ssirishpride Posted March 6, 2007 Author Share Posted March 6, 2007 I'll start with the update part of this post. The skimmer works great, it's finally dialed in and pulling out brown nasty skimmate. The liverock looks great, I blow it off with a baster twice a day, and it is looking better everyday. I will pull most of it out and set it in some water from the tank this weekend to brush off any leftover debris I have missed. That way I can also clean up the sand with a siphon hose. When I put the rock back in I will try to aquascape it into my atoll design I keep pic. in my head. And grab some of the smaller pieces and plop them into the aquafuge. We'll see how that goes. PA got me my refracto in short order so I must say that they are a great company to deal with. A perfect 10 across the board for them. Funny I haven't seen any type of ammonia spike yet, I am gonna buy either Lamotte or sailfert tests, I have gotten to lazy with these dip strips. any-hoo I'll snap some pics of the tank tonight. Does anybody feel that hooking up the lighting at this point would be benificial? Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share Posted March 19, 2007 It has been a couple weeks since writing on here but I have been really sick with a stomach thing. Plus my tank has been cycling for 3 weeks now and I have just been observing along the way of it's progress. I test everyday, and have had the water tested at the local reef store. Everything is on target for this time along. No ammonia, no trites, <10 trates. Ph, salinity, Kh all in proper mesurements also. I added 4 maragrita snales, which really do nothing to eat the tiny algea I am devloping. I ordered my cleanup crew from Ken @ Sealife. More snales and 2 red reef hermits. If the crabs give me trouble in the future I will put them in the aquafuge. And the light for that comes in tommorw, so I can get some chaeto to get the trates down to -0-. I'll attach some pics of the current aquascape since I haven't posted in a while. Link to comment
mic209 Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 just curious, i notice u mention PA a lot, what is PA? Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted March 20, 2007 Author Share Posted March 20, 2007 Premium Aquatics. They are in Indy. And also have a sales dept. online @ premiumaquatics.com a lot of the people here recomend them, so I felt comfortable going there. Link to comment
RedTurq Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Sweet Tank! Please keep us updated. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 wow, i totally forgot to update my thread. well let me finish drip acclimating some snails and crabs and i'll give an update with pics. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 5, 2007 Author Share Posted April 5, 2007 ok so here's the update in long form. the tank stablized pretty quickly let's say 3 weeks +/- a couple days. all the parameters are stable and I have been using a few different test brands as well as a couple different locals to make sure everything is proper. also bought a salifert cal. test to keep tabs on my calcium uptake as I start to add corals. current levels are fine @ >400. which brings me to the living creatures in my pod. here's the current list. - snails: 4 nerite 3 margarita 3 cerith 2 nassarius 4 astrea 2 trochus 3 ninja star 2 baha cerith - 3 pep. shrimp - 1 nano harlequin serpent star - 1 nano serpent star - 3 scarlet reef hermits - 1 true perc. as far as the hardware update and upgrades heres what is currently running on the system. ap24 20" sunpod 150 hqi CPR Aquafuge w/protien skimmer 19.5" HOB (holds 3.5g water, cheato, live rock & sand) CPR 24w fuge light fixture (10k) 2 MJ1200's on HydorFlo's returning into tank (1 half-inch bulkhead mod) Boyd's Chemi-Pure in left chamber below another MJ1200 feeding the fuge system. Ocean Wave 5 stage ro/di system from The Filter Guys (plug and play so far until I get an ATO) Stealth heater and wall mounted fan (keeps temps between 78-80) All in all from feb. through april I have seen ideas come and go from my plans. the idea of schleping water all over creation got old very fast. while buying Catalina is easy, moving it around sux. The first time a 5 gallon box broke in the wife's new truck, I knew I would be buying an ro/di unit. She handeled it better than I thought though. I also thought that a chiller would be necessary, but now I am reconsidering. The temps in my system are amazingly stable. The wall mount fan works wonders. and it matches the tank so it looks fine too. My next purchase will be an ATO system. I will prolly just buy the jbj one or the tunze model, since I don't want to build my own and mess it up. And I will deffinatly be getting a reefkeeper2. the aquatroller jr. seems like overkill for my system, and I really don't want to have to "write" programs for simple things "like turn off light @ 8pm." I am really sick of the look of timers and cords though. so I want to mount the rk2 and wiring next to the system or in a remote location near by. Thats about it for now I'll upload some pics tonite when I get home. I hope anyone following along is enjoying it so far. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 here's the latest pics as promised Link to comment
Donovan Posted April 6, 2007 Share Posted April 6, 2007 here's the latest pics as promised Nice aquascaping. If I had to redo my 24g I would definitely try to mirror yours. Please continue with the updated pics as u progress. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 wow! thank you. i will contuine to update reg. i only slowed down during the cycle cause it was rather boring. thanks once again. Link to comment
Kdawg685 Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 I was thinking about getting that same refuge that you have and i have a couple questions for you. Is there much light that spills into your main tank and how well does the skimmer work, i have read mixed reviews of the system with the skimmer? Can you post some more pics of the refuge and FTS? Thnks and great tank, I want mine to look like that! I am rebuilting due to a crash. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 21, 2007 Author Share Posted April 21, 2007 Thank You. And yes there is a lot of light from that fixture. You really don't need a fixture of that size, they just "recomend" it on the CPR site. It is def. overkill. I solved the problem by just running the fuge in conjunction with my daylight cycle. I have tested and not found any negative effect on ph or any other param. The skimmer works very well. I can adjust it to get a dry foam or a wet foam. I took the fuge off line the other day to take out the live sand, which was a useless addition. Now with just liverock and a bunch of cheato it works awesome. I haven't had mesurable nitrates since it was installed and got the cheato. I'll post more pics of it for you. Just let me know if you want anymore angles of it and i'll take the ones you request tonite. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 22, 2007 Author Share Posted April 22, 2007 here's some pics of the pod. I took some pics of livestock inc. my first corals. Hope everyone enjoys. part 2 Link to comment
alexmurovec Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 your tank is the definition of a perfect aqauscape. how long has it been setup for? Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 22, 2007 Author Share Posted April 22, 2007 holy s**t thanks. it's been up since feb 07. thanks again. Link to comment
G-Force Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 hi there, very nice setup you've got there. was wondering when you have the chance, could you please take pics of the aquafuge at different angles? thanks, your tanks is def. a role model for mine! Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 23, 2007 Author Share Posted April 23, 2007 sure can. i'll get some 2-morrow Link to comment
captianchunk Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Thats looks awsome man! Hey could you do me a huge favor? I would love to perform that same mod as you with the second return on my AP I went to marine depot to find out what it was you used, but there are so many. Could you link me to the specific bulkhead and elbow fittinng you used. Im not much of a diyer and it takes me a while to catch on. Thanks, Mike BTW your tank looks graat!!! Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 25, 2007 Author Share Posted April 25, 2007 you need a FT1131 and a FT7533. some tubing, hose clamps, and teflon tape. that's it. nice and easy. you will also need a way to make a 1 1/8" hole also. keep in mind that i used mj1200's. doing it over i would use 900's. if you have any questions just ask ssirishpride@yahoo.com Link to comment
G-Force Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 hey, thanks again for those pics! just ordered a med aquafuge today! Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 25, 2007 Author Share Posted April 25, 2007 cool. get some liverock, cheato, and you're good to go. have you decided on a lighting method yet? Link to comment
shift_9k Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Hey man whatsup! I'm located in Streamwood, and my girl lives on the northside. Check out sharkys reef is grayslake, its kind of a drive, but pretty nice place for some great corals, and they're easy on the pocket book as well. I have the same system as you. Ordered also from DFS, couldnt be happier. I might be bouncing some ideas off ya as far as mods and things like that go. Good luck man, and again keep everyone posted. Link to comment
G-Force Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 cool. get some liverock, cheato, and you're good to go. have you decided on a lighting method yet? got both so I'm good to go..gonna go with the reverse lighting schedule but..forgot to order the lights! doh... time to bust out the AE...again. Link to comment
ssirishpride Posted April 25, 2007 Author Share Posted April 25, 2007 shift 9k: my little sisters live in round lake beach. i'll def. check it out when i'm up there at the end of the week. i am going over to dark lord corals tommorw for the first time, so i'll let you know what i think. feel free to bounce ideas anytime. g-force: i so wanted to do a r.l.s. but the cpr fixture just puts out too much light into the display. so i just run it with my daylights. Link to comment
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