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Hoob's 40g ZeroEdge


Hoobahans

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SWEET Tank !!! love it

 

You have this in your dorm room correct? Does the water flowing over the edge or pumps create any undesirable noise in your bedroom?

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Glad to hear you got the flooding solved :)

 

I see the tank is overflowing nicely now that the break-in period is over. What is cleaning the glass like?

 

As for the bluestripe, gorgeous fish, I love them. They will act as cleaners for cryptic fish, so that could be what it's trying to do when it buddies up with other fish in the rocks.

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Thanks everybody for the comments!

 

kinetic,

 

I your right about it being a zoa eating starfish, I didn't realize that until I had saved it from the drain. Dumb move, but there was only one (for now/as far as I can see) and my zoas are doing great, so fingers crossed. The return/check-valve problem is a long story. I've written most of it in the first two pages, but basically I was supposed to get the check-valve with the tank but did not. I did a rough plumbing job just to get the thing running--the plight of impatience--and waited for the check valve which was supposed to arrive within a week. It didn't arrive for a month although I was constantly under the impression that it was only a few days away. Needless to say I learned my lesson, although I do think that it was worth it just to have the thing up and running. No harm no foul I guess.

 

StevieT,

 

Actually I get two rooms so I sleep in the back room and there's no problem. The noise from the zeroedge is not really noticeable, however the drain in the 24g nanocube fuge gurgles a lot and gets pretty annoying.

 

Rene,

 

I bet that's the case. I noticed the pipefish cozying up with the clown as well as the tang as if it was trying to clean it. Really fascinating little fish. If I had know how sweet pipefish were I would have had them as the main tank occupant. Future tank plans...

 

As for glass cleaning, it really isn't as difficult as it would seem. For whatever reason not much algae grows on the outer surface so I mainly clean the inner. What's cool about the open top is that I can just stick my hand it and wipe it off with my palm. It works well and goes a lot faster than using a scrub/scraper. Although for the hard stuff I have a plastic scraper on a stick.

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Nice tank. I have a few suggestions and questions.

 

First, I have a feeling it's going to flood a few more times. For the main drain, the zero edge has a drain box that's lowers the water below the motes. Within that drain box I believe they put a sponge or something to help muffle the sound. Well, if the sponge will starts to build stuff on it and you will need to replace it or else the tank will flood.

 

Another solution to this is to install emergency drains that don't rely on water entering the drain box. Drill a hole in the mote to fit a bulkhead and have a pipe that raises the entrance to the bulkhead just above the normal water line of the mote. Trust me, it's really worth it and saves a lot of headache. I'm really surprised they haven't threatened you on water damages, I've flooded my dorm before (only the 10 gallons from my sump) and they said if I did it again it could cost me 10k. If your dumping your entire display that's pretty crazy.

 

Second, I'm curious as to how you feed your fish, do you unplug the pump or do you have it on a switch that you can shut on and off? I recommend connecting ur pump to an American DJ.

 

Also, mag pipes are okay pumps but I would invest in a different pump. They aren't made to be shut off and on and they are prone to fail because they use an impeller. It's might be a big hassle but I would invest in a good external pump (like an iwaki).

 

Third, evaporation must be crazy. Must be around 2 gallons a day? I didn't see a float switch or RO/DI system and was wondering how you added water. I was invest in one if I were you.

 

Fourth, did you have to add that powerhead in the tank because there was no random water flow with the mag 18? If you want to be free of the powerhead, you can drill two more holes in your tank and install an oceansmotions which will help nice.

 

Fifth, having that loc-line split like that at the very end, does that cut down on a lot of the flow? I tried that before and found that it cause too much chaotic turbulence and caused me to lose a lot of flow.

 

Anyway, sorry for this being so long but it's just constructive criticism. I built an overflowing cube (twice) and those are the few problems that I ran into.

 

check out my tank to give you some ideas: Overflowing Starphire Cube

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It's been a while since I have updated. The plumbing is all fixed and a check valve is added, so that's good news. My sps is starting to color up again which was a huge relief as I was not sure how they would take to the new arangement. I actually am seeing incredibly fast growth on the sps and a lot of dead skeleton is being reclaimed. Also, I had a bad feather caulerpa problem that has finally coming under control after I did a major water change and fixed up the fuge.

 

Best news of all: I was checking out the sole lfs, which never has anything at all (the owner hates saltwater) and something caught my eye in a tank of three-year old lr. There was a blue-striped pipefish swiming in the corner! Nearly full grown, fat and healthy. I asked the guy there about it and he told me that got it well over a year ago but that no one had seen it for months until that day. They had long since erased its price so they gave it to me for $25. That's about average for online orders but an incredible deal considering the prices I see at that LFS. The blue-stripe gets along great with my clown and banded pipefish.

 

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What do you feed your pipefish and how often?

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kinktoa:

 

Wow, a lot to say here. First off, thanks for the suggestions. They are always appreciated and the experience you have is great. The main drain I thought might be a problem so I arranged the sponge to give flow-around paths for water. That way even if the sponges were made of concrete the tank would still drain. Also, I put egg-crate over the sponge and lay down a strip of filterfloss in a really thin layer. I change it daily and it keeps all the crud out of the sponge.

 

It wasn't actually the whole display that dumped. About 2/3 of the water in the display drained, but the vast majority of it filled the sump and then filled the four inches or so of water that the stand holds. I know the custodian and residence life staff on campus so I get off pretty easy...and I worked very hard to make sure there was no damage to the hall where ever possible.

 

I don't turn off the pump to feed. I spot feed the coral and the fish I just feed carefully by hand. I am hoping to get an American dj box, but at the moment I'm broke.Same things with the pump. Short budget meant that I get by with what I can. I got the mag18 cheap and since I rarely turn it off it works fine for me.

 

I have an jbj ato in the sump and a 25 gallon reservoir in the stand. I work in a research lab on campus and care for the aquariums in the bio department so I get unlimited access to DI water from the labs.I added the power heads because they were lying around and I like a lot of flow.

 

The oceanmotions would be great but seem unnecessary seeing as the power heads work for me and I don't mind seeing them. One day it would be great to get all the nice equipment (my lights look awful) but right now I'm getting by on what I already had.

 

The y's in the lockline definitely do bring down the flow, but not so much that it caused any problem. For a while I was only running one of the outlets so there were three ends instead of the six I have now. The flow was better but not as well distributed. The way it's set up now I get exactly the flow I would like.

 

Thanks again for the input. Your tank was actually the reason that I got into the overflowing tanks. I love your tank. You did good work!

 

 

What do you feed your pipefish and how often?

 

 

I don't feed them at all. My tank and 24g fuge are crawling with pods and they provide all the food for the pipes. I tried to feed them a few things before but they showed no interest. I can actually watch them hut and snap up the pods, it's pretty sweet. AdriftQuasar,Thanks man! That's always great to hear. Sweet name, btw.

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Few update pics.

 

I redid the aquascaping on the top. It doesn't look much different in the pics, but I spent a good two hours rearranging things slightly and I think it is a lot better. The cave is much larger and more open. There is also now a lot more space on the top. I am getting a load of new zoa frags in this week, I hope, and need the space for them. Last order of the year.

 

Plumbing pic per tcobos's request:

 

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Left top:

 

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Right Top:

 

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Frontal:

 

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Room shot. As you can see the tank is the highlight of the room to say the least:

 

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I keep on taking these shots. They are my favorite for some reason. This is a two-second shot that gave pretty good depth of field.

 

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Thanks, where do you go to school? I am dreading having to move the tank at the end of the semester. It's not the funnest part of my year. Finals and tank move.

 

I am at MSOE(milwaukee school of engineering)

 

We are lucky enough to be on trimesters, so they dont close down the dorms during breaks, especially since a variety of people stay for them. We also dont seem to have any pesky tank rules, infact, our only rule is that it needs to be able to live underwater 24hrs to be kept in a tank.

 

As such, I get this crazy urge every time I see a good deal on a really big tank :D

 

Your pictures of your pipefish have tempted me, I am gonna have to look into them once I do my 40g upgrade and it settles down.

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i really enjoyed reading your thred. you have a beautifull tank. and its the firt zeroedge tank ive ever seen. its very much so AWESOME!

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Thanks guys. Glad you enjoyed the thread.

 

 

Some macros from today (I have a neurobiology test coming up. I always take lots of pics in the days coming up to a test because I stay in my room to study but never seem to get around to it):

 

Check out the sponge under this frag

 

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This conch looks kind of funny...

 

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A few corals are on the road to recovery after a difficult move:

 

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The rest are looking alright:

 

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Thanks everybody for the comments!

 

kinetic,

 

I your right about it being a zoa eating starfish, I didn't realize that until I had saved it from the drain. Dumb move, but there was only one (for now/as far as I can see) and my zoas are doing great, so fingers crossed. The return/check-valve problem is a long story. I've written most of it in the first two pages, but basically I was supposed to get the check-valve with the tank but did not. I did a rough plumbing job just to get the thing running--the plight of impatience--and waited for the check valve which was supposed to arrive within a week. It didn't arrive for a month although I was constantly under the impression that it was only a few days away. Needless to say I learned my lesson, although I do think that it was worth it just to have the thing up and running. No harm no foul I guess.

 

Yeah I heard about the problems of getting the check valve =( At least everything went well in the end. Lesson learned I guess =)

 

I actually found a few of these in my tank recently too, but amazingly my zoas seem to be ok. They usually only come out at night. I'm not sure if there's any pest removal methods for this one other than find and remove... let's hope no more pop up. But I'd suggest checking your glass every few nights or so after the lights have gone out for a few hours to double check.

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I've gotten a lot better at macro shots so I'll probably be unloading a few too many into this thread...

 

This lepestrea is hard to get a good pic of. Today the sun was shinning right onto it and I get great depth of field. It sucks that I have to compress is so much to put it on the site, in the original form it had amazing detail

 

DSC_0001_NEF.jpg

 

Jade-Rings

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Here's a 60 second exposure of a mushroom's mouth. Again, it was a lot better before compression:

 

DSC_0004_NEF1.jpg

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Here's a 60 second exposure of a mushroom's mouth. Again, it was a lot better before compression:

 

DSC_0004_NEF1.jpg

 

The shadows across the mushroom's surface are great. No substitute for natural light!

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In an effort to put off homework...I decided to take moonlight LED-only time exposure pictures. These are all with a macro lens and a minute exposure at f32.

 

The colors are for real, I didn't mess around with saturation or balance at all. I did autosharpen and autocorect, that's all! In all honesty, they don't do the real things justice. I have a cord of 20 LEDs on the tank, they light it up very well at night.

 

Eagle Eyes

 

DSC_0007_NEF.jpg

 

Green Zoas

 

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RPE

 

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Frag Rack

 

DSC_0009_NEF.jpg

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In an effort to put off homework...I decided to take moonlight LED-only time exposure pictures. These are all with a macro lens and a minute exposure at f32.

 

The colors are for real, I didn't mess around with saturation or balance at all. I did autosharpen and autocorect, that's all! In all honesty, they don't do the real things justice. I have a cord of 20 LEDs on the tank, they light it up very well at night.

 

Eagle Eyes

 

DSC_0007_NEF.jpg

 

Green Zoas

 

DSC_0008_NEF.jpg

 

RPE

 

DSC_0010_NEF.jpg

 

Frag Rack

 

DSC_0009_NEF.jpg

 

WOW!

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