temperate reef

[hobogato]

thanks guys

mike, i already picked some up. thanks anyway.

[hobogato]

finished almost all of the little tasks today

got the plumbing insulated to prevent sweating



attached manifolds to the drains to spread out the flow and cut down on the noise



installed the removable insulated panel in the access opening to the sump



added insulation to the inside of the door to cut down on noise





added airlines to the drains to stop the flushing toilet sound



the tank is now full and the cycle officially begins. i will leave it at room temp for a couple of weeks and then start dropping the temp slowly. hopefully that will keep the initial cycling from taking too long.

all i have left to do is build the box for the led light strips - they should be here sometime after may 1st.

[hobogato]

got the cabinet for the lighting finished today. it will still be at least a week until the led strips arrive.



also decided to test out the chiller. i started it at 1pm and the starting temp in the tank was 81. the tank is now 67 (64 in the sump) - so far so good, about 10 degrees to go.

[hobogato]

tank is 59 this morning with a cool compressor. the thermostat is set at 58. i will bump it down to 54 and see how it holds for a couple of days.

[hobogato]

well, it is keeping the tank at 55, but it is running for over an hour every few hours to do it. neither christy or i am too keen on that much noise and heat being dumped into the living room. so, i am going to pick up an inline chiller that can be plumbed into the return line and will sit outside the house (what's a couple more holes in the wall ). i will keep the chiller in the cabinet set 5 degrees higher than the chiller oustide so it can serve as a backup.

[ErikH]

LOL, I'm here at work..... When I started reading this and saw the tank had a chiller..... Then Todd told me Christy (sp?) was coming by to pick up a chiller, and was wondering why. I just finished the thread, and all I can add is: "Cooooool!"

[hobogato]

did she pick it up yet?

[hobogato]

got the new (to me) chiller installed and the tank is now down to 55 deg F. it is a tradewinds super 1/3 hp inline chiller, so i was able to redo the plumbing on the closed loop to send it outside thru the wall to the chiller. i will keep the chiller inside the cabinet set at 62 as a backup. since that is taken care of, i will now let the tank temp come up to 65 to speed up the cycling a little bit.

thanks again for the great deal on the chiller todd!

[Texreefer]

yep, i am planning a new tank. i have lots going on right now, so unlike most of the builds i do, this one will be slow

[hobogato]

hey, this has taken me over a month - that is slow for me