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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Uhuru's 16g cube + 40g breeder


Uhuru

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ReadyReefer

nice word lo-bo, un-flowy, i'm going to have to use that now. ;) Anyway if you are going to have a fish, why don't you try one of the fish that are naturally from the same habitat as the corals you are trying to keep

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It's up and running! But with good and bad news...

 

First the good part - I was able to do it all in 1 day with the corals in a bucket. Since I was using the same stand I couldn't really work out the plumbing until I moved my 5g out of the way. That was a little stressful but it all worked out. So here are the pics:

 

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This dremel rocks. Cut through the stand like butter.

 

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The drain on the right is the main drain, and is turned down so that no air gets into it. This is the best way, hands down, to do a drain. 100% silent, and easy to tune. The drain right next to it is the backup drain. The way you set this up is so that just a tiny bit of water trickles down the drain. This maintains an even flow at all times but in case the first one clogs it can take over completely. there is no need to do a durso unless you don't have a choice!

 

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Hanging the light proved to me that I suck at DIY. I kept trying to get the toggle bolts into the ceiling until I realized that it's solid wood and several inches thick.

 

And finally, the system is in place.

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The skimmer is a PM venturi rated for 100g. I bought it off someone on RC and it came in pieces. The guy returned my money but didn't want the skimmer back. So I used weldon and fixed her up, hopefully she holds together but I am keeping my eye out for an ER or DAS EX1 to replace it. I'm using a GenX 2400 needlewheel pump which replaces the PM venturi. I also added a standpipe, originally it had a gate valve on it but I found it unnecessary and it took up too much space. After 12 hours and almost no bioload, it started forming a very nice head.

 

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The venturi on the GenX is horrible, and loud. So I plugged an air pump into it:

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The next day I came home to a skimmer full of milk:

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The only thing it's skimming right now is carbon particles.

 

The bad news, and the reason you don't see any tank with water pics, is because in my exhausted state I placed a bag of old used carbon in the skimmer output. The carbon released all the dead bacteria and nutrients that were in it. Within maybe 4 hours the whole tank was covered with algae and carbon dust. My brand new white starboard, and white rock racks, were filthy! Then the water became very cloudy to the point where I couldn't see anything. I had no more fresh saltwater! So I made another 30g of RO/DI water and just mixed in the salt a few hours ago. I'm about to do a major water change. I may have to start completely from scratch with all my livestock/rocks. We'll see.

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it's really starting to kick in now. look at the crap it's pulling out of my tank. I don't know what this is but it made my tank turn milky and also coated the walls.

 

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your light is bigger than your tank

 

well I couldn't afford a sfiligoi for the nano AND a geismann for the 70g! :P it actually covers the whole tank perfectly, but it's very "tall" because it has mogul halide + 2 PC actinics and a huge fan.

 

 

WOW, upgrade your tank asap. It seems like a waste do all that work for such a small tank.

 

How is 1 day of work too much for a small tank? I would say my tank is relatively simple. Just a tank and big skimmer. No fuge (that's work), no sand bed (that's more work), just a big skimmer which I got for free! I guess you haven't read too many posts here and seen some of the crazy setups. Oh wait you only have 8 posts... in the beginners section. Please leave your ignorant posts out of my thread. thanks.

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echo-bravo 4-19

wow that setup looks great!!! cant wait to see it stocked not sure if it has ben answered b4 but do plan on putting in a small fish or anything ?

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wow that setup looks great!!! cant wait to see it stocked not sure if it has ben answered b4 but do plan on putting in a small fish or anything ?

 

oh yes, it will be heavily stocked. in a BB system the corals depend on a heavy fish load for their nutrients, and the system depends on an oversized skimmer to quickly remove those nutrients before they pollute the corals. it was a difficult concept for me to grasp at first, but I hope I can get it to work.

 

i'm tagging along. i guess i should put my ER RS 180 on my 37cube

 

:D:D Right now I've run into the problem that everyone who runs an oversized skimmer seems to have. Not enough bioload to support the skimmer! It went crazy the first few days but now it doesn't produce much, most of it collects at the neck but it doesn't spill over. So I just wipe the neck every day (which is still kind of nasty). I tried to do the mesh mod and venturi mod, which made smaller bubbles but still there is not enough to skim. I have a small school of striped cardinals coming in soon though so we'll see how that changes things. I also have an aquabee 2000/1 pump but I need to work on getting the right fittings for it....

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When I wake up in the morning my poor 9010 just stares at me and says... "You wasted your money you should upgrade to 100g."

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get some more fish... that don't jump :)

 

I am pretty sure mine is going to start skimming fine once I get some more fish in the tank. I fed pretty heavy today to my neon and hector's gobies and the skimmer did it's job of removing the uneaten food very quickly then went back to sleep mode.

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OK, I will take pics in a couple of days, but there's not much to see yet. It's only about 5 lbs of rock, a clam, a couple gobies and a couple of frags.

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some new frags I got from the coral farmer's market this weekend (sorry FTS shot will be later, my camera batteries died before I could take a decent one):

 

Cali Tort & OR Tort from Advanced Aquarium

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ORA GGB & Pink Lemonade Acro from booth from CA

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Pokerstar Monti & Rainbow Monti from Steve Tyree

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This is not from CFM, just a pink seriatopora that is starting to recover from the tank transfer:

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The other corals I transferred are still kinda brown(sad)

 

A bad shot of my hector's goby and orange lined cardinal - they enjoy hanging out together

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how do you like the tunze nano stream? i am toying to get rid of the 3 tunze mini and replace it with either a single k1 or nano stream. other than the acros and sps, what other corals do you have? is the nano stream too much for them?

 

looking forward to your fts.

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