Chucktown BC 29 Mixed Reef

[divecj5]

dive your tank is lookin great..i cant wait to see it with the MH..

 

Thanks bud....nothing too much to report over the weekend. Things are all kicking and doing great. The firefish eats like none other and seems to be happy in the tank.

 

One thing that I did do over the weekend was finally hook up the JBJ ATO that I got last Christmas for my 55. I never did hook it up on my 55 since I don't have a sump on the tank so putting the float in a place where the surface wasn't agitated was a problem. In the 55, the float switch would trip about every 5 minutes and it just got annoying.

 

I ended up opening up the unit and busting the alarm mechanism out of there. I'm not sure who the genius was that thought up the idea of having a loud audible noise come on every time the pump is activated, but I'm glad there was a way to remove it.

 

I have a 3 gallon sterilite container under the stand and I am using an Aqualifter pump to run from the container to the third chamber. I am using one float switch to activate the pump. Overall, it was incredibly easy to setup and I would recommend the setup to anyone.

 

No need to have to worry about topoffs anymore for me . I think this is going to work out great since when I plop the MH on there, I think evap will definitely increase.

 

I am supposed to be getting the fan unit in this afternoon per FedEx tracking so hopefully I will have the time to set that up and put the Halides on there finally. Pics to come tomorrow hopefully.

 

Just for reference, I am planning on putting some eggcrate on top of the tank and put about 3 sheets of screening on top of that to acclimate the ric and softies in the tank to the new light. I am planning on removing one sheet every 3-4 days.

 

Adam

[divecj5]

Bah.....why does life always get in the way Didn't get a chance to construct a frame to lay the screening on so I will do that this afternoon. Looks like the MH won't be running til tonight.

 

I did get in my fan unit from Aquatek and it's awesome and seems to push a butt load of air. Very professional looking as well. I am planning on putting it on the same timer as the halides so it runs in tandem with each other.

[divecj5]

Alright...time to finally get some pictures up on this thread. Things were definitely getting a little stale since I wasn't able to get my lights going. I was finally able to cut some screening last night, do a water change, feed the fish, and rearrange my stand with all of the old and new lighting wires.

 

Everything went incredibly smooth unplugging all of the old canopy wires, plugging in the sunpod wires, and trying to tidy things up the best I could.

 

I have about 15+ below so hope you all enjoy.

 

More about the lights and my observations thus far after the pics.....

 

Pics before putting on Sunpod

 

Ricordea Florida

 

Shrooms (glow green under actinics)

 

Full Tank Shot

 

Aquatek Fans bought on Ebay

 

 

Hooked up and ready to blow...

 

Just put on the halides

 

Lights hadn't even completely warmed up!!!!

 

Notice the difference in the above pic of the Ric?

 

Full tank...[\b]

 

Shrooms....a little confused after I was playing the moonlights, etc.[\b]

 

His favorite spot

 

Coloration looks great under the light

 

Sexy open top!!!!

 

Last but not least, the tank covered up with the screening that I will be removing every 4 days and extending the lighting by an hour. After I put the screening on there, my fiance said "good lord, your tank is looking officially ghetto now. You're not going to leave it like that, right?"

 

So overall, I am really happy the way that the new lights look on the tank. I really like the way that there is enough blue in the 14k to make the colors pop but still there will be enough PAR to give some good growth as well. I am still contemplating getting some actinics to put behind the light but I don't want to crowd it more than it is on top of my tank. The moonlights are really bright so I think they will be enough once I get my light schedule up to 8 hours for the halides.

 

For anyone that cares I currently have two sheets of some really thick patio screening that my dad had laying around at their house. It is a lot thicker than regular screening so I"m sure it's doing it's job blocking enough light for the time being. I am planning on running the lights for 4 hour til Friday and then bump it up an hour every 4 doors and slowly take of the screening.

 

Hope you all enjoyed the pics....now I just need to get some corals in there and it will look awesome.

 

Adam

[scarf_ace1981]

great nano you got there

[divecj5]

great nano you got there

 

 

Thanks for the comment...I think it's coming along. I am ready to get some color in there. Thanks for taking a look.

 

Adam

[diggman08]

dang dive, that looks awsome.. the difference in hqi lighting is unmatchable.. what made you decide the sunpod brand? just wondering because i want one now

[divecj5]

dang dive, that looks awsome.. the difference in hqi lighting is unmatchable.. what made you decide the sunpod brand? just wondering because i want one now

 

Thanks for the comments....I am really impressed with the look as well. It doesn't look all that great right now because I have the screening over top but without it the color and clarity is pretty amazing.

 

As far as the brand, I had looked at other brands and just by following others threads, etc. it sounded like the Current products are pretty rock solid....along the lines of Oceanic. Also, I ended up getting it from petmountain.com and they have them for about $200 shipped (depending on 70w or 150w).

 

Like I mentioned before, I kind of beat around the bush on my 55 gallon and went cheap on the skimmer, etc. last time and just decided in the end I wanted to try to get it right this time.

 

I can't tell of course what the growth or anything like that will be but the color and look is pretty amazing. Although the shimmering is simply aesthetic, it is pretty cool looking. Reminds me of diving in the Keys

[diggman08]

awsome dude. lemme know how the evap goes.. and are you getting ato,chiller?? i thought the sunpods had built in fans

[noobwithatank]

awsome dude. lemme know how the evap goes.. and are you getting ato,chiller?? i thought the sunpods had built in fans

 

 

with the addition of the other fans he has i dont believe he will have a problem, but he prob will have a decent ammount of evap tho. but yes keep us posted!

[divecj5]

awsome dude. lemme know how the evap goes.. and are you getting ato,chiller?? i thought the sunpods had built in fans

 

So far the evaporation hasn't been all that bad....although I haven't really checked to see how much is left in my reservoir for the ATO. I am running an auto topoff (JBJ ATO) and it has thus far been great. Although the sunpod does come with fans, they appear to be more for cooling the bulb and insides than anything else. I went with the Aquatek fans that are pictured above and they have been working great....actually made the tank a little too cool after only running about 15 minutes.

 

The only gripe that I have with the fans are that they are a bit loud....although I"m sure I'll get used to it.

 

Right now I have the fans turn off and on about every 20 minutes using my timer. Eventually I would like to get an AC Jr. controller but with a wedding coming up in November, kind of falls in the "low priority" list for now

 

I am going to go to the fish store today and check out if they have any nice frags or something....I am freaking itching to get some color in this thing

 

Thanks for following along guys....

 

Adam

 

with the addition of the other fans he has i dont believe he will have a problem, but he prob will have a decent ammount of evap tho. but yes keep us posted!

 

Yeah, I'm not expecting temp control to be an issue other than keeping it from getting too cool. Whoever thought that was going to be a concern and I would have to actually turn the fans off and on.

 

Are you planning on going MH or the upgrade Noobwithatank?

[divecj5]

Nothing new to report....just was noticing that I had a couple of bubble algae on a couple of pieces of live rock (luckily some small pieces) so this morning was bubble scraping time.

 

Only thing I can suggest when getting rid of them is to make sure that you scrape away a good amount of rock from underneath them as they can sometimes root and just cutting the bubble won't get rid of them.

 

Other than that, nothing new going on. I am now up to 5 hours of MH and will continue to boost up to 8 hours. I am planning on removing a sheet of screening on Monday.

 

I am currently scraping my nickels and dimes together to get a frag pack from Mvite that should include some sweet SPS: superman monti, orange cap, green slimer, purple undata, rainbow monti, and possible some others. He is hooking me up with a great package so I'm excited about that. Could be another week or two though

[noobwithatank]

id like to go straight with the sunpod 150watt. the only thing that worries me is the evap and the noise of going open top. i can solve the noise by raising up my ATO unit so the rear chambers dont become 2 low. also the sunpod i assume would be cheaper in the long run, as when 4 pc lights need to be replaced it adds up quick. Is that the stock 14k bulb?

[divecj5]

id like to go straight with the sunpod 150watt. the only thing that worries me is the evap and the noise of going open top. i can solve the noise by raising up my ATO unit so the rear chambers dont become 2 low. also the sunpod i assume would be cheaper in the long run, as when 4 pc lights need to be replaced it adds up quick. Is that the stock 14k bulb?

 

I would say if you can do it then go ahead and get the Sunpod off the bat. I am not joking when I say that the colors of even the fish look better under the halides. The tank is now so clear that it really doesn't even look like there is water in there. I am still pretty much amazed at the lights every time that I look at the tank.

 

As far as evaporation, honestly I haven't seen all that much at this point. I filled up my reservoir with 3 gallons of ROI/DI last sunday and just topped it off with about 1/2 gallon on Saturday. What type of Auto topoff are you using that it makes a flushing sound? I am using the JBJ ATO with a aqualifter pump and the only thing that I needed to adjust was the tubing dripping into the 3rd chamber...just had to lower it against the wall so it didn't sound like someone peeing in my tank

 

As far as replacing the bulbs, a 150w DE MH bulb runs around $60-70 depending on the brand and temperature rating (10,14,20K). The stock bulb is 14k and I think it puts out some great color. I have a T5 setup that has a 10k and actinic plus on there and I think the 14k is perfect. There isn't too much white and the colors pop in there and pull off a nice blue. Kind of a personally opinion as far as coloring though. Some people really like the deep blue look of 20k bulbs as well.

[divecj5]

So yesterday ended up being a whole heck of a lot of reefing fun. As I said before, I have a 55 gallon reef tank that I have been planning for the past 6 months to take down once I got my nano going and all cycled and established. I already sold all of the corals out of it and basically was able to buy the nano and equipment with the money I only had three fish total for the tank (two false percs and a dragon sifter goby). I knew that I was going to move the percs over to the nano and just trade in the sifter for store credit since I DID NOT want to deal with his a** in my nano.

 

I was planning on doing the move and breakdown of my 55 next weekend but yesterday morning I got up feeling frsiky and decided, once I found out the LFS was open, that today would be the fun day. Catching the two clowns was a heck of a lot easier than I thought although it was kind of disheartening seeing how they reacted when I took one of them out of the tank and one was still in there to be caught. After acclimating them for about an hour, they are now happily swimming and ate yesterday in the 29. I was really happy that they ended up making it alright since I've had them from the start of my 55.

 

After taking out about 50 pounds of rock that is covered with sharp vermitid snails I was ready to catch the goby. Caught him alright but then when I told my fiance just to hold the bag open, she got a little freaked out that he was going to jump out of the net and hit or something . So it turned into a one man job and I think it worked out better...although the goby was really ####ed by this point. I then took him to the store and got credit. Another thing checked off the list.

 

Now the fun part....draining and taking the sand out of the tank. Now I've done a lot of manual labor in high school and summers during college and I am a marine science major so I understand the smell of a salt marsh...but good lord was this a lot of work. It took about 30 minutes of draining 5 gallons into a bucket, dumping, and doing it again. After that, I had to prop up the tank a bit and turkey baste the rest of the water out of there. Then came the fun of scooping the sand that the top layer was fine but the middle layer was filled with detritivores (they convert detritus and the product is sulphur...what you smell when you're at the marsh) so now my apartment is smelling real tasty.

 

Long and the short of it is that I don't want to have to do this again in the near future. I can only imagine what it's liking having to break down one of these 150+ gallon systems...no thank you. Other than that, my fiance thought it was a good opportunity to rearrange my apt. as well so my fun didn't stop after moving the tank.

 

Finally by the end of the day I was able to sit back with a cold one and enjoy that I was productive

 

I took another video of the tank with the clowns in there so I'll post that later...enough typing for now.

[divecj5]

New Video w/ Harry and Lloyd (or Nemo and Marlin to my fiance )

 

 

Let me know what you guys think. I am getting ready to peel off one of the screens tonight. MORE LIGHT!!!!

[noobwithatank]

this may be a dumb question but.... did u have to buy the legs for the sunpod also, or does it come with a set? lol

[divecj5]

Never a dumb question with me.....I actually asked the people at PetMountain when I bought it figuring that it wasn't included. Of course they didn't know for sure but yes they are included. I was surprised since I thought it was a chance for a little extra side money for Current

[diggman08]

man how do you keep your sand bottom so clean

[divecj5]

Thanks man....not sure what I do to keep the sand clean. I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of cleaning up that the shrimp do. Basically no food that I put in the tank just sits around.

 

I actually don't have that many snails in there either...about 8 total and the majority are on the glass or on the rock. I think the key is just to keep up with water changes and stay on top of nitrates through skimming and not overfeeding the tank.

[divecj5]

I thought while I don't have any real cool corals in my tank right now, I would post some pics of the corals I had in my 55.

 

Frogspawn (started with 8 heads and ended up with about 25+)

 

 

When I sold it:

 

 

My pride and joy acan I grew from this:

 

To this:

 

 

I will have to post some more pics of my zoas and candy canes as well. I had quite the tank going and I know I can get this nano up to that and past it....might be moving in a month so i might have to hold out on buying corals since I don't want them to settle in and then move.

[divecj5]

Echo....echo....echo

 

Nothing new to report other than I am planning on going to the LFS and getting a Koralia. I'm still not sure if I will get the 1 or 2 but I will just base that on overall how large they are....

[noobwithatank]

i went with a number 2 myself, everything in my tank (which is mainly softies aka zoa's) love the flow and seem to open up alot more and sooner also. im still 50/50 about getting another one.. for the other corner.

[divecj5]

Ended up that the LFS didn't get the Koralia pumps in this weekend. The owner said that he talked to the distributor and they said that they had to recall some of the first pumps. He said that he will probably get them in somewhere around the 22nd of this month.

 

I ended up soaking my Seio's and maxi jets in vinegar and water from my 55 and cleaning them out. I decided just to put one of the Seios in there and see what it was like. Although it's a little large and I will replace it with the Koralia, I know remember why I got these in the first place....awesome diffuse flow. The fish are really happy and the detritus is now history on the sand bed. I know have about 1000 gph going so about 50X turnover in the tank.

 

On a side note, it looks like I will be moving out of my apartment at the end of this month and moving to a house about 2 miles away. I guess it's time for me to start planning on moving the tank. I am still not sure how I'm planning on doing it. I have heard some say to take the sand bed out but I think I'm just planning on getting the rock out, taking the fish out, draining 75% of the water out and moving it from there. I will probably just slide a board underneath the tank and have my dad help me move it.

 

I will post some ideas on here and see if I get a response or ideas on moving. I know there are a ton of threads on here about moving so I might just use the Search function

[ge0]

How high is the water level in chambers 2 and 3?

 

Are you using the stock Tunze cup?

[divecj5]

Hey ge0. As far as the height of the water in chamber 2 and 3, I am running them both fairly low. In chamber three, I would say the water level is about an inch maybe from the top of the clear area that has the min/max levels on it. I am running it low so that I can get good surface skimming going through the filters and the skimmer.

 

I am using the factory Tunze cup....is there another one that they came out with?

 

Adam