My First Aquarium and DIY Skimmer

So when I got home, I discovered that that siphon was weak coming from my main tank. I don't know for sure the main cause but I believe the flow leaving the skimmer was way to low thus some air leaked back into the overflow siphon, causing a weaker siphon. I stopped the siphon and restarted it manually and WOW it started sucking big time again. I had to crank up my return pump in order to keep up with the siphon. This morning it's still going full steam with very little evaporation over night. I think the back pressure from the water being restricted too much exiting the skimmer caused the siphon to become weak. Lesson learned.

Last night I added a third but smaller power head to add more circulation. I have two 750 gallon power heads blowing from each end of the tank and a 450 gallon power head dedicated to rippling the surface of the display tank. That gives me 39 TIMES my tank volume of circulation. Should be enough, eh?:Cheers:

I replaced my old bulbs with some new T8 5000k lights. They are not purple like the others were getting to be. My two mushroom corals are doing pretty good under my current lighting system. I'm not buying anything other than mushrooms until I get better lights.

By the way, my skimmer is pulling out some serious crap! I changed the direction of the my power heads and the whole tank got stirred up..lol By the way, turbo snails are like cows. They eat and crap all the time. I tank looks like a pasture with cow patties all over the place..lol This morning the skimmer had collected a perfect brown sludge and the water was looking pretty clear. All checks were good.:bounce:
pH = 7.9 to 8.0
Ammonia = 0ppm
Nitrite = 0ppm
Nitrate = 0ppm

The Chaeto Algae in my refuge seems to be living. The bug like creatures in the ball are still alive so I must be doing something right..lol How long does it take for that stuff to grow bigger? It's about the size of a grape fruit now.

On a final note, the two clowns and the damsel are getting along, grudgingly.:grumble:

The two clowns are smaller than the damsel right now as they are young. One is a little bigger than the other and when the damsel picks on the smaller one, the bigger clown comes to his rescue. It's like they are a pair. I love watching them. I told the damsel he better watch out cause they will be bigger than him pretty soon.

The conch is a very interesting creature. Between his elephant style snout to his flipping action to position himself perfect for some food, I don't know what to think of him.

About a hour ago my wife found the weaker clown fish dead, stuck to one of the power heads that he liked to hang out near. It looked pretty beat up. I can only assume the constant battery from the Yellow Tailed Blue Damsel finally did him in. The other clown, who looks a lot more healthy is doing fine, but the damsel will still try to ram him. What do y'all think I should do? Take the damsel back to the store or let them be? The LFS said they'd give me a dollar credit for him. I don't mind the 8 dollar lost of the fish because I may loose a 20 clown fish. Keep in mind the weaker clown looked just slightly weaker than the other when I added them.

Take the damsel back, this is classic behavior for them.

little_fish said:

Take the damsel back, this is classic behavior for them.

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Once again, I should have listened to you! "dont get a damsel" you said....:frustrat::frustrat::bowdown:

I am going to return him for the dollar. Blast!

I got the blasted damsel out of my tank and I am never putting another in there again. I had to take apart my whole rock formation. I am going to not buy anything else for the tank until the algae is all clear and all my systems are running smoothly. A single clown for now will do just fine:)

After chasing the damsel for 2 hours and then having to rebuild my entire tank I was thinking to my self that little_fish once told me to never get a freaking (she used a another F word) damsel fish because it hides behind the rocks and is impossible to catch. I took the risk and paid for it.

This hobby is very expensive and consuming. You think you are doing something correctly, yet it fails or dies. The things you needs are too expensive and the things you can afford are not good for your system. My plumbing started to leak again with all the moving around of the stuff to get the blasted damsel. I nearly threw in the towel last night. It really started to drag me down.

But then, I noticed my mushroom coral is doing just fine. My snails are doing really good. They slide around like a bunch of cows, eating and pooping:) My stow-away hermit crab I found is even doing OK along with my two emerald crabs. The conch is alive and trying to out eat the turbos. Then I reached in my tank to adjust something and my clown fish comes right up to hand and pecked my hand over and over. It was like he was playing with me:) I must be doing something right, eh? Tonight I am doing nothing on the aquarium but preparing a crushed shrimp mix for the clown.

There is always something go wrong in your tank, always, so you learn to appreciate how great everything else is doing and then just work through the not so good stuff :)

So my skimmer is running really good. It's about 5 gallons of water in the main chamber with a additional 1/4 gallon in the overflow tube leading to the sump/refugium. Takes about 15 minutes to get primed and producing a foaming output but man when it gets going, it's gets going!
I have a question for those who know: The foam is building up and is overflowing but it is really dry. The bubbles don't want to pop. I believe it is beclause they are so dry. I pour some water around the mouth of the main tube in the collection cup to rinse them out and it builds back up in minutes. It's almost like I need something to pop the bubbles before they just build up. I'll post a pic tonight when I return home. The bubbles are real black and when they do burst, the watery leftovers are dark green to black:) Right on target. I have a skimmer that is pulling some serious gunk from the water and I spend less than 100 US dollars on it:)

My skimmer does that too. I just let the bubbles collect and don't worry about it. Glad it's working so well for you!

chichimom79 said:

My skimmer does that too. I just let the bubbles collect and don't worry about it. Glad it's working so well for you!

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I'll do that then. I of course built this from PVC. The collection container is 4" diameter and about 8" tall. There is a 2" diameter pipe that leads up into the collection container and extends about 2" up into the collection area.
Imagine that sized container and then imagine the ENTIRE things full of brown bubbles..lol.It would overflow the container is I didn't have a lid on it. :D I guess it's skimming correctly cause my water is looking pretty clear.:sfish:

I now have three frags in my tank. They are doing really well. I bought some Instant Ocean Holdfast glue to attach the rock that the frags are hanging on to the live rock in my tank. I tested the stuff in a container of water but was unable to get it to stick. I was pretty tired so I am going to try again tonight.
Anyone had any experience with this stuff? Several sources online claim the stuff works well underwater and it says it is for attaching corals. I can't take the corals out of the water for 7 minutes (which is the cure time fore this stuff) so I must work under the water. Let me know your thoughts please before a turbo bull dozes my mushrooms:)

you can keep corals out for that long, and just regular gel super glue works to glue corals down and is much cheaper.

Also you probably didnt use enough, if at least 3 of your fingers arent stuck together, you didnt use enough.

....regular super glue gel.......are you kidding me? I spent $11.00 on a fancy tube of epoxy that is hard to work with and all I need was a $3.00 bottle of super glue?:frustrat: My head hurts.
Thanks little_fish

Sometimes you can save ;) Trust me we all get headaches from time to time.

Im sure the person on this forum with the biggest tank and fanciest equipment still has major problems here and there. Its just like you said, complicated and frustrating at times yet very much worth it when things settle down enough for you to enjoy it.

Best of luck bud, and gratz on catching the damsel lol those boogers are fast!

lol...I ma never putting another one of those in my tank. It was so hard catching him that I actually, for a split second, thought about taking everything out of the tank and dropping a live wire in the water, but I didn't..lol. Or depth charges. They are pretty fish but man alive they are fast.

Thank for the comments of encouragement. They help a lot:)

Another question: My readings on my tank, that I take every 3-4 days, shows 8.0, 0ppm, 0ppm, 0ppm on the API test kit. In my water, the creatures are thriving, no signs of stress on either the fish or the corals, or the inverts. The corals open up every morning and suck up the lights and water and close at night fall. The clown fish is happy and the fire fish I bought the other day is coming out of his hole more often.
My water is SMOKEY though. My skimmer is still belching out brown bubbles all day long. I need to adjust it though because the bubbles re too dry, but never the less, my water looks like it has smoke in it. The water is not hazing like with sand or something, but instead it looks like a smoke bomb just sent off in my tank. I see puffy swirls going around the tank. Is this a bacteria bloom? Is it bubbles?

Maybe the clown fish is "smoking in the boys room" lol:) sorry, couldn't resist.

What about adding some water clearing agent from the LFS?

That is likely a bacterial or algae bloom, many many new tanks go through them. Just do your water changes like normal and dont over feed and it should go away.

And there are no (well, almost none) easy fixes in this hobby, do go with the clarifying agent

Ok, good news! The smoke is gone and the water is nearly crystal clear, if I would stop messing with it:):):)

I designed and built some custum DIY airstones and man-o-live I am producing the ugliest, nastiest, slimmy, wet crap you could imagin. With the new stones, the bubbles are virtually foam and it spils right over the lip of the over flow in the collection cup in a nice slimmy foam. Refugium is growing some serious C.Algae in ball. My tank is nearly algae free with the exception of the brown rust colored algae that I think got introduced on a coral I purchased.
Let me update you with my latest livestock list:

• 4 turbo snails (will be giving my dad two of these for his tank when it done cycling - I have ran out algae for them to eat:))
• 1 tan conch - love this guy
• 1 stowaway young blue legged hermit crab
• 1 stowawy snail of some sort - real small - about the size of a pencil eraser
• 2 emerald crabs - only seen one in the last week - they stay in during the day though
• 1 clown fish - this thing eats from my hand - my son sticks his hand in the tank and the clown pecks at his fingers - he loves it
• 1 red and white fire fish - this is my favorite fish - he is alien looking - creation at it's most artistic I believe
• 1 ricordea mushroom coral - doing well - about 1/2 dollar size
• 2 kenya tree frags - about 4" tall when fully open - hty were only 5 dollars each :bounce:
• 1 Colony Polyp - about 15 pods I call them - they are a rust color under my crappy lights
• 1 Giant Feather Duster - This thing is fun to watch, even though he doesn't doing anything but go in and out - still figuring out how to feed him the best

I think that is it. I am ordering my dad's lights and my lights tomorrow morning. I was going to order these:
48" 324W T5 HO Aquarium Light Hood LCD Timer Coral Reef 6x54 Fluorescent Actinic | eBay
My dad is getting two of these for his 72" tank:
36" 234W Aquarium Light Reef Marine Tank w/ LCD Timer Freshwater Lighting Coral | eBay
What do you all think?

Anyways, let me know what you guys think and I'll try to get some pics over the next couple days. man, it's been busy. Time for sleep! :faint:

Those look like pretty good lights, just be sure to replace the bulbs in 3-4 months. Im sure the stock bulbs are crap.

And do you have picture of this red and white fish, id like to know what it is

THe fish is a fire fish - Heres a pic, he's a chicken so catching the pic was hard:)

Also, it's the pic as my avatar