Coralgrowing

I got my bulkhead yesterday, so it was time to start drilling. First I had to move the freshwater fish and shrimps to the other tank. Catching all the little buggers took most of the day so there was no time left to cut the drain hole.

This afternoon I started drilling with my diamond tipped Dremel bit, nice and slowly. After about a million passes the cut was about ¼ thru the glass and the bit was as smooth as a baby ass. I went into the garage only to discover that I had no more diamond tipped bits.

The nearby hardware store only had one bit left, so I had to drive all the way across town to get some more. The drilling is progressing nicely although it takes a lot longer than I had hoped for. The cut is about ¾ thru the glass now, but I have to call it a day because it will be too dark outside in a little while.

Today the delivery man stopped by with a big box of goodies. As I opened up the box and got the lights, the reflectors, the drainpipe, the pump and … that is all that came out of the box. The one thing I need first on this project is the bulkhead and it wasn’t in the box. There was a paper in the box though, it says that the bulkhead is out of stock and will be delivered asap.

Nothing I can do but wait. In the meantime I hooked up the pump for a test run. I have to say that the pump is pretty quiet, well as quiet as 15,000 l/h can be that is. The flow is enormous! I wonder if it won’t be too much for my tank and sump to handle?

The t5 lights will be tested tomorrow. Oh and if the supplier reads this: thanks for the extra reflector! You’ve send me 3 instead of the two I ordered and paid for

I just found an incredible deal on a pump: 15,000 l/h (almost 4,000 gal/h) for only 88 Euro instead of the normal price of 269 Euro. This pump will be good for a display tank turnover rate of 62x which is a lot more than the 23x I have in my small tank now. That is a lot of flow, but searching the ‘net I’ve found people running even higher turnover rates, so I guess this pump can be used. Besides, the pump will probably not run the full 15,000 l/h, losses due to the plumbing will probably lower the output to 12,000 to 13,000 l/h which equals 49 to 54 times turnover.

I’ve also ordered 2 54W T5 lights with matching electronic ballast and reflectors. The lights I got are 20,000K and will be used in addition to my 70W 10.000K HQI, which is what’s in use on my small tank now.

I hope the lights, pump, bulkhead and standpipe are delivered by DHL tomorrow. As soon as I’ve got the bulkhead I can start drilling the bottom of the tank.