THANKS........

NP

What corals did(are you gonna)get with your prize?

Hey Rick.

How do you like the alife? Is it built good?

The ALIFE was the 1st all-in-one tank that I know of.
Here is a link to pics of my old ALIFE 7

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rick_j_g/alb...k_j_g/my_photos

The glass was thick, but the hood was pretty bad. The hinges broke off and it only had a tiny fan in the top of the hood for cooling. The ballast was not electronic, so it was heavy & hot and also in the hood. The lens also had cracking & melting issues & was not air/water tight like on the Nano-Cubes. I think most of them had issues with the ballast/light dieing because the fan blew air out the top, which meant the fan was pulling humid salty tank air into the hood, which fried the lighting.

I did some DIY changes on my ALIFE. The 1st thing I did was switching the fan for a better one & had it pushing air into the hood. I changed out the ballast for an electronic WorkHorse II. I also slowly added more lighting. The ALIFE came originally with one 27 watt 50/50 bulb and I ended up adding two more 27 watt bulbs for a total of 3.27 = 81 watts. I was happy to take it down & setup the NC6 because it was getting a little hazardous and I was worried about being electrocuted by my own mods.

I’d have to say that I’m much happier with the NC6 than the ALIFE 7 because the quality of the hood is much higher on the NC6. All the people that complain about the Nano-Cube quality should have owned an ALIFE first. For the price, Nano-Cubes have great quality, in my opinion. I think I paid $135. for the ALIFE 7 & my NC6 was far less than that, including shipping costs.

Rick

Cool. I am just looking into a small tank for my living room. I was thinking about the NC6 but then I saw an add for the new bio-cube. I was thinking about the 8 gallon. but all new tanks have their faults. so idk yet.

New BioCube? Do you have a link?

Thanks

I wish I did. Its by oceanic. Its not on their website.idk why. its on the back of may's tropical fish hobbyist.

they are slow on updating there website... it still doesnt have the Half Circle tank on there.. when they are selling it in stores now....

Jeeze. You GOTTA keep us updated??? Pics??

Your the winner. Winners have duties to fulfill

Nice tank here buddy.

New Pics 4-28-06

Hammer sweeper going to war against an apstasia that popped after I added rics to my tank


Two headed Toadstool frag starting to color up and get blue polyps.


The right Staghorn branch is doing great.
The branch on the left was broken off a few weeks ago and just recovering.

Very Nice.

Did you spend your prize?

man that one nice hammer. What do you mean war with apstasia?

The sweeper is for stinging other corals and it's the first time this hammer has ever had one.
I first noticed the sweeper this morning and it was stinging an apstasia that showed up right under the hammer.
Coral wars

is that that long tube looking thing is the sweeper coming out of your hammer in the picture?

Yep, that's a sweeper. You can even see the stinging things (I forget the real name) coming out the top.

I went into the office over the weekend to do maintenance / water change on my NC6 and I clipped off the sweeper to keep the hammer from stinging other corals, luckily there was only the one. It’s been my experience that once a sweeper develops it pretty much stings everything it can reach.

Being stung by the hammer’s sweeper either killed the apstasia or it released & moved to a new location.

HAHAH I see. That's a nice tank man... really nice.

The Stingers?? DUH

nematocysts

Oh.....

STINGERS WORKS TOO!!!

How's that xenia doing?

Oh yea, that's right, how is it doing?

The Xenia is doing great.



Every time I do tank maintenance / water changes I scrape off any Xenia that gets too close to live-rock and corals or when it grows up to the water surface.

Little pieces sometimes get cut loose and float around the tank when I trim the Xenia,
so I also religiously remove any of the tiny starters that attaches to live-rock.

The trimmings either gets put into the lower left corner of the tank
to start the upward growth again or flushed if I have too much.

Rick

This clipping of the sweeper causes no long term harm? Does it grow back after awhile? (Necessitating more clipping?) I suppose if the hammer is being fed non-living supplimental food anyways then I guess it doesn't really need the sweeper to sting prey.

SanDiegoIllini


I don’t think cutting off the sweeper hurts the hammer much. Sweepers are used a weapon, not for food gathering.
No new sweepers have developed since the apstasia that caused the problem is no longer within reach of the hammer.

Can you please a FTS asap?

Thanks


Jesse

very nice.

great tank. the xenia looks great and i really like the rics that you have in the lowere right hand corner. i also like your 24gl vive that you did. have you gotten your vents yet for it. what kind did you get, gray or blue leg?
ADAM

Hey Adam

I'm getting three vents on Sunday from Dane @ JUNGLEBOX.NET


Update

I did confirm that the Vents in my care are officially of the blue leg line
(although I can’t tell the difference between blue leg & gray leg lines,
they look more of a greenish tint to me)

they're a nice frog. i have a breeding group of them. at first you don't see much of them but with time you will see and hear more from them. at one point i didn't see anything in their vert tank for 6 months. i got scared that they died so i made a new tank for them and ripped apart the old tank to find them. now that they are in a reg 10gl hor. tank i see more of them. plus they started to breed.
ADAM

Your tank is beautiful. Very inspiring... in fact, since I first saw it a couple months ago I've been planning on adding Xenia to the back wall of my tank. I think it looks awesome, great idea. If you ever want to sell off any of your extras, let me know! I'm in SD too.

Lindsey

Lindsey,

No problem
Are you going to the SD frag swap on 6/24/06?
I can bring some Xenia for you to the swap.
I plan on bringing frags of other corals out of my tank, too.

Frag Swap / SDReefs BBQ

-Rick

nice tank. i too like that xenia.

shivametimbas
Jump on a plane, make it to the frag swap
& you too can have some Xenia
-Rick

man i'd like to.

Me too.

Thanks, unfortunately I have to work that day until 6. By the time I could get there it would be close to 7, it'll be way over by then. Too bad it's not this Saturday. Thanks a lot anyway Rick! Maybe next time.

Lindsey

Hint Hint


Your

YGPM

All from my hint.... lol

Hey Rick-Long time no chat and it's been a while since you've updated this thread with pics. Been a LONG time since I've been on NR.com. Lots of things have changed and lots of things haven't changed.

Still got the old Alife in storage? Mine has seen better days but it's still kicking with the same single 27W light.

NC6 is looking quite nice.

You flusk LIVE cORAL?!?!?!?!? Whats wrong with you?!?!?!?

YOU SHOULD SELL CUSTOM TANKS....YOUR WAY! Guide US Obee-whan!


I'm a FNG with no marine tank yet. I can't justify the funds at this time, BUT I Think a nano could work. If you could go back, knowing then what you know now, what would be your small budget starter tank be? I remember the small clownfish from my scuba experiences and will have one or two depending on what YOU tell me.

ya i would totally buy a 6 nc from you for my mom

The NC6 is still alive & well, here is a link to the two year update.
{ I promise to take better pics in the future ... ... }

I also wanted to post a link to SD Reefs September TOTM which I was pretty proud of.

-Rick

Hey Rick, your tank is looking awesome. I just got a biocube 14g and am going to be doing some of the mods you have done but in particular I wanted to know if you could explain how you drilled your 2nd champer? If you could tell me step by step how you did that and what equipment I need that woudl be appreciated.

ZooZ, thanks for the kudos.
The back chambers are plastic so are super easy to drill, the hard part is finding a drill small enough to fit into the tank. Some people like to use a bulkhead for the outlet of the 2nd pump, but IMO the penetration does not need to be 100% water tight. I just used a drill bit that made a hole that was a tight fit for the hose to hold the outlet and it works fine.
Rick

Insane man.. And on your desk. Thats is nuts. You must have alot of time on your hands.. I bet your an accountant.

42 Month Update

-Rick