440g System Setup
- Thread starter DThompson
- Start date
Id def. move the flagtail out to another tank if possible. It can shred those rays pretty quickly… its a shame there such great glass cleaners and look good ??
?… ive had em “strip” a ray to death overnight on 2 occasions before i ditched the 9 yr old flag. Rays were also 16”+ width… I didnt want to believe it either, my rays and flag were housed together for several yrs even no problems… u’ll b amazed how quickly they can scalp a ray once they get a taste of that slime ?… both my casualties were 5-6 yr old fish in top condition. Dead within hrs from the stress, backs stripped completely white
Id def. move the flagtail out to another tank if possible. It can shred those rays pretty quickly… its a shame there such great glass cleaners and look good ??
I've heard of this happening. Seems crazy how quickly they can kill a ray. I keep a zucchini in the tank at all times for the flagtail and he hasn't picked on the rays yet. He does like eating their pellets as well. I hope if I can keep him fat and happy, he wont pick on the rays but I'll keep a close eye on him. The rays also like to bury themselves in the sand, so I think that also keeps the flagtail away when they're completely under the sand.
I'm a big advocate for the Apex even though they're more focused on the saltwater community. Tons of automation and fail safes can be used with the Apex. My alarm just went off this morning that my sump pump wasn't drawing enough watts. So I went down and checked it out, pump was running dry because the filter sock was clogged and I forgot to turn my emergency overflow valve back open. My 1st fail safe is an optical sensor in the sump that should alarm me when the water level is to low, apparently I dont have that set up correctly though. 2nd fail safe is the amps/watts alarm that tells me when something isn't running at it's normal rate.
I might not have noticed this if I didn't have the alarm set and it could have burned out my reeflo pump which would have been a couple hundred $ mistake. But the Apex saved me.
That’s my next splurge for my setup. Now if I can find a gadget that cleans my filter pads…
Be really careful with that heater on the apex. I had a similar setup running for 6 months and the apex energy bar shut my entire tank down. There is a yellow button on the back of the energy bar to reset the breaker, but it was really hard to engage. I ended up switching to just using a raspberry pi for alerts and some power bars to replace mine as I don’t trust it. I think it would be fine without all the watts running through it. I was using 4 250watt heaters, but it is rated for higher than that and still shutoff.
It's been a while since I last updated my system so I got the itch to do some things and change up the tank.
1st off, I bought 7 clown loaches, all between 5-7" long, as well as some plecos.
I also purchased a used 180g pentagon tank and a used 100g sump. I don't like my current sump because it doesn't utilize the entire volume of the tank for filtering and it might overflow if my return pump ever stopped working (to scared to test it).
The sump I got was previously used for saltwater but It should work well for a moving bed filter. Picture below: far right chamber is for inlet/filter socks from the 180g tank, 2nd chamber from right is for inlet/filter socks from the 350g tank. Middle chamber is for K1 moving bed filter and far left chamber is for heater and return pumps. I have 2 simplicity 3200 DC pumps for returning water to the 350g tank, and a older pump (not sure what brand or size) returning water to the 180g tank. Still working on drilling and plumbing this sump before I remove the old one.
Next picture is just a different angle to show how the water drains into the sump. Comes in through the back side inlets, then up and over a baffle onto the filter socks where it trickles down and then moves over to the next chamber. you can kind of see above the filter socks are some slots to the next chamber as well. The slots above are in case the filter socks get clogged, the water can bypass the socks and not flood the basement. I put in the 2 baffle in the end chamber with some scrap acrylic I had laying around. Was kind of fun making this section myself, I've never welded acrylic together before, very messy. Glad this learning experience was on a sump that doesn't need to look professional.
Below are some pictures of the 180g tank, it's a pentagon/corner tank that should look neat next to my other tank. I am currently buffing the tank to remove some light scratches but I'm trying to focus on the sump 1st. I'm thinking I'll use this as a grow out tank for any new fish that are to small to go in with the rays. Or if I have any sick fish, I can put them in this tank and turn off the water to the sump filter, connect a canister filter and dose meds in the smaller tank. This way I would only need 1/2 the amount of meds because of water volume.
1st off, I bought 7 clown loaches, all between 5-7" long, as well as some plecos.
I also purchased a used 180g pentagon tank and a used 100g sump. I don't like my current sump because it doesn't utilize the entire volume of the tank for filtering and it might overflow if my return pump ever stopped working (to scared to test it).
The sump I got was previously used for saltwater but It should work well for a moving bed filter. Picture below: far right chamber is for inlet/filter socks from the 180g tank, 2nd chamber from right is for inlet/filter socks from the 350g tank. Middle chamber is for K1 moving bed filter and far left chamber is for heater and return pumps. I have 2 simplicity 3200 DC pumps for returning water to the 350g tank, and a older pump (not sure what brand or size) returning water to the 180g tank. Still working on drilling and plumbing this sump before I remove the old one.
Next picture is just a different angle to show how the water drains into the sump. Comes in through the back side inlets, then up and over a baffle onto the filter socks where it trickles down and then moves over to the next chamber. you can kind of see above the filter socks are some slots to the next chamber as well. The slots above are in case the filter socks get clogged, the water can bypass the socks and not flood the basement. I put in the 2 baffle in the end chamber with some scrap acrylic I had laying around. Was kind of fun making this section myself, I've never welded acrylic together before, very messy. Glad this learning experience was on a sump that doesn't need to look professional.
Below are some pictures of the 180g tank, it's a pentagon/corner tank that should look neat next to my other tank. I am currently buffing the tank to remove some light scratches but I'm trying to focus on the sump 1st. I'm thinking I'll use this as a grow out tank for any new fish that are to small to go in with the rays. Or if I have any sick fish, I can put them in this tank and turn off the water to the sump filter, connect a canister filter and dose meds in the smaller tank. This way I would only need 1/2 the amount of meds because of water volume.
I spent fathers day moving the sumps around. Got the old sump out and the new sump in. Only have 2 drain lines and 1 return line hooked up so far but it's up and running. Will focus on finishing the plumbing in the next week or 2. While I had the water level down to make this change, I installed 1 new return line and replaced the previous one. The old return line had a cheap check-valve on it that made a lot of rattling noise when water was pushing through it. It had an internal spring to close the valve when water wasn't flowing through, I think that spring caused vibrations and noise which got annoying.
Spend the extra money and get a check-valve from BRS, the new one is perfectly silence and transparent so I can see if it's working correctly. Well worth the extra money.
In the above picture you can see I installed a gate valve on the main return line instead of a ball valve, this is so much easier to fine tune the overflow now. You can kind of see at the top of the picture, I also added thick rubber clamps at the beginning of the return lines. This prevents vibration from pumps under the stand going up to the tank, helps keep things quiet.
After I get the plumbing done, I will fix the wiring mess. Everything is off the floor so I'm not worried if there's a spill, had a few spills while doing this sump swap.
Went from a 90g sump that was about 26" tall to a 110g sump that is only 20" tall and it is a life saver. Before I could barely get my arms in the sump because it was so close to the bottom of the display tank. Now I can reach anywhere in here.
My clown loaches love sleeping in PVC tubes and I had some spare rocks from Lake Superior laying around so I decided to glue them to some PVC to try and make a natural looking hiding place for them. 1st picture was just the initial idea of what I wanted, without anything glued together. 2nd picture is with all the base rocks glued to the PVC. I plan on gluing sand to the exposed PVC once all the rocks are dry, to try and hide it some more.
I used gorilla glue, hopefully it doesn't release toxic stuff into the water, might put it into my quarantine tank for a week or 2 to make sure it doesn't kill anything before it goes into the display tank.
Spend the extra money and get a check-valve from BRS, the new one is perfectly silence and transparent so I can see if it's working correctly. Well worth the extra money.
In the above picture you can see I installed a gate valve on the main return line instead of a ball valve, this is so much easier to fine tune the overflow now. You can kind of see at the top of the picture, I also added thick rubber clamps at the beginning of the return lines. This prevents vibration from pumps under the stand going up to the tank, helps keep things quiet.
After I get the plumbing done, I will fix the wiring mess. Everything is off the floor so I'm not worried if there's a spill, had a few spills while doing this sump swap.
Went from a 90g sump that was about 26" tall to a 110g sump that is only 20" tall and it is a life saver. Before I could barely get my arms in the sump because it was so close to the bottom of the display tank. Now I can reach anywhere in here.
My clown loaches love sleeping in PVC tubes and I had some spare rocks from Lake Superior laying around so I decided to glue them to some PVC to try and make a natural looking hiding place for them. 1st picture was just the initial idea of what I wanted, without anything glued together. 2nd picture is with all the base rocks glued to the PVC. I plan on gluing sand to the exposed PVC once all the rocks are dry, to try and hide it some more.
I used gorilla glue, hopefully it doesn't release toxic stuff into the water, might put it into my quarantine tank for a week or 2 to make sure it doesn't kill anything before it goes into the display tank.
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