Orca Tl-450 Anybody?

[leeroysw20]

hi there, after many years of owning tropical fish, ive decided to beat the thought of marine being too difficult and give it a whirl!
after reading many of many articles etc, i bought the orca tl-450, would have gone bigger but room is a little low at the moment!

right, i have cleaned and leak tested the tank, used live sand with some crushed coral, purchased and added the ro water, and have added the correct amount of salt ect.
........my problems that im hoping someonw can help me with!!!!!:

1. millions of bubbles in the tank! many pple say to switch off the skimmer and use fine wool for 3/7 days and keep opening the air valve to test for bubbles in the top of the skimmer, and this is supposed to stop the bubbles?!?!?!

2. the heater compartment and compartment to its left where the water is returned to the tank are full to the brim with water and it is overflowing, however the filter compartment is 2/3 inches below the surface. any ideas???!!! have tried simply removing some water, however it just fills up again!

3. finally!!.... using the hydrometer, teated the waters gravity, and it reads below its desired reading.
is it true that to raise it i simply add more salt??

any advice is well appreciated~!!!!

 

[SkiFletch]

We have some Orca tank owners on here so I'll let them answer those specific questions. As to number three, if your sg is low yes you just add more sea salt mix

 

[leeroysw20]

beautiful! thanks mate, one problem resolved!

 

[seffieuk]

Welcome to the salty side Leeroy

I have the 550 so mine is slightly different to yours but I believe Barney has some experience with this size tank and he will be along shortly i'm sure he will sort you out

I understand that micro bubbles are common in the 450 - our search facility is not working at the moment but if you go to google and type in tropical fish forums orca 450 you will come up with all the threads people have started re this tank - happy reading, the planning is half the fun and obviously I would recommend you read my thread although it is for the 550

Seffie x

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Welcome to the forums and the salty side of the hobby

I had the 450l as my first marine tank and was running for about a year, its a nice little tank but does have a few odd "personality" issues (which you have already discovered).

Answers to your questions:
1) The skimmer sucks, you cant adjust the height of it and a good portion of the bubbles get blown into the next chambers and then get into the tank. This was "supposed" to have been fixed on the newer ones but Im not sure it was. At the moment as you have no livestock there is nothing there for it to skim so the problem will be worse. Once you have some bio load in there it will "apprently" get better (I say apprently because I gave up on my completely ).

There are a couple of things you can do to help fix this.
A) The first thing is the bubbles from the top of the skimmer not making it to the collection cup. You can try getting some PVC tubing and attaching this to the top of the skimmer so that the bubbles go up higher before they are released into the collection cup. This means less bubbles in the chamber and more going to the top.
B) The second thing is to block the holes around the heater brackets. Best way to do this is to use marine putty (sold in your LFS). take the heater out and fill in around the brackets with putty to cover any gaps.
C) As has already been suggested filter wool in the last chamber can help a bit too. You need to get it down the bottom where the hole to the heater chamber is, this should allow the water through but keep the bubbles in the heater chamber to rise to the top.
D) As you noticed the water overflows in the back chambers which doesnt help at all, will answer this next though

2) Unfortunately another bad design here. Thankfully it is fixable
Personally I would take the sponge from the first chamber and cut it in half. Leave half out and put half back in (make sure you take it out regularly to wash it), make sure all the grids on the intakes are open.
Now what you need is a small pump in the left hand (return chamber) to draw the water through quicker. I used a small newjet pump in there with some 18mm hose to connect it to the spray bar. I had the spray bar pointing at the water surface to increase gas exchange.
Now there is one problem with this. Next to the spray bar you will have another hole from the return. If you leave this open the pump will pull water from here rather then through the back chambers. However if you block it completely you may find the pump is too powerful and it empties the chamber. You can either have you return from your pump going out here (so it sucks a restricted amount of water through the spray bar) or if you have the pump return through the spray bar then partially cover the hole. You will need to play with it a bit to get to see how much you need to cover it to keep the back compartments at the right level.

Other things to think about that you may want to do:
Remove the bio balls and add in chemical filtration when needed (phosphate and nitrate removers).
Add LR rubble into the back compartments for added filtration and a safe spot for pods to reproduce.
Add a small submersible light/LED to one of the back compartments and turn it into a small 'fuge with macro algae.
Drill the tank and add a sump, more water volume and you can then put the skimmer in there and not worry about the bubbles.
Oh yeah one more thing. Make sure you leave enough room between your LR and the glass to fit a magfloat through or you will end up with big patches of very stuck on algae you cant clean

Hope that helps, if you have any questions just ask. Its a really nice little tank and I loved mine, still have it sitting empty at the moment and have been giving some serious thought to modding the hell out of it and setting it up for something a bit different (just gotta find space to put it ).

 

[leeroysw20]

wow, now thats what i call a lot of usefull info!!! thanks pple!

only thing is, have tried facing the spray bar towards the waters surface, but its miles too powerful! and the water jumps a good 2 inches out of the water! lol, so have jus turned it slightly below the waters surface at a slight angle, so to give a good flow around the tank.

only thing now....the most annoying kind of humming noise ever!!! only slight, but have fiddled with the bar and evertyhing n it wont stop!!!!!! arggggggh! ha ha

where you (xxbarneyxx) mentioned about the bubbles not reaching the top of the skimmer, from what i understand it is (once fully up and running) supposed to collect a brown substance in the container at the top, at the mo, although obv i only have a tank full of water with no LR or anything, there is a nice water flow running through the skimmer.....the air flow is adjustable right...but how powerfull should i allow it to be?

if its too much, the container at the top just fills with water, so is it just supposed to be enough so that bubbles gather at the top and overflow??? or does this not really make a diff untill the LR ect is in the tank?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Wont really make any difference until you have livestock in there. You are supposed to be able to adjust it so that the foam comes up about halfway into the tube (in the collection cup) and then it should bubble up to the top, hit the collection cup and turn back to water (with all the junk with it). I found that I could never get it adjusted properly though and it was either not enough bubbles (didnt skim) or too many (just filled the cup with lots of clean water).

Humming noise. Is it the fans? These can get loud later on so you might want to replace them. If not check all of your cables for your pumps. A lose pump cable laying against the glass can make a really annoying humming noise.

 

[leeroysw20]

ye thats what ive noticed whilst experimenting with it!
although have totally cut off the air supply to the skimmer for about 10 mins, and already the bubbles in the tank are noticeably reduced.
is it safe to keep this off untill i put some live rock in the tank next weekend?

humming has stopped! amazing what a lil wiggle of the cables does!

ah ye... being totally new to marine im prob guna ask some thick questions so please bear with me! lol, i bought a salt water test kit today.
ammonia is 0,
nitrite is 0,
ph is 8.0, although im told that LR ect can raise/lower this, obv it needs to be between 8.2 & 8.4, so im hoping its ok to leave this and test it again once LR is added? or best to get it right before?
nitrate was a whopping 20! i understand that it will be high whilst the biological filter is establishing etc, only thing i know about lowering this is frequent water changes, again, something i need to sort out now??

 

[seffieuk]

Excellent your cycle has started you will soon get brown diatoms on your sand and lr

Seffie x

 

[xxBarneyxx]

hmm thats very strange. If you used RO water and there is nothing in the tank (no liverock and no livestock) you shouldnt have any detectable nitrates (unless this is coming from the live sand in which case it is really bad!).

I would check your RO water for the nitrate level (to make sure its not from the RO)
Mix up some new salt water outside of the tank and check the nitrate level (to make sure its not from the salt).

If you get a result for nitrate from either of these you most likely need to change your salt brand or RO source. If both show zero nitrate then I can only guess its the livesand that has caused it. Would also be worth getting the water tested at your LFS to make sure its not a problem with your test kit.

Liverock can effect PH so I wouldnt worry to much about it until it is setup and running for a little while. PH can go up and down during the cycle as well.

Your PH should ideally be 8.2-8.4 but it can go up and down during the day. Increased surface movement on the water can bring it up as well as it helps with the gas exchange between water and air (so helps remove the CO2 from the water which will push the PH down).

Edit: Yes you can leave your skimmer off until you get some fish.

Seffie, his cycle shouldnt have started yet though, unless I have mis-read all he has in the tank is some "live" sand and water. The livesand should not have given that amount of nitrate release and there is nothing else in there which should be giving out ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.

Thinking about the live sand I guess a nitrate spike could be possible if it was live. It would only have the bacteria within it to process ammonia and nitrite (and not nitrate) so I guess it could be loaded with nitrate once it gets to you.

Leeroy - If your RO water and SW mix show no nitrates I would be inclined to empty the tank of water and refill it again. Starting with your nitrates so high is going to give you a really bad algae break out when its in addition to the normal spikes you get during cycling.

 

[leeroysw20]

ah that doesn't sound good at all does it!
well its been 24hrs since i last checked it, so have just done it again and its exactly the same, still readin 20.

i have live sand and some crushed coral in my tank along with ro water and salt mix.

ill mix some fresh water and salt like u said and test that, see how that is.

 

[leeroysw20]

ok have just tested some pure ro water, and have found the problem! the test has come out at 80!!!!
any suggestions?!?! im guessing that it should be minimal if not 0 right?!

or could this dramatic drama of events be caused purely by an incorrect an otherwise useless piece of testing equipment?!?!?! i have the API saltwater test kit

 

[xxBarneyxx]

If its RO water it should be zero (or so close as to not make a difference on a test kit). Do you get your RO water from your LFS or do you have your own RO unit?

One thing that is strange is that it is reading higher there then in the tank which doesnt really make sense. Could be the test kit doesnt work with RO water (maybe someone else can help shed some light on it)?

If the RO water does turn out to have nitrates in it I would take it back to the LFS and complain (do it nicely though as you might have to buy stuff from them again ). I would try and rule out a problem with the test kit first though.

 

[leeroysw20]

hmm ye im confused!
yes i bought it from my LFS and it is RO water.

well sein as my LFS closes at 5 and i work till 5, i think ill take a water sample of both my tank water and the pure RO water to the fs round the corner from my house which is open later and get them to test it for me, and like you say... if there is a problem with it, will take it back and politely make them change it and kindly supply me with some more salt mix...and livesand whilst im there
and obviously will just have to start from fresh!!!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Oh well, something always has to go wrong during a setup so hopefully this will be the only problem you get

EDIT: I have an API saltwater test kit as well (apprently not the most accurate ones around) not had issues on mine with the SW (have checked against other test kits and at least in the range I was testing they where pretty much the same). Give me 10 mins and I will try the nitrate test with RO water.