OgreMkV Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Well, my wife actually talked me into going back to SW. I wasn't really sure I wanted to, but she loves the color. OK, we'll try it. My setup is going to be pretty cheap... unfortunately. I've got a slightly used 25g eclipse system (25g tall tank). The lights are shot and the pump is crap. SO, I'm ditching the hood. My lighting is going to be extreme overkill. I'll be using a Coralife 36" PC fixture with twin 96W bulbs (10k and actinic) That might be enough for just about anything I could want. The weird part is the fixture extends over the edges of the tank. Ah well. I need a filter and found a neat little unit at Dr. F&S. It's cheap (and I know, you get what you pay for), but it's the only HOB filter I've seen with a surface skimmer. It's rated for a 75g tank and costs $27. It's got two bays. I figure I'll fill one bay with LR rubble and the other with a sponge. Mechanical and biological down. I can always stick a carbon sock or something if I need to. Since it's so small, I'm just going to get water from a LFS. I can't stand making salt. I never could get the salinity correct. Horrible experience. I will be finding, buying, building an auto-top-off system. Maybe a powerhead connected to a float switch and a RO reservoir. Give the fish a thrill a few times a day. Another powerhead just for flow. In my old 46g bowfront tank, I had two koralia 1s, an Aquaclear 50 and a Maxi-jet 1200 (skimmer pump), so I had about 1200gph flowing in that tank. The tang loved it, until Ike caused a four week power outage. So that's about it for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted July 19, 2009 Author Share Posted July 19, 2009 Here's a first picture of my new tank. Oh, and the missus and x-boy. We saw it at Petco for $169 (stand, tank, hood, and lights. I've replaced the light. hmmm... wrong picture... weird. The tank is a 44g pentagon. I've got a 96W dual 10k actinic PC light on it. I'm hoping that will be enough for zoas and mushrooms. There's a Hagen Aquaclear 70 for filtration and a powerhead to be named later for movement. We're planning black aragonite sand. That's as far as we've gotten so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Any way you can post the pictures to this site? I don't have a login to the other site you have linked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 Picked up some great DR from Prof's. Thanks for having us over BTW. The tank is also in a new location. We've got 20lbs of dead sand, almost 40lbs of dead rock and I picked up a Maxi-900 with a sponge filter (not shown) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 I like how you have the rock configured! The tank is going to look great once it gets established. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 neato! Dave's rock always looks good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 A bit of a belated update. The tank is cycling nicely. Hit a high of between .5 and .75 Ammonia yesterday and down to .25 today. All the hitchhikers seem to be doing well. We moved the rock with the shrooms on it a little lower into an area with less flow and the smaller one seems to be much happier. Let's see, I've got a Koralia 1, MaxiJet 900 and the Aquaclear 70 for flow. I've a highflow, medium flow, and low flow areas for whatever I decide to put in them. I've got a $5 coupon for Aquatek's sale on the 15th, I'm justnot sure I'll be ready for fish at that time. I really want them, I guess we'll see how the tank is doing. When I get the ammonia down to zip, I've got the SW ready for a 5-7 gallon water change (10-20% change). Then I'll be ready for a reefcleaners.org order. More updates as events warrant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarathustra2 Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 I'm getting my tank on saturday and will be working on it all weekend. If your willing to wait for me to cycle I wanted to see about setting up a group order for reef cleaners. I'm looking at at least 50-75$ and a good chance of more so we'll be a good chunk of the way to free shipping. Maybe a month but i hope less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+capty99 Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 I am also right on that in between on if my cycle will be done and ready for fish in time for aquatek's sale. tough isn't it? @zarathustra2 i might jump in on that, though for my 10g I won't need much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Remember, your cycle is not done until both ammonia and nitrites are down to zero. You will have a spike in ammonia first, then a spike in nitrites. But sounds like you are off to a great start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Yeah, ammonia is less than 0.25, but I have to go buy a nitrite test kit. Both the ones I had previously are fried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Nitrites at less than 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted September 30, 2009 Author Share Posted September 30, 2009 Taking things slowly has made a huge difference since my last attempt at a saltwater tank. This tank, while pretty barren is fantastic. I have a bit of a phosporous issue. I put a resin pad that absorbs phosphorus into my filter and it sucked P out almost overnight. I took the pad out because the two clumps of macro I have started looking poorly. I'll live with the green hair algae. Besides, I've a ton of small shrimp like critters that eat/live in it. They don't appear to be copepods (much larger), but maybe. The only other issue seems to be a persistant inability to maintian the kH and pH. It takes less than a week to go from a pH of 8.2 to 7.5. I was dosing a buffer solution about once a week. For the forseeable future, I'm going to add the buffer to my RO top-off water and feed it in a little bit at a time instead of one big jump. The torch hates dosing day. Coral update: My corals (purchased and hitchiker) are doing fantastic. My one hitchhiker mushroom is about 1.5 inches across and spawned two other mushrooms. The torch coral has divided, it now has three mouths instead of two. The green star polyps have begun extending their territory slightly and they love filter cleaning day. It's like a buffet line for them. I just added a torch coral and a smallish rock with about 2 dozen small zoanthids on it. I also recently added 3 cerith snails. They must be the Atlantic ceriths, they are pretty large. One of them seems to be a hider and one is very outgoing. I don't think he's come off the glass since we got him. He found the mother load of algae and is quietly working himself into obesity. Fish update: I did something stupid. I bought a fish without researching it first. Turns out the red-lipped blenny can grow to 6 plus inches and is one of the most aggresive blennies... sigh. Took him back. This time, I'm sticking to the plan. 2 Ocelerris clowns, 3 wheeler's gobies, and maybe 1 firefish. So that's the update. Pictures once the new corals open up good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted October 3, 2009 Author Share Posted October 3, 2009 A pair of percula clowns followed us home today. Lexie insisted that we keep them. Pics of the corals: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad and Belinda Posted October 12, 2009 Share Posted October 12, 2009 We had a great looking chalice follow us too and jumped right into our tank. Cant turn it away after that. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexKilpatrick Posted October 21, 2009 Share Posted October 21, 2009 I had a full size RBTA pop out of some live rock I bought. Amazing how that happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OgreMkV Posted May 2, 2010 Author Share Posted May 2, 2010 I haven't put a blog post up in a while, so here goes... I'm sure that you are intensely curious about how the LED lights are working out. Otherwise, you'd be off reading LOLcats or something. I'm glad you asked. Personally, I think the light is great. I guess it's been about two months now. I've worked the lights up to a nearly full schedule with the blues only on for about 9 hours and the blues and whites on for 8 hours. There is a very noticable shimmer effect. However staring at the tank with the blues (inspite of the beautiful florescence from the zoas) hurts my eyes and makes me dizzy... but then I'm subject to vertigo). We've had to rearrange a fair bit of the tank because of the new lights. A couple of mushrooms have basically disappeared by burying themselves in the live rock. On the other hand, if there is any shade, the mushrooms are growing and reproducing rapidly (we won't have to frag any for the next swap, there are plenty of babies). THe star polpys are likewise very diminished because of the light. We've moved the leather from the top of the tank to the bottom and it seems happier. We've added a couple of more zoas (mostly low) and another SPS... with another one on the way. Here's the best example of growth in the tank. A birdnest coral. Here it is right before Christmas (2009) March 20th Here it is as of May 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooks Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Looking good! I love LEDs and want to get some for myself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie reef Posted May 15, 2010 Share Posted May 15, 2010 I second the LED's! I have the lunar LED's and they bring out the awesome colors in the colors at night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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