. It's inexpensive and 9 out of 10 reefkeepers prefer IO salt. ;)

Skimmer: modified Bakpak II protein skimmer. Modified with Tetra Luft airpump and 3" CoraLife limewood airstone to skim more efficiently. Also modified the collection cup with skimmate overflow orifice so skimmate can run directly to a 1 gallon milk jug container behind the tank. Empty milk jug every month. Clean gunk off skimmer cup 1 time per month as the collection cup tends to accumulate solids that are not removed with skimmate overflow orifice. Clean skimmer 4x per year. Collection cup is at it's maximum height possible. This was done because my tank is a soft-coral tank and I wanted the corals to have as much DOC's as they could handle. The one thing that I've found is that if I don't run the airstone for 24 hours is that I will have a massive cyanobacteria bloom and I attribute that to either a lack of oxygen saturation in the tank water or buildup of dissolved carbon dioxide. I do not believe it is due to nutrient export via the skimmer because I really don't pull out all that much with my BakPak as it is setup. I can also tell when my skimmer pump is plugged as the reduced water flow thru the skimmer reduces the oxygen saturation and/or carbon dioxide buildup and thus a cyano bloom arises within about 12 hours.

I am also working on a 4' CC DIY skimmer to replace my BakPak. The BakPak does an OK job but I don't feel like it adequately skims my 40 anymore. I have not installed this skimmer on my setup to date.

Carbon filtration: Currently I do not run any carbon in my system. I do water changes every 1 or 2 months and I don't really notice any problems with not running activated carbon. When I did run carbon (which was about a year ago that I quit), I ran a Whisper 20-40 powerfilter equipped with Kent Reef Carbon and I stuck about 3 tablespoons of carbon in a nylon stocking and use the brace that holds the filter media to hold the carbon in place. I find using a nylon stocking instead of the floss that normally is used in this filter accumulates much less debris and detritus compared to the floss. My primary reason for running this filter was simply to filter the water with carbon and not to remove suspended solids. The only times that I do anymore are when I notice a major problem in the tank such as when I had a massive dinoflagellate bloom back in November 2000. Other than that I really don't run it anymore.

Temperature Readout: Temperature indicator is nothing more than a $1 self-adhesive temperature strip available @ Walmart.

Heater: 1 Ebo-Jagger 150 watt submersible heater. Tank is run around 83°F in the winter and 84°F - 86°F in the summer. Fortunately I have A/C in my house so I do not have much of an issue of my tank overheating.

Circulation: 1 MaxiJet 1200 powerhead, 1 MaxiJet 1000, and 2 MaxiJet 900 powerheads. Total circulation in my tank is approximately 1200 gph (when the screens are not plugged with macroalgae) which is about 20x the volume of my tank. This calculation also takes into consideration the RIO 600 used to power the BakPak skimmer. It's my opinion that the 10x turnover rule is outdated. Powerheads are situated in such a way that the MaxiJet 1200 ripple the surface and the other powerheads provide circular current to the tank.

 

With all that said and done...let's see some pix of the equipment!

Picture directory: