update time, finally filled with RO/DI water, salt and rocks! let the cycle begin!

sorry my orange shirt is too bright


using remote flash and just messing around





Sump


skimmer getting a workout




i dont have an overall shot since i lent my wide angle lens to my friend. ill take more when the water clears and when i have the lens back. this tank is screaming for a light and MP40. it will finish it off nicely

I like the scape like that. Lots of places for corals and open places for fish to swim. Keep it up

more skimmer pics =) starting to skim something

That is one slick sump!

As for the skimmer i can smell it from here... oh wait nevermind i just cleaned mine and the smell is just stuck in my nose.

God that stuff is foul!

thanks =) i have some regrets on the sump...if i can do it all over again, i would completely change out the design (larger skimmer and return pump area. swap the skimmer and return position so theres less bends and distance for the return pump to travel and shallower baffles)

other than that im quite happy with the setup so far. now i just need lights and MP40 to finish the tank off.

wow that tank looks gorgeous and i love the stand. do you have any worries that when you turn off the pump or power outage that the water in the sump might overflow?

no problem there. good thing the sump is large enough to accommodate water flowing back

Drill a hole in the return outlet into the main tank just below the water level. If the pump shuts down and the water gets below the hole it breaks siphon.

yup nemmy is right. this will allow the nozzles to be aimed into the tank instead of at the surface and still wouldnt empty out your tank and overflow the sump

its been less than a week and my tank cycled already. its nice to buy rocks from an established system. some hitch hikers survived. i have an extremely nice BROWN mushroom, some other clear shrooms, around the tank as well as a snail roaming around my tank. tested my parms and everything checked out. ammonia is zero, nitrate is aorund 0-5, ph is 8.2. havent checked calc and alk yet since they are not important right now.

as soon as im done with finals (monday) i will start to build the light for the tank and get a few fish to test out the water.

pictures of the hitch hikers



FTS of the tank totally crystal clear


i bought a tomato clown today to see if it survives. i cant find any reason for it not to since test shows everything is a-okay and the shrooms and snail all survived.

This is a gorgeous tank and its nice to see something so modern in design. I LOVE your rock work. I just set up a similar tank a couple of days ago and you have inspired me to re-scape. I'm totally in love with your set up and can't wait to watch it develop!

thanks megan. i couldnt of pulled it off if it werent for my friend who helped. it helps to have an extra pair of eyes. you going to have a build thread on your new tank?

update on the clown. so i didnt find him dead this morning. still swimming in this corner he now calls home. gotta find a way of feeding him. so he doesnt starve. i will be setting up lights very soon

can i has lights?







the little guy is still alive in my tank!!

sweet rock scape i love it.

Yummy! Looks beautiful!

Things are looking great! The system and the scape rock! Can't wait to see this tank mature.

thanks all

i cant wait till the system matures as well.but that requires lots of money for new corals and fish

right now im dealing with high PO4 (1-3ppm), probably leaching from the rocks or the 20 cubes of frozen food...im leaning towards the food more. i added a bag of phosban to the tank so i should see it go down in a day or 2. my other tank had some po4 in there as well and it was gone within 1 day when i added the phosban

where are the halides???

Now you're talkin.

went with the more energy efficient T5HO...besides, a TON more bulb choices

sweetttt

thanks =)

went and bought more fish yesterday..didnt take any pictures but ill take some tonight. also i started to move some corals over. the zoas are reacting pretty good to the new tank, as expected. ill move more softies and LPS over later. ill let the fish settle in their new home. the started eating when i dropped pellets in. i guess they are really hungry.

wow now I always love your stuff but wow!!!!!

how did i miss this!

Tank is so sweet. Need to put it in your sig.

Now you need to tell me how you got that skimmer for 100 bucks.

Dang Son!

thanks =) maybe i should put this in the members tank area



i will when this tank is stocked...its too bare right now, slowly emptying my 20 gal tank into this tank and i still have LOTS of room left for other corals.

look at my location and you will know why.

NICE LIGHTS!!!!!!

sighness, my fish has ick and had to take all of them out for treatment. which means my rock scape has to come down and i can never recreate what i had before. spent the whole day yesterday trying to get it close to before or come up with something better. with a sore back, prune hands and hours of swearing, i still cant scape it to something i like. need to take a break from it and come back to it another time and see if i can come up with something.

sucks a bunch man but im sure u will come up witj some thing even nicer.

hopefully just gotta keep at it and try out different things

blahhh...my first casualty, purple firefish got beat up pretty bad in the QT tank by my dwarf flame angel. i quickly put it into a breeder box but i noticed it too late and it didnt make it.

maybe i should of put it in my small tank, but i didnt want to risk introducing ick and killing off my fish either.

sighness

picher time!

since as i mentioned, theres ick in the tank and its affecting the fish, so i had to tear down the whole tank to catch all the fish.

here they are stuck in a plastic bin



heres the fish list:
powder brown tang
juvenile emperor angel
dwarf flame angel
tomato clown
i THINK a Black Combtooth Blenny
6 blue damsels (which im might give away later, dont know why my parents talked me into getting them),
4 chromis (which i will end up getting more later)

im expected to get flamed for this but oh well, its a QT tank, everyone is happy eating like a pig and no sign of stress. so as long as they are happy ill let them be. im also doing 1-2 days water changes in the tub to bring salinity down to 1.009 and reduce ammonia/nitrates, but im suspecting the levels are quite low. none of the fish seems to be affect...oh yeah, this is hong kong, its the norm =P

also, after a long week, my family finally agreed on a landscape that looks alright. they all love the previous one, but as most of you know its near impossible to get the exact same scape as before.



i moved more corals from my 20 gal to the new tank. the newest addition is the blue maxima clam and the 40+ head frog spawn.

yes you heard that right!

FORTY, FOUR ZERO, 40 HEADS

i never knew my frog spawn grow that much! i know its big, but not 40 head big! and its only going to grow bigger, i can see baby frog spawns branching out from the base. this is going to be the main show piece of the tank. ill take a picture of it when its not pissed off.

this is what it looks like when i first got it, it had around 10 heads, but half of it died, probably bad water.

that is a huge frog spawn but no where near the size of the world record hammer coral which has at least 150 heads. look it up on youtube.

Question about the Stand. Is that Wood or Formica?

i know its not any record breaker, im just surprised it got so big =)



the stand is made out of laminated wood.

moved my final clam over...it was suck on the class so i had to cut him loose. i was scared ill kill it in the process, but everything went smoothly and he was freed from the glass with a few cuts.



my other clam


i will need to get some top down pics...to get the full color of my clams

moved more corals over...toad stool


my soon to be zoa island


FTS


side FTS


before and after pic


after


the end result of my other tank

before

after

getting really REALLY tired of my cheap pump and valve...

problem 1.
as water evaporates from my tank, the water level in the chamber where my pump sits gets lower and lower. as this is happening, the flow rate slows down. then when i add topoff water, the level in that chamber rises and flow increases again

which leads to

problem 2.
its a ##### to set the damn drain valve (herbie style). i would have to constantly adjust it so that it wouldnt suck air, or rise water level so high in the overflow that it will not surface skim. i have a ball valve on the drain and i can ONLY set the water level in the overflow so that it sucks air, or waterlevel is too high. i dont have a fine enough adjustment so that it sits inbetween.

this is truly ####### me off. would a better build quality pump eliminate my fluctuating flow? would a PVC globe valve allow a much much finer adjustment?

Sorry for this question as I don't have a tank with an overflow to the sump so no first hand knowledge here. But aren't you supposed to have the drain just go full bore, no valves, into the sump. And isn't the control supposed to be on the pump, which should be rated to handle all the overflow can throw at it?

a new member of the "f plumbing" club!

a gate valve is much easier to control than a ball valve. i'll never go back to ball valves again! anyway, i would certainly try that before pulling your hair out too much.



not for a herbie. the valve on a herbie goes on the drain out of the overflow, and you just try to match it to whatever you've got the return flow running at (you can also have a valve on the return flow, but you set that at whatever you want to choke the return pump's flow down to, and then you match the drain valve to that flow so that you keep the water level in your overflow between the main drain and the emergency drain).

i tried to find a globe valve big enough for my return piping, but so far its been pretty hard. most places dont carry them, or dont carry the size i need. maybe i need to order it from the states if needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EJWeDUiSaI

no one likes a video of clownfish hosting a nem??

anyways, tested my mag in my tank and it is 1000ppm. inorder to rise it to 1300ppm i need around 1.1L of brightwell's mag or 1.6L kent tech M

theres gotta be an easier way

Use the powdered mag like the one by seachem. The liquid supplements are essentially the same thing as the powdered ones just diluted with ro water.

Ps nice aquascaping it reminds me of Pride Rock in the lion king.

thanks, ill go look if there is any in hong kong

i use the seachem powdered mag, too. much better bang for your buck than the liquid.

cool, i will have to look into that

anyways, new pics with fish.



trying my hands on kinetic style pics


my fat blenny...wont stop eating algae

tomato clown and his home


sps is enjoying the water

Wow beautiful pictures! This tank is really starting to shape up!

thanks, i was surprized how much corals my 20gal holds. i had enough in there to make my 100gal tank not look too bare.

great pics!

love the blenny. wish i had something that would eat algae.