ALNN Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 congrads on the new coral! looks great Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 16, 2013 Author Share Posted March 16, 2013 Thanks ALNN. So bad news about the snails...3 out of 5 have died. I've never had to do more than temp acclimate snails before and have never lost a single one but I found out my salinity is quite a bit higher than my lfs. Theirs was between 1.021 and 1.022 whereas I keep mine at 1.025 (found this out after the fact). I guess a higher salinity is about the only thing detrimental to snails...kind of like throwing salt on a slug. Might get snails off reefcleaners.com anyway since all my lfs had was astreas, not really my favorite. Kind of crazy how snails turn into a clear slime when they die though...just hard to get it all out of the tank. Water change time! Link to comment
xxShaddowxx Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 That gsp looks amazing! Are you gonna let it cover that round section of the rock its on? Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Yeah, I thought about either letting it cover part of the sandbed or the back wall...but I like my black sand, and I like my back wall clean and black so I figured I would grow it out over that section of rock. We'll see how much growth I get out of it. I plan on having ricordias around the base of the rock by the sand and various zoas other places. Hopefully have a few acans in the sand and I'm hoping I can have enough room for this really nice aussie hammer (purple) that my lfs has Anybody have experience with a hammer in this small of a tank? I had a frogspawn in my 10g that kind of took over...grew like a weed but I could always frag. Link to comment
xxShaddowxx Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 I read that hammers will sting your other corals pretty bad with 6 inch sweepers.... If you get one or found out anything i'd love to hear about it because I had been wanting one before I heard that Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 So....since it was payday I thought I would celebrate a tiny bit... Picked up a single (starting to split) head of hammer coral along with a plug of about 15-20 zoas. Half red, half green. Nothing crazy but I know they grow relatively fast so I'll be able to start getting some coverage quicker. I'll have to hold off on ordering my ricorida pack until I start getting back into some overtime...too many bills this time of year and not enough income I'll get pics up when things open. Or when I get a picture since things have already opened for the most part (after only about 2 hours in the tank) Link to comment
xxShaddowxx Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 That sounds awesome, can't wait to see it Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 23, 2013 Author Share Posted March 23, 2013 The hammer 1 hour after acclimation The zoas 1 hour after acclimation Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 23, 2013 Author Share Posted March 23, 2013 New FTS: 24 hours after acclimating the hammer and zoas. The hammer is attached down but I'm not sure where the zoas will end up yet. I will probably cut off as much of the frag plug as I can though. Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 24, 2013 Author Share Posted March 24, 2013 So I started getting in a few goodies for the LED build. Unfortunately I'm still waiting on a few things since it takes a little while to get things from China. But I'm going to be running 1 - 10W white LED in the middle with no optics and 4 - 3W royal blues around the outside with 60 degree optics. They will be on two different plugs so I can have somewhat of a sunset programmed in with timers. So far I have the white and blue LEDs and the driver for the white LEDs. Still waiting on the other driver, a heatsink and the optics and we will be in business. Hopefully it won't shock my corals too bad, right now my fixture has 6 - 1W whites and 3 1W blues. I also have some really cool ideas for making the fixture somewhat appealing as well so I'll keep you guys updated Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share Posted March 26, 2013 Well, I finally got everything else from China...Not sure when I'll be able to start soldering everything together but hopefully soon. Here's a picture of the LEDs laid out on the heat sink, I think it will give me about the best blend and coverage of everything. I fired up one of the blue LEDs from a walwart I had laying around and these things are bright. The "60 degree optics" from China seem a little narrow...so I'm not sure if I will end up using those or not, I may be ok going without optics on everything. No new corals until LED display is done though... Also, I picked up some pvc fittings at the store to build myself a little hanging stand for the light. I plan on painting the whole thing black so hopefully it won't look too tacky. I'm going to run the wires up through the back so they are not visible and then I will be able to adjust the height on the back post if I need to. Any suggestions/comments just let me know! Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share Posted March 26, 2013 Just got the LED fixture put together and it actually WORKED first try!! Kind of excited about this since I really didn't have a clue what I was doing. The color actually turned out pretty good on the tank too. My soldering skills weren't quite where they used to be but I got the job done. Probably not the prettiest but it did turn out really bright, we'll see what kind of pictures I can get with the new LEDs Haven't really finished the final setup of it but it's in place and working great. And it's actually running at a halfway decent temperature without a fan which I'm excited about. For some reason this picture turned out like crap, it's actually more blue than what it shows, the light coming in the window throws off the pictures. Seems like quite a bit more light than my old fixture but I have no way of telling Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share Posted March 26, 2013 Already got some new pictures under the new light. Turned out pretty damn good for my phone... The zoas The GSP The Hammer Link to comment
ALNN Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 yah i love that gsp too! cant wait until i get some! :D Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share Posted March 26, 2013 Yeah, I've been really happy with it. About the longest polyps I've ever seen and it's really bright neon green. It hasn't even been in my tank 2 weeks yet and I've already noticed growth around the edges. We'll see how everything does with the new light. If it grows quick enough, I may just have to frag it... Link to comment
lljdma06 Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 It does look good. I like the different kinds of gsp that are available. My fiance has about four different kinds in his nano. I have two in my pico. Link to comment
foxy316 Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Your In asheville, i think i sold you those frags the other day from shawns lol, tank looks great by the way Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Haha yep, they've been doing great! I'm hoping to get in there for a few more things soon but building the LED kind of drained the extra cash. And I still have to finish it so it's not a ghetto looking POS. Kind of hoping to find some higher end zoas too, about all Shawn had was basic red and green stuff. Still thinking about doing some macros in the display too if I can find some cool ones. Link to comment
foxy316 Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 I understand that, i just dropped 200 in my led kit from groupbuyled was worth it though. Lights look fine, clean up the wires a little but other then that looks great. I should have some higher end stuff this week may bring some frags there just to see how they sell. What are you looking for? PM me. Yeah, just got in some awesome reds, and blue ones from indo, plus some others, should be fragging them up tomorrow. Check out reefcleaner, he has some cool stuff, and the Keydiver guy to, just be safe not get anything that may over take the tank quickly. Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Well, I used the cheap Ebay led's and drivers just to play around. Ordered bulk so I would have extra if I messed up. I'm actually really happy with the color of the light and total in the light itself I think I have about $30 (with the extra LEDs). There's just a lot of other little things I'm gonna have to buy to try to make it look "girlfriend friendly." Hopefully another 15 bucks at the hardware store and it'll be looking pretty professional. I've looked at reefcleaners, I plan on ordering a CUC from there just because they have a lot of different snails that Shawn didn't. Haven't looked into keydiver yet. I want a few thing that will grow rapidly just to help fill out the tank (GSP) but I'm also trying to overload on color, so some different ricordias and other shrooms then some interesting zoas and palys and probably some blastos and acans to finish it off. It's nice having a smaller tank, you can spend money on quality rather than quantity. Link to comment
neowind712 Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Wow nice job on the DIY LED thats great! Tank is coming along very well. That hammer looks like a grape coral. Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 What do you mean by grape coral? Never heard of that before. To me it looks a lot more like a frogspawn but a few of the tentacles do have the hammer shape so it's kind of in between. LFS said hammer though so that's what I'm gonna go with. Looks great with the green w/ pink tips though. Link to comment
lnglostsurfer Posted March 28, 2013 Author Share Posted March 28, 2013 I hate when GSP randomly doesn't open....always makes me think sh*t is hitting the fan. Link to comment
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