Kessil

210 gallon Dream tank

So earlier today, @popper was kind enough to offer to stop by to try giving me a hand with trouble shooting the leak. Several attempts where made over the course of nearly two hours. As it stands it's still leaking. Ultimately together we weren't able to make any conclusion on a precise issue.

Trying to rule out the easiest potential issues I ordered new bulk heads from brs after a place local to me I checked didn't carry them.

I don't think the bulkheads are the issue however probably best to rule them out before leaning more towards the thought of silicone.

The gaskets with the ridges I have are also a bit iffy to my eyes. So hopefully the new bulkheads will come with 2 more flat gaskets. Brs sadly didn't have the size gaskets I needed in stock. I'm not confident in trying Amazon only get get the wrong size or something not intended for bulkheads based on their vauge seller descriptions.
 
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So finally a postive update.

The new bulkheads arrived yesterday. I just swapped out the old ones and than used the old flat bulkheads between the tank and overflow box. So both sides now have the flat bulkhead gaskets. For now I'm happy to report there is currently no water leaking inside or outside of the tank near the overflow box/ overflow bulkheads.

These new bulkheads has much higher quality looking gaskets on the flange side than the others I was trying to use. Can't say that was the issue but so far no leaks so I will call it a win.

Granted I will likely give this thing 24 hours plus to make sure. Not really looking foward to filling this tank up again only to have to drain it again. So really wanna give it some time to make sure it doesn't leak at all before moving foward.
 
So here goes the next update.

Today I finished topping off the tank, added salt, and the rock structures.
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Individually I like the 3 main structures but as a whole I'm not really in love with how it turned out. Not implying it's bad just not giving me the wow factor. (((Open to any suggestions on moving stuff around or something)))


They don't seem nearly tall enough. Though one bonus is if I decided to move the sps to this tank my existing rock structures would be able to go directly on top of the outter two structures and be about the same height as they currently are in my sps tank. Long term I have no idea what I'm doing with this tank mix reef, lps or sps.

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I still need to fish out all the loose crushed coral from the stock tank. I'm semi worried it's not nearly enough to cover the entire tank. I won't know for sure until I add it.

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I have some rock peices in stock tank and a good bit more in a 32galllon brute that will get added to the sump most in the smaller section towards the left. I will all add some to bigger section but there has to be enough room left for the skimmer.

I will also have to sphion out a good bit off the water after all the rocks and crushed coral gets added to offset the water displacement.


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I ordered two of these dollies for my 55gallon barrels to make them mobile. For water changes. I will probably limit them to rodi and mixing salt. So in case of emergency I should have a solid amount of water available for water changes. I need to however find a pump or wave maker of some kind that could mix the salt. If I ever needed to make this much salt water at once.

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1.) I mounted the 1 mobius mp40 I have to mix saltwater, (I have a few other older white version ones to test out and see if they work.)
I will likely be looking for more mp40s depending on the verdict of the white ones.

2.) I mounted a inkbird, though I need to still install the 2 500 watt heaters I bought for this tank. 1 is still in the box and other is currently in the stock tank.

3.) I have some screen kits to put together at some point.

4.).I have several lighting options for this tank yet will probably be a mix of several different types of lights. I don't look forward to the headache of trying to figure out how to mount them all.

5.) Once all the electronics are properly hooked up I will need to figure out some type of wire management that isn't as much of a eye sore.

6.) Install the ato.

7.) Test out skimmers

I have a lot more projects to do to get this tank fully ready for fish and coral. Though I'm glad for the progress so far.


So far I've found one leak. The main drain has a very slow leak from the gate valve. What sucks is I glued that in so will be back to plumbing again if I can't figure it out or if I need another gate valve.

So far tank is pretty loud but I can't really adjust the gate valve or increase the flow rates of the dual returns due to that making the gate valve leak faster. Something I will have to look at more closely the next few days.
 
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MichaelB said:
I need to however find a pump or wave maker of some kind that could mix the salt. If I ever needed to make this much salt water at once.
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You could use a pump that mixes the SW as well as utilize it to pump out to the tank. Use a pump in the RO barrel to transfer water and another in the SW to mix/transfer. I'd put a float valve in the SW bin so it's easy to transfer from the RO barrel without worry of overflowing. In case you have more volume in your RO at some point.
 
Depending on gate valve brand maybe you can take apart the valve and just replace the O-ring or wedge O-ring . Had an old wood hot tub years back up at the lake which had a leaking gate valve that was covered in a rock hard block of foam insulation so the pvc pipes wouldn’t freeze .. I got a replacement packing kit from a hot tub store which solved the issue but ideally whole replacement is better..Think spears may sell the kits may have to call them.. Killer you got the bulkhead leak fixed!! Tanks looking great..
 
ReyDeFarts said:
You could use a pump that mixes the SW as well as utilize it to pump out to the tank. Use a pump in the RO barrel to transfer water and another in the SW to mix/transfer. I'd put a float valve in the SW bin so it's easy to transfer from the RO barrel without worry of overflowing. In case you have more volume in your RO at some point.
Click to expand...

Yea I will have to pick your brain on how to do that at some point. I saw posts about drilling both barrels and ordered uniseals to do that but I figured not drilling them was more inline with my limited plumbing knowledge. I'm worried I would screw up thw proccess after in some kinda way and having them leaking lol.
 
PjFish said:
Depending on gate valve brand maybe you can take apart the valve and just replace the O-ring or wedge O-ring . Had an old wood hot tub years back up at the lake which had a leaking gate valve that was covered in a rock hard block of foam insulation so the pvc pipes wouldn’t freeze .. I got a replacement packing kit from a hot tub store which solved the issue but ideally whole replacement is better..Think spears may sell the kits may have to call them.. Killer you got the bulkhead leak fixed!! Tanks looking great..
Click to expand...


It was a bulkhead someone gave me. It originally leaking from the pipes that slipped into each side of it. So I glued them in to seal them. Now it seams the leak is coming from somewhere on the plastic portion mid way on the bulkhead. Maybe there is a hole or a crack. I need to get a much closer look to see if I can find where the water is actually coming from.

With the glue unfortunately I would have to cut some of the pipes to remove and replace the gate valve and the section that I cut.

I agree I doubt I would bother ordering something to fix it that may or may not work if that's the issue. Probably more wise to replace it than take the risk.
 
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