jestep Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Did a stand move yesterday, finally... Old stand was completely rotten. Should have moved it a month or two ago but just couldn't find the time and help at the same time. Was able to drain it all the way and use 4 people to move it, without removing the sand, to the new stand. Pre-leveled the stand and had the water back above the coral in about 5 minutes. Took another 2 hours to get everything connected and the fish back in the tank. I strongly recommend not buying aquatic fundamentals stands. They are supposedly waterproof and they have a solid top which is great for a rimless or other flat bottom tank. I'll post pictures of their "waterproof" craftsmanship. So lucky I didn't have a complete stand collapse. Also spec update: This is ridiculous for a tank this size but now running: 1 MP40, and 2 MP10's. Just couldn't get the correct flow from 2 MP10's or the MP40, so I'm using them all at low - med flow. Also switched to a dual 250Mh fixture. Running it only a few hours per day and actinic LED's and T5 the remaining photo period. It's actually pretty nice being able to keep the main light off most of the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 oy vey. glad it went smoothly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Yeah, this is definitely not the recommended method of moving a tank either. 36 x 18 and weighs only about 130 lbs, tanks and sand, so it's really on the border of being reasonably safe to move. Wouldn't try this with a 48" tank as it's too easy to twist it while moving and rupture one of the seams. Huge relief it's not on that other stand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 FTS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mcjudge Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 What stand did you buy? I am in the process of saving for the ADA cabinet. (Its only $$$ Right) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 I got a used 48" stand here on ARC. It's extremely solid and is about 38" high which I really like. The tank is on the right side and my display fuge is on the left side. The ADA stand was way too expensive for me to consider. I would do a custom stand which should cost in the $300 range for a very nice one. The ADA was over $1000 last time I looked at it. That's just not going to happen for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 Here's a somewhat current shot after the stand move: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bige Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Looks great. Is your fuge light off because you run it opposite hours? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 It's actually on as is the room light. I was a little too low and the MH is saturating out the camera sensor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ct67stang Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 amazing tank! love the clean look to it. update please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 I'll try to post some this evening. Switched to 20K lighting this weekend which is much more pleasing. This is 10K in the most recent pictures by my best guess which is far too yellow for a reef tank IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 5, 2013 Author Share Posted February 5, 2013 Here's a few updates. Just turned the MH back on so the coral are a little P'd off. Currently re-thinking the layout of the LPS on the sandbed as it's way too cluttered and random right now. The purple hammer on the right is getting out of hand. Started as a single head, and it's got to be near 40 or 50 now. I also don't like the location of the orange hammer and the little wall-frogspawn in the middle, but I haven't figure out where to move them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mcjudge Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 Looking good man! I made some phone calls and yeah you were right $1000 for that stand... Changed my mind! Would love to see a shot of the fuge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 5, 2013 Author Share Posted February 5, 2013 It's a work in progress, but here's where I'm at thus far. 3 Mangroves, red grape caulerpa, and dragon's breath. My mandarin would be in heaven if he could get in this tank. There's got to be pods in the 6 or 7 figures. This has 10# of figi mud and about 2lbs of oolite sand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bige Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 So the mangroves just get over spill light? Is that a pink and green bta? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 5, 2013 Author Share Posted February 5, 2013 There's a Par38 spotlight on the mangroves. No coral in the refugium tank. In the 2nd picture of the main tank, there is a pink and green BTA on the upper left above the acans. 2 RBTA's, one dead center and the other on the right side below the green duncans. The purple and green coral on the far right is a huge branching duncan colony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bige Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 I have a pink and green bta that I got from Aquadome for $25. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 Got a new clownfish from bchap's babies that he raised up. Was going to get a misbar but my daughter had other plans and wanted the tiny one. Was pretty happy that they paired up within a day of adding the little guy. I have plenty of coral that should fill in so I think I'm going to give it 6 months or so without doing anything crazy and see how well it all fills in. Have 2 ebay peristaltic dosing pumps on order so should be fully automated on Ca and Alk in about a week. routine now is pretty much scraping glass, emptying the skimmer cup, and occasional water changes, and this tank is now less work than my FW. One funny thing is that I've found at least 6 different zoas on the rock that I have never added to the tank, nor have I ever seen them as hitchhikers on any frag. Some are some fire skirts and others are some really cool bright green ones. No TT or other malignant varieties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Saw these guys on AAF's website and couldn't pass them up. Pretty much the first 2 branching orange/pink hammer's I've seen. My other 2 orange hammers are both wall hammers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KimP Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Wow! That's beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Added this guy (Fromia) and a Royal Gramma about a week ago. So far I've seen the gramma only 1 time in a week. Unbelievably good at hiding. Not a fan of aclimating a sea star. Had to go from 1.021 to 1.026 SG which took about 5 hours. Was pretty easy to tell if I was drip ping too quickly as the star got mad in a hurry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 AAF will be the death of me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esacjack Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 holy crap thats beautiful! Tank is looking fantastic! Please tell me you arent the guy that paid 90 dollars for the peach hammer? oh and if you have time, if you wouldnt mind sharing your source on the dosing pumps? I need to automate ca/alk as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 No, I got my branching ones for more like $30. The wall ones that I got about a year and a half ago were more, but they're 4 - 5" hammers. I got my pumps here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=400421425617 These aren't cheapest ones, but these can be screwed into the back of a cabinet without any modification except removing the suction cups. I run them off the Apex on a 1 minute per day currently, which is actually 2 minutes due to the way Apex timing works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 AAF will be the death of me. This is beautiful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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