briight

The 125 gallon tank (the future Bright Reef) has been cycling mildly, with the ammonia never going above 0.50 and the nitrites never exceeding 0,25 ppm. Yesterday the ammonia was barely measurable, and today we have none. Today the nitrite level is somewhere between 0,25 and 0 ppm, with nitrates at 5 ppm.
But last night, I found a snail, a tiny and very busy snail, zigzagging his way across the glass. I moved the rock around yesterday, fastening some together with zip ties, and that stirred ...

7 Feb 2011, 0911hrs,
Ammonia--0.25ppm
Nitrite--NO2--0.25ppm
Nitrate--NO3-- 5 ppm
Phosphate-0.5ppm
Specific Gravity-- 1.023
pH--8.4
Calcium--360
KH--304.3ppm or dKH--17

We've used up the last of the Instant Ocean Salt, I'm going to get Kent this time, and some GFO. Tank is still cycling some. Last night I scrubbed the rock we put in, as it had more dead stuff on it than I realized. Tank is clear, and I saw two very tiny either ...

Actually, we really are making improvements!
Our plan for Saturday:
1. Raise the water level in the sump.
2. Raise the skimmer and TC bubble trap higher in the sump to improve functionality.
3. Install skimmate drain line on the skimmer.
4. Install standpipe on sump drain.
5. Run sump water level checks with pump shut off.

We originally intended to use as much of the volume of the sump as was safely possible. The current water ...

We have had cloudy water in the display tank, and thought we were dealing with fines in the water. We added an extension to route the water flow from the return over the long axis of the tank, and noted there were micro bubbles coming out of the return. We checked the skimmer, and the water coming from it had no noticeable bubbles. We did have lots of bubbles coming from the drain pipes into the sump.
Since our sump is a 100 gallon tub, we had to fabricate some sort of bubble trap from what ...

Saturday morning, we started out bright and early. We went to the box store and came home with cinder blocks and a whole bag of pvc fittings to finish the plumbing of the sump to the tank. This is Brian's department, I'm the go-fer. He drew out the plan on paper so we could get the right fittings for the job.
Once we got the sump positioned, cutting and gluing the pipes didn't take long at all. Of course there was a leak, where the sump drain hole was. We ended up replacing the fitting with ...