William's 34G Solana

[ximmortaldeathx]

Well, i added a tunze skimmer about 2 weeks ago from a fellow NR member.

 

ive been feeding my clown 3-4 times a day to see if i can get them to mate which hasn't happened yet, all that has happened is red cyano all over my rocks, i have not added anything yet, im hoping my skimmer will take care of it on its own phosphates read 0 so im good with that, i think the cyano is absorbing the phosphates as soon as they come that's why they read 0.

 

here are some more crappy pics.

 

 

Here is a side shot. my little male clown never leaves his hammer.

 

Here is a zoo a fraged off my aptaisia tank, i have noticed a huge color morph since i first got it, and the skirt has gotten really long, im guessing from the high current, but ive not been able to find its "designer name" if it even has one.

 

 

My Goniopora has gotten even bigger and it hasnt showed any sign of dying, im surprised its lasted this long.

 

I might end up making this tank a zoanthid / paly only tank which will require some aquascaping, the maroons will go into a small 10G once i finish my garage.

[TriggerHappyDude]

Did you sell your 150w MH? I know I have a nice ATI, but I think I might try an MH as well...

[ximmortaldeathx]

Did you sell your 150w MH? I know I have a nice ATI, but I think I might try an MH as well...

 

hey nice to see you in the other side

 

yeah i sold my sunpod, this light is much more powerful and i love the actinics although i need to upgrade them to better bulbs. Im going to get some current 460/420's hopefully they will bring out more coloration.

[TriggerHappyDude]

Ahhh shucks. Yeah see, I am not a big fan of the "blue" lights, I love that white light you had in the beginning...I'm hoping I can get that with my T5s...I have about 8 bulbs to combo with so I think I can.

[ximmortaldeathx]

HI EVERYONE

 

After many months of neglect due to my business taking off, I've ended up with my tank getting covered with Red Bubble coral and Aiptasia.

 

I'm finally getting more relaxed at home so i want to bring up the tank to its full potential.

 

Let me start by specifying what i have left in my Tank.

 

Livestock

-Maroon Pair, doing well, female is about 3-1/2 inches long and male is still tiny

-Green button polyps, about 10 polyps, the rest were on the main head which went into the fish soup (read further).

-AOG Frag, about 10 polyps.

-3 More assorted zoos frags.

-Hammer coral, original it was 2 heads but now there are 5, and home to my Clowns.

 

Hardware:

-Tunze 9002 Skimmer with Stevie-T CUP

-Stealth 150W Heater

-Original Stock pump from Solana, (I plan to upgrade soon to better pump)

-Current USA Sundial with 14k Phoenix bulb.

 

I sold my Odyssea lights, they were really good however there was one single problem with them, and that is the clearance issue, you see.. they basically cover the whole top of the tank, and if you have big forearms like mines (not to say im buff ) you cannot stick you hand in all the way to remove algae or whatever.. so, i decided to get a sundial pendant (which are a pain in the arse to get since the are discontinued). It will arrive next week and ill probably have it hang from the ceiling instead of using the hanging kit.

 

Another thing i should mention is that I have a corporation setup and have a wildlife license from the state of FL which allows me to buy from the distributors at a wholesale level and also buy and sell livestock, i did this as an impulse and would like to setup and online store but since my business is still relatively new it will probably take me another 6 months before I do anything, I hope one day to be a site sponsor Meantime if anyone wants a good deal on something plz let me know and I'll gladly hook you up.

So now to the rebuild.

I borrowed from my brother a turkey frying pot and threw in all the rocks in for an Hr, the smell wasn't nice however the result is clean rocks.

 

This is what it looks like right now.

 

 

Im also thinking about removing the sand and replacing it with black sand since it looks cool on the actinics.

 

Tomorrow i will pressure wash the rocks to make sure they are clean of die off.

 

your comments are welcomed.

[ximmortaldeathx]

Rocks are pressure washed and ready to go back in the tank once i figure out if im going to keep the sand or go BB or Black sand....

[ximmortaldeathx]

THE REBIRTH

 

So the Sundial Pendant came in, I changed to bulb to a Phoenix 14,000k.

 

Here's what the installation looks like

 

Here's a shot with the MH on.

 

And here's a shot with MH off and Actinics on.

 

Its been over 24hrs and still the water hasn't cleared, however I have the return pump on, without the spray bars so the flow is stirring up the front.

 

Another thing i should point out about the pendant is that if you have ceiling fans like we do in South FL, the pendant will rock just a tiny bit which adds a cool optical trick to the tank, it adds to the shimmer of the lights.

 

I'll add the rocks once the water clears.

[davidr2340]

Light look great hanging!

Look forward to seeing it clear up!

 

[ximmortaldeathx]

Thnx, its still cloudy, i think this salt from brightwell has a lot of calcium, its the only way i can explain 3 days for the tank to clear.

[sal9012]

Looks great, we need more pichers

[ximmortaldeathx]

Aquascaping complete.

 

 

ill wait a week to see how the water parameter changes. I don't expect a cycle since the rock are "dry". They spent a week out in the sun.

 

another note, the return pump without the dual sprays pushes out a nice flow, i put a single spray (very short) pointing upwards so the sand doesn't go nuts.

[ximmortaldeathx]

So it seems i will go through a cycle.

 

Here is a video I posted to show how i changed the spray bar.

 

im starting to get diatom on the sand and on the rock.

 

meanwhile i want to get some clean LR with yellow and purple Coraline to seed the tank, i love yellow coraline.

 

Once the tank is fully cycled i plan to begin adding the following:

 

-A Midas Blenny

-Nuclear Green Button Polyps

-Blue PPEs

-Red Hornets

-AOG

-Darth Mauls

-Superman Monti

-Rainbow Acans

and any other good looking zoa morph i can get my hands on.

 

Comments are welcome.

[sal9012]

So it seems i will go through a cycle.

 

Here is a video I posted to show how i changed the spray bar.

 

im starting to get diatom on the sand and on the rock.

 

meanwhile i want to get some clean LR with yellow and purple Coraline to seed the tank, i love yellow coraline.

 

Once the tank is fully cycled i plan to begin adding the following:

 

-A Midas Blenny

-Nuclear Green Button Polyps

-Blue PPEs

-Red Hornets

-AOG

-Darth Mauls

-Superman Monti

-Rainbow Acans

and any other good looking zoa morph i can get my hands on.

 

Comments are welcome.

 

video looks good, can you shot a pic with the MHL on?

Any updates?

[ximmortaldeathx]

HI everyone.

 

Well a lot has happened since my last post. I just moved to a new house, new job and the thing that i promised myself is to have the coolest looking tank so I'm going to be dedicating tons of time and hopefully $ on cool frags/equipment.

 

my tank right now is empty and i'm filling it today, I sold all the frags I had So im really starting clean.

 

The rocks are on a cooler with a MJ pump but I will be putting new sand, this time I went with Carib Sea Fiji Pink. Also got a big bucket of Brightwell aquatics salt and a Koralia Nano 400 series if needed i will get a vortex pump.

 

I'll post a pic once i aquascape.

[ximmortaldeathx]

Hanging kit how to, just thought I'd share.

 

The first thing i should note is that the current hanging kit (1022) is incomplete/badly designed, however its a quick fix if you know how to do it.

 

What you'll need to do is go to your local hardware store and pickup a piece of wood that measures 20" x4"x5/8" (the 5/8 is the thickness of the board). Along with four 2" wood screws, not thick. Also make sure the board is a soft type like pine that wont crack when you drill it with the screws, this happened to me.

 

So what you're going to do is first is screw the board into the back of the tank, if you got it 5/8" thick it will fit flush to the lip of the Solana stand. 2 Screws on each side will do fine. Then you can screw the hanging legs into the board itself, that way they don't lean into the tank, i put the legs 5-1/2" from the outside of the stand and then used a level to make sure they;re perfectly leveled. I used the screws that came with the kit to screw the legs in.

 

afterward i applied some ebony wood stain to make it the same color (will need extra coats). Make sure you sand everything first so you get a smooth surface and sharp edges.

 

Sorry for the crappy shot, i was in a hurry to finish up.

 

This is a side shot.

 

And the finished result.

 

The cables can be adjusted by pressing inward the tip of where the cables come out of the legs on the top side, then pull on the desired length.

 

Notice the water is not clear, that's because my female maroon keeps "peeling out" on the sand, yep the pair is going on craigslist tonight.

OK guys let me know what you think.

[MedRed]

great work on the hanging kit! digging the scape too!

[ximmortaldeathx]

great work on the hanging kit! digging the scape too!

 

Thanks!!

 

After x-mas im gonna stock up on frags, for now we need to see how the mini-cycle goes.

[d9hp]

Great job hanging that light. Definitely going to be slick once you start stocking.

[ximmortaldeathx]

Great job hanging that light. Definitely going to be slick once you start stocking.

 

thanks d9hp!

 

cheers!