Blog Comments

That's a tough one to decide upon. What would match the room best? Is there any other furniture nearby that could be matched against? And that picture behind the tank is moving, correct? I don't know... it could be the same color as the wall. White will show up any marks, but black will show salty drips. What about a vivid color, to make it really stand out. Fire engine red.

I've been running my electrical gear in my stand for over a year now and have yet to have any problems (crossing my fingers). I have to be honest though, i've been meaning to somehow move it outside the tank for some time just because i'm paranoid, but it all looks so neat and tidy tucked into the sump. If your stand has any ventilation at all you "should" be alright, but don't blame me when your equipment fries

Not trying to bash you, but I would put the Vortech controller outside the stand or on the wall, I had mine like yours is and the moisture caused it to fry. Ecotech doesn't honor their warranty for water or moisture damage.

Just looking out for you, take it or leave it!

@Alaska_Phil - The baffles are made of glass. I didn't cut them myself. My LFS cut them for me. The cap on my overflow is a hole for airline tubing but for some reason it does nothing.

Nice looking set up. Are those glass baffles in the sump? I've always been nervous about trying to cut glass myself.

Add a piece of airline tube down through the vent in the top of your gurgle buster, you can adjust the height and really cut down on the remaining sound.

Your set up looks very similar to mine. I have been using a gurgle buster for over a year, works great. Make sure you put 1/2" or larger holes or like stated you could end up with a blockage of some kind. I have 4 1/2" holes and it is really quiet. Algae never really grows in it due to no light. You should put your ball valve on the other T for excess water flow, as it is now your putting resistance on the pump (unless it's wide open)to alter flow which over time could be the demise of the pump. I literally have the same set up(sump & overflow) and to set and control return flow from my pump I just adjust the flow at the excess flow tube.

@Alaska_Phil - The water level of the sump in the skimmer section is about 9 inches.

@diablo30xp - http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/ That's the design I was going for but I must have done it wrong because every once in a while it was giving me a flushing sound. It wasn't that quite; other people have had success with from what I see. Anyways, what you see in my photo is the result of me toying with the pvc until I got this design which is really quite. All I hear is the water falling.

@Reefdaddy - Thanks, it's an RKL.

@sedor - Thanks, that is a possible problem. Since you mentioned it I put in the prefilter in the overflow in case that does happen.

Hmmm never seen an overflow like that. My only concern would be that if your tank suffers from a hair algae outbreak or something similar it looks like those holes might get clogged up pretty quickly. Otherwise nice setup.

Try a maggie Muffler, they silence a gurgly OF. Nice tank so far man Is that a RK lite or elite?

Where did u find that design at? I am looking for one. The gurgle buster design u have.

Looks like a nice set up. How did you end up with your sump water level 6 ft below your tank water level?

haha thanks everyone. Actually he HOB filter is temporary. I have a 10 gallon sump under the tank. I'm waiting for the overflow and return pump to arrive.

Very nice looking nano BlennyMower!!! ;-)

Like the look! Nice rock work.

Looks nice. And affordable. Gotta love seeing a MP40w next to a HOB filter. hehe

Thanks for the responses. The bulb is a SE and it is connected to an RKL in an 8 amp outlet. I'll try some of your suggestions to see if it helps any. Thanks.

Are these DE ? Mine do this just after a bulb change. I just take the bulb out and reset it back in the socket again.

If you own a Kill-o-watt meter, plug the ballast into that, set it to watts, and turn it on. Watch the meter to see if the watts fluctuate or if they are steady, so you can rule out the ballast as the cause. It could be a bulb problem, or even a socket issue.

is it plugged into a controller or the wall on a timer?

I have a coral-vue ballest that powers 2-250 w mh 20k bulbs and if i plug it into the power bank for the neptune ac3 controller one bulb will flicker then go out. but when i plug the ballest into the wall on a home depot timer it works fine.

either that or you need to figure out what else is on that circuit there may be some "dirty" power like a pump or a bad ground some along those lines.

Awesome job, doesn't it feel even better when ya do it yourself?