Thursday, March 2, 2006, continued
OK, so up until now this journal has been about the mundane set-up aspects of the aquarium, but now the reward starts coming it. Where previous posts may have been unbearably detailed and drawn out, this one will be short and exciting (at least, I think so).

Thursday evening, after solving the sump pump problems, I added salt and got the salinity of the tank up to snuff and went to look at fish and see about getting some live-sand to start cycling the tank water and getting the biotic level adjusted. While Mom and Brom were at music class (Kindermusik) Oisín and I went to Sea of Marvels in Coralville to look at fish and to talk to the owner to find out how he recommends to cycle the tank. He sold me a large bag of aragonite to add as the substrate of the tank. He said I should add it now since there is already water in my tank, and let the dust settle overnight and come back on Friday to get some crushed coral from one of his tanks, and some damsel fish to cycle the tank.

Homeward I went (with the rest of my family) to add the substrate. I shut of the powerhead in my tank and the pump in the sump to limit the debris from adding the aragonite to the tank only. It took 24 hours, but the substrate was added!

This is what a tank full of water with freshly added aragonite looks like right after you add it. Yah, brilliant me.
Friday, March 3, 2006
OK, I went back to the fish store tonight with Oisín (who kept chanting relentlessly about how he was going to catch fish with a net “if I’m bigger”). We went to get fish, and live sand with which to cycle our tank. We got about 5 lbs of crushed coral from one of the tanks at Sea of Marvels, and 4 Green Chromis damsel fish. It was a riot watching him catch the fish because he usually leads them to his capture bucket with food, but they had all just eaten. He stuck his hand in the tank and wrangled the fish into the resivoir. It was pure skill and experience at work, I know I could never have done it. We bought the fish ($5 a piece), the crushed coral, a magnetic algae scrubber for the tank and some fish food. Home we went to add the fish to the tank!

Now we are cycling the tank and the fish are getting adjusted. We left the light off last night so the fish wouldn’t get too stressed out, but I have since named them Brian, Roger, Freddie and John (after the members of a pretty decent band from the last centruty).

Here are the four of them tooling around their new digs:

Next: Part 8: the Wait

Thursday, March 2, 2006

I knew once the rheostat didn’t work that I would need to find a plumbing solution to the problem of the over-powering-pump. I had read a number of beginner’s aquarium forums which referenced ball-valves and plumbing a line back into the sump to regulate return rate flow back to the tank. I did some more research and found that a simple “T” joint and two ball valves would probably do the trick. Trip four to the hardware store was to Menards (as I know they have one of the best plumbing selections in town, and, hey, I hadn’t been there yet.)

I brought the pump with me to make sure the fittings I was buying would meet my needs. I had decided that with the ball-valve solution I would need to bite the bullet and hard-plumb some or all of the return tubing out of the sump. The final design I came up with involves the following (in order of flow direction starting with the pump:

Pump > tightening bushing (which is removable for pump maintenance) ¾” PVC tubing > T joint (through to another 3/4 “ fitting, but the T branch is ½”)

> ½” Branch of T joint > ½” PVC tubing link > ½” ball-valve > ½” PVC tubing link > ½” to ¾” threaded bushing > bracketed link to more vinyl tubing back to the sump

> ¾” Branch of T joint > ¾” PVC tubing link > 90° elbow > ¾” PVC tubing link > ¾” ball-valve > ¾” PVC tubing link > 90° elbow > ¾” PVC tubing link > ¾” threaded bushing to original ¾” reinforced (now shortened) vinyl tubing up to the U-tube return pipe.

I spent a good hour at Menards making sure I had the right fittings and bought a length of both ½” and ¾” PVC tubing. I got back to Burge and started measuring and cutting lengths of PVC to insert into the fittings. I used my Craftsman rotary cutting tool (AKA Dremel tool) to cut the PVC and started a dry fitting run to see that everything fit together. Somehow or another I had failed to check the initial bushing from the pump to the first length of PVC, the bushing was a tapered one, and so the tubing did not seat correctly.

TRIP #5 to the hardware store! Back to my favorite, Iowa City Ace Hardware, to get the proper fitting (I also had to get the ¾” ball valve, because somewhere in my infinite wisdom, I had purchased two ½” ball valves at Menards when I really needed one of each). Back to Burge I went with the new bushing (which had the added benefit of being a tightening collar (like the female end of your garden hose, it’s removable for pump maintenance) and propper ball valve. I did one more dry run, incorporated the ¾” ball valve into the horizontal link and double, triple and quadruple checked my measurements. I then started cementing away! I let the seals set-up and then went back to attach the monster I had just created back into the system.

Since the original pluming involved just the length of vinyl tubing, it now needed to be shortened and attached to the hard plumbing I had just completed. I did so and hard-bracketed the end to the end of the threaded ¾” joint. Away I went, I fired up the pump and watched the tank regulate water levels with the overflow box. I noticed immediately that the vinyl link I had just added to the threaded ¾” joint was leaking a bit, so I unplugged the pump, removed the bracket, sealed the link with cement, replaced the tube and bracket, and used Teflon tape to create a fine seal on that joint as well.

Once I turned the pump back on it was only a matter of about 10 minutes before I had the return line regulated with the stint back into the sump and the pump remained submerged! No more micro-air bubbles! Perfection!

The final product looks like this:

Yah, I’m pretty proud of myself . . . larger images are located here.

More . . .

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Wednesday Kevin and I went to Wal-Mart and bought the final 20gal of water and added it to the tank and fired up the pump.

Here’s where the drama began. I realized that the fitting I purchased for the “u” tube and vinyl tubing connection was leaking on the “u” tube side (later I discovered that the side I had inserted into the “u” tube was not intended for a seal, and was in fact an interior fitting and not an exterior fitting, whoops). Trip 2 to the hardware store was a trip to the Iowa City Ace Hardware (and one of my favorite hang-outs, if you didn’t know). I brought the “u” tube, the vinyl tubing and my old fitting to make sure I was getting the right kind this time. I ended up with the right fitting and a roll of Teflon tape finally, and headed back home.

It was now getting midday on Wednesday and I just had time to cement the fitting into the two tubes, bracket off the vinyl tube, and wrap the whole thing with Teflon tape. I fired the pump back up and the leak was gone! My joy was short-lived, however, because the pump was evacuating the sump so fast that the over-flow box wouldn’t keep up. The basic problem is that the pump was regulating flow by drawing in air as well as sump water and filling the tank with bubbly water (mostly microbubles which have the effect of an effervescent, like alka seltzer–not good for the lamp or anything near the water’s surface). I was at my wit’s end! Kevin stopped by and took a look at the finished plumbing and recommended a dimmer switch on the pump to regulate flow.

Wednesday evening was electrical night at the Leopold’s apartment. Trip three to the hardware store was back to Lowe’s to get the fixings for a rheostat box. I took the parts home and wired this sucker up in about 1.5 hours. It’s a sweet looking thing, this dimmer box! I ran the pump through it and turned it on to find out that the magnetic pump needs a constant rate of electricity to run properly, so this solution would not work. Drats.

This was it for Wednesday night, I decided I had already lost enough sleep over the aquarium for a couple days, so I called it a night.

More . . .

Tuesday, Feruary 28, 2006

OK, so the online orders for the aquarium showed up on Tuesday of this week, and I went out to get the tank, stand, sump and various sundry parts I would need to complete the tank later on Tuesday with Chad Fehr, one of the Hall Coordinators I work with. Unfortunately his truck died at the fish place and we had to load all the fish equipment in the VUE, and then squeezed Chad in there as well. It was like a bad Volvo commercial! Sorry about your truck, Chad.

Well, we got all the equipment back to Burge, and I started assembling things. I started with the sump instillation which involved removing the tank from the stand, and inserting the sump from the opening at the top of the stand. It is too long to insert either through the front or back of the stand.

Next, I ran the overflow line from the skimmer box on the back of the tank to sump and then I decided I needed to go to Lowe’s to get some plumbing supplies for the pump and return line back up to the tank. I ended up getting a 6.5’ length of reinforced 3/4′” vinyl tubing to do the trick along with a couple tubing brackets. The reinforced tubing was really stiff and hard to work with, but a little hot water helped loosen it up. I then realized that I would need some extra plumbing supplies to connect the tubing to the hard plastic “u” tube which goes over the tank, and also to the pump. I got a joiner for the tubes and some PVC cement and hooked them up. It appeared that I was ready to add water!

When I finished the plumbing it was about 10:30PM on Tuesday evening and it was late enough that I thought twice before going to Wal-Mart to get some reverse-osmosis water, but I went to anyway. After two trips back and forth to the Coralville Wal-Mart Super center, purchasing two extra 5gal bottles and 40 gallons later, it was 1:30AM on Wednesday and I was beat. I decided I would finish buying water the next day, and test the pump/sump plumbing then. I went to bed with the tank 2/3 full.

More . . .