Looking good! I love that mod of the light fixture...

I just got my CADlights 22g in and my pump doesnt seem to fit in the chamber. Me and some of the guys from work have been moving it at different angles all over the place.

Question is, did you have this problem with your 12g?

Thanks Jon, Ian, and Phil!
I'll get more pictures of the modified fixture soon. It was quite late last night and I only snapped a few.

Here's some water tests:
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 1.0 ppm
Nitrate: 40 ppm
SG: 1.028
Temp: 80.1 F

Looks like I'm closing in on the end of the cycle! Time will tell...
To be honest, I haven't even started thinking of what I want to stock.

reefnoob, my tank arrived completely assembled in-box. Can't help ya there.

hey man i like the tank. youre doing an awsome job. should be done cycling in a day or 2. bet youre stoked

can't wait to see this come along. cadlights tanks are so clean looking, and with LEDs it's gonna be a sweet setup.

Awesome dude! That is what I was aiming for before building my acrylic/PVC fixture. How are you cooling it? Did you cut a hole in the top of fixture?

Nope, I haven't done any cutting. I might cut an 80mm hole on top at some point, but I really like the original look I've achieved.
I have a total of four 30mm fans; one at each corner. They replaced the black end caps that housed the switches and such. They fit snugly with a little double sided tape on all four sides to deaden the metal-on-plastic vibration. Two fans on one side pull air in, and two fans on the opposite side push air out. I bought an AC adapter that can run up to 5 12V fans. They keep it cool, but they're a bit loud. I've thought about throwing a digital thermometer on the heat sink to see what temperatures I get when the fans are on and off.

Like I said, I still need to mount the dimming pots somewhere, which will probably require drilling. They just hang off the side.

I also need to get some three-prong outlet timers before leaving for the holiday, to get that dawn-dusk effect. Right now I just manually switch the lights on in the morning before I leave, and turn them off 8 to 11 hours later.

I'll have to get some more pictures soon to show the craftsmanship.

Wow awesome job on the LEDS spence! The lighting is very even. Im always impressed at DIY's since im incapable of doing my own. Great job

You already spent so much just get a reefkeeper. For 99 dollars you can run all of your lighting and make sure you never fry your tank if the heater stays on. Do it

JUST DO IT!

Quick update:
Over the holiday Nitrites finally hit zero. A 40% water change dropped Nitrates to 5ppm. Sorry for the horrid photo that follows, but I added a simple starter clean up crew.
2 Turbos
2 Ceriths
2 Nassarius
2 Blue leg hermits
2 Scarlet leg hermits
1 Skunk cleaner shrimp

Algae grew up quite a bit over the holiday...

I'm borrowing an emerald crab for a week or two to see if it can chomp down on some GHA.

Within SECONDS of placing it in the tank, the emerald started devouring!

Algae should be history in a few weeks with this CUC bunch, consistent water changes and minimal food inputs.

Agreed! I would be questioning your Ro/Di Unit... What is the TDS?

Raise your MAG levels!

CADLIGHTS 12G

My ro/di unit is perfectly functioning. I use my Millipore Super Q at work. Reagent grade water--can't beat that. I verified that with AZDesertRat. He's used the same unit.

I think the GHA is just result of a heavy, heavy cycle. So with that, the emerald is only temporary. I use ddh2o salt, which has appropriate levels of magnesium included, if I recall.

Releasing crabs into your system that you don't want to keep long term is going to result in you removing all of your rock when you want him out. Why not just take it out now and scrub it and be done with it. Cucs rarely do anything to gha.

Good luck

Get a MAG test and Kent M and raise your MAG to 1500... It worked for a buddy of mine in Dallas...

H20 only comes n at 1350

so where are you buying your livestock spencer?

Agreed, a good scrub is effective.

My blue-legged hermits in my old tank were pretty good at munching mine, but I first had to cut it down by scrubbing the rock with a toothbrush. In addition, I got a Flame Angel who did a good job at pecking the rocks clean, but they are of course too big for a 12g nano tank.

Actually, they're chomping away at it quite quickly. Removal of the crab, when the day comes, will be easy.



I'll definitely be trying it.



CritterCo and Aquarium Concepts in Shreveport.

Tank looks nice Spencer. How's the firefish doing?

I have found that Aquarium Concepts is rude and obnoxious. Once when I called to see if they had something, they snapped at me and said they were only a maintenance company! WTF?? Maybe I'll give them another try. I wonder if they have any skunk cleaner shrimp? Hmmm....

On another note, how is that UPS working as a backup for your tank? Have you unplugged it to see how long it lasts? I have a ReefKeeper so I couldn't use a UPS as a truly automatic backup. I'd have to physically unplug the powerhead and heater from the Reefkeeper and plug them into the backup.

The fish has found a nice little crevasse to hang out. Can't even see the bugger very well.

Aquarium Concepts had skunk cleaners last time I was there, though that was two weeks ago. However, I purchased mine from CritterCo.

Honestly, I haven't tried a live test of the UPS. With the heater, pump, and power head plugged in (lights off), the LCD display shows 96min of runtime.

Give him time, he'll get settled in and he'll be out looking around, especially when you feed him!

I'll try AQ tomorrow on the shrimp. CritterCo hasn't had anything very appealing the last few stops I've made in there.

CritterCo and Aquarium Concepts in Shreveport.
[/quote]
really. will have to go check it out. nice selection?

AC gets some nice Frags in every month but you need to be there when they come in...

CC... Frags...Eehhhhh... Could be better... but they do have several types of fish and Inverts...

ill have to contact them.. looking for a close place to go buy coral. hate ordering them, seems so risky

Update!
Something new....


Why yes, I did get a purple firefish. It went in a couple days ago. Quite active, and already eating frozen brine!

Video

Parameters are in check--temperature-80, pH-8.2, ammonia-0, nitrites-0, nitrates-10ppm, phosphates-0, calcium-460mg/L, and carbonate hardness-8. However, SG is always a little high-1.029. Really need to pick up a refractometer.

GHA has come down quite a bit! All that remains is a little bit on one rock, which will be scrubbed soon; and some on the back wall, which will be removed via scalpel. The blue and red leg hermits have been taking care of it quite a bit. The emerald helped, so he will be going back soon.

Still taking it slow.

Bonus picture

2nd Update Today!

Sorry for the second update, but I feel it's necessary. I was doing a waterchange today and noticed something unusual move across the sand.

Had to move all the rock, but I'm GLAD I did so! Just caught this bugger:

The bastard already ate one of my snails. I'm just happy to get rid of the incessant clicking noises! What to do with him now....

At least I got a nice aquascape out of it! Also got to scrub the nuisance algae off one of the rocks. Back wall will be fixed soon.

Tank is rockin! I'm very happy to report the GHA is under control! There's a tiny bit growing on the back wall and the front rock, but nothing a good scrubbing can't fix.

Latest FTS.


Something new? Always wanted one.


Firefish is being a little territorial, though. We'll see...


Lastly, a decent shot of my skunk cleaner.


Oh, and I placed an order for one of these:

Tank is looking great dude!

You will love your Vortech!

Not only does it provide excellent flow (No dead spots) It keeps your tank clean...

looks awesome. very clean! you can definitely see where the corals will fit in!

what kinda pistol is that??? i have a bullseye pistol. take it to paradise petshop and talk to tarrance

I identified the hitch hiker as a blue legged pistol shrimp. Not the invert I wanted in my tank. It's gone now!

I recently identified a few more hitch hikers as spaghetti worms and quite possibly a gorilla crab.

wow were did you get your rock from for it be so.... live.....? pistol shrimps and rogue crabs. thats pretty cool.. nice tank by the way spencer

http://www.sealifeinc.net/

Highly recommended.

very nice.. funny how we take prode in the grossest rock we can find. when you gonna put some coral in that thing?

At some point I'll put some coral in it. Maybe never at this point....

Woke up this morning to the clownfish being devoured by the nassarius snails. All of my parameters are in check (pH8.2, 0 NH3, 0 NO2, 5 NO3, 80F). The fish was drip acclimated. There are a couple of things I see that could have been culprit:
- The fish was from Petco
- SG is 1.028 (but could be my hydrometer)
- The firefish was being territorial and was nipping at the clownfish fins
- Stress (which can be associated with any of the above)

So with that, I scooped what was left of the fish out of the tank and flushed it away. I did a water change on Sunday, but I set up two gallons mixing this morning to perform later this evening.

RIP clown fish.

wow that bites.. hey ive been through 6 fish before i gave up and my coral are healthy lol. well a few were lost to bail-out. the rest just disappeared. yeah yeah dont flame me. i had "hope". i wont get another fish until i get the screen top built

clown looked like it had very irritated gills in the pic and a few particles of ick. Remember to ALWAYS soak food in garlic and amino vitamins to keep the fish big and strong.

I'll keep that in mind, should I ever pick another clownfish up again. In hindsight, the gills were reddened... However, I can't figure out what signs of ich it displayed, if it even had it. The specks of white in the photo are just particles in the water. Petco=never again.
Need to order a refractometer to make sure the SG is good and proper. I mix 1 pound D-DH2Ocean salt to 2.9 gallons, which is roughly 1 cup to 2 gallons. Hydrometers suck.

The Vortech MP10 came in today. I'm fairly pleased with it thus far...

So I went ahead and tested it out with the wire hanging, instead of attaching it to the tank, and got quite a bit of vibration. First impression: Bad.

After toying around with it for a bit, I said what the heck... I bought it to give some good flow for the livestock that comes later so I wired it all up and secured the headunit to the door of my stand. It's so much quieter with the cord held taut.

Anyways, it's worthless without pictures. I'm sure I'll get bored and make a video of some wave action soon. Enjoy.


FTS


Full setup

Looks good... I like it!

I would lose the foam guard unless you feel like cleaning it every day... It does cut down on the flow when it gets clogged... I guess it is a matter of preference though...

New addition... Tailspot Blenny!
Overnighted from Florida and drip acclimated for close to three hours. Colors show signs of stress, but surely will go away within a day.
Keeping the tank LEDs and MP10 off for the day to let him settle.




Skunk cleaner saying WTF is that?

Edit: 1/29/10
More pictures....

Cool! I like those Tailspot's... Congrats!

"Hey, look at me!"

I've always liked these little guys...full of personality. I've heard that they can be a challenge to keep properly fed over the long term. Hope yours does well!

Well, after living for almost a month, the purple firefish died today.
I just don't understand. Parameters are wonderful. It was eating like a pig!

I might add that I noticed it breathing very heavily and not in its usual bolthole after the lights went off last night. I noticed the hole a little covered with sand (probably due to the MP10) but thought nothing of it.

Sad day once again...

That is a shame. I've only tried one fish previously in my nano, a Six-Line Wrasse, and he looked healthy and ate lots of Pods, but inexplicably died one week after introduction.

My brand new Nocturnus Goby is acting very odd, so it may not make it either.

On a brighter note, I've had better luck with inverts. I had a Fire Shrimp that lived for over a year before I gave it away recently.

think the new blenny might've been bothering it?

Nah. The blenny keeps to himself. I actually would've thought the opposite.
The tailspot is pretty funny to watch. If disturbed, the camouflage kicks in and he bobs up and down like a swaying tree branch.

Wow? That sucks Spencer... Sorry to hear that man!