Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 no full tank shots yet because it's just too damned ugly. corals and other things will come soon so, to tide y'all over, here's some close ups of some critters first is a hermit. glass is a bit dusty with algae (haven't scraped it yet as I wanted to let the clean up crew do some work). Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 pic two is a closeup of a conch. freaky lookin thing. this one's a fighting conch, or so I think. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 and lastly, an ass shot of a sand crab. these guys are huge and they just sit inside the sand, sifting around. every so often I see a puff of smoke coming from the sand and then I see an arse pop out. not sure what's going on down there and I don't really want to know Link to comment
jojopus Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Cool Crak, youre new baby is coming along nicely. Post some full tank shots.....doesnt matter if theyre fugly...then we can really see the progress. Link to comment
cmoreash Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 that sand crab scares me.... conches are cool, my queen is getting huge, but it sure does its share in cleanup. Link to comment
caja Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Congratulations Crak! :woot: Is that a sand crab or a sand flea? You know, like those kind that you can dig up on the beaches in the Hamptons? I ask because the LFS near me was selling sand fleas and I almost bought one because: 1) they are cool as hell looking 2) when I was growing up, I spent a lot of time on the beach in Sagaponak digging those buggers up at the tide line just to watch them burrow back under the sand. Wow, the tank's happening! Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 large sand crab. the wife and I were watching a movie and one of the was coming out, swimming around and flying back into the sand. funny as hell. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 full shot. lights look too yellow and I'm hoping the color will soften as the actinic does almost nothing. Link to comment
danano Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 How many watts and what MH are you using? Link to comment
adinsxq Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 those sand crabs (bait) get as big as softballs on the west side. cool legs on the light Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 danano: the hood houses a pair of 150 watt hqi halides and one 55 watt actinic pc. Catalina bulbs I think. they came with the fixture. the halides seem too yellow and the powercompact is not as bright or blue as I had hoped. I will probably swap out the powercompact in the near future and leave the halides as is. Adin: the legs were new for psl. the 26 bow is a real odd shape in that the bow is deeper front to back than normal so the side panels of the tank are much shorter than you would expect. Made it real tough on bruce but he made the legs and I made em fit. I had to trim back the metal on both legs to fit them over the frame and I had to trim a bit off one side to keep the metal from dipping into the water. they don't look as nice as they did but only a close inspection reveals the cuts. I will smooth them out at some point as I am prone to cut myself. Also, the brackets aren't screwed in with two screws each, as intended. I need to drill holes in the endcaps and screw the legs in there as there was a slight error in the planning (my part as well as bruce's). the hood rattles a bit thanks to the fan causing the brackets to vibrate. This will go away if I screw the brackets into the endcaps but I don't think that's happening any time soon as I can live with the rattle and don't think I will be able to get the brackets on 100% anyway. Tank runs a bit hot now so fan purchase is forthcoming, if I can find one. As for those crabs, they are very cool. one of them was swimming all over the place last night and this morning it was on the rock. I chased it back into the sand for fun - those things can move fast. If they get too big, into the 180 they shall go. I got them to stir the sand up a bit and man do they stir. Link to comment
chufa Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Nice tank, I like the way you arranged the rocks. Good luck! I wonder why they call those conches "fighting conches". Do the actually fight? Link to comment
SeaMountain Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Looking good Crak! I thought my 10g with 22lbs of LR looked full! You going to have room for corals in there?!?!? LOL Sitting next to the window like that, is it going to get a lot of sunlight or do you have some good shades there? Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 lots of sunlight in the early morning. by 11 the light is gone. it is actually not that crowded with rock. the rock is touching the glass on the left side of the tank (need to fix that) and nowhere else. the scaping was pretty much done with my eyes closed. the tank was extremely cloudy from the southdown storm and I popped the rock in and when the dust cleared, the scaping was deemed good enough for the time being. Link to comment
danano Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 r u using 6500K or 10000K halides? 6500K may be better for growth but will make everything appear yellowish. 10000K MH plus actinic PC may be a better combo as far as appearance goes. Link to comment
kennerd Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 I have similar prob with my actinic VHO's not really bluing things up as much as I'd like with my halides on the 65: I think I need to rig em up closer to the water surface. PC's have a similar problem with light penetrating that deep. Is the actinic a true 03 or a blue 7100k bulb? The bluer bulbs always seem to give more intenisty than flourescence and the 03's vice versa. Where did you order the cleaning crew from this go-around? Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 10k halides, at least that was what bruce told me. the actininc I have no clue. they came out of the boxes so I really can't verify any of that. Link to comment
kennerd Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Should list it on the base of the bulb. Where's the livestock from? Also, the conch looks like a fighting conch to me, and the two that I just got have more of a conical shell, white and light rusty brown, opposed to the stereotypical "conch" shell-shop shell with the pointed tips on it. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 actually, there are two of each in the tank. as to where they came from - a friend passed them along from an order he put thru saltwaterfish.com and some of the stuff was just yanked from his tank. placed an order with inlandaquatics.com this afternoon. getting flora and detrit kits (fuge stuff mostly). worms for the sandbed and a few stomas (no chitons at this time, hate that). also told him to give me a cheap acro frag (want to test the waters, so to speak). Link to comment
Jahkaya Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Crak: How Hot is your tank running? I intend to get a 1x150 from Bruce and a 55watt Actinic for my 20. I have to mount it 3" above the water. Do you think It'll Boil? I can't wait until you post pics with your first order of coral. Are you thinking you would have been happier with 20000k instead of the 10000K? Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 3, 2003 Author Share Posted July 3, 2003 well, he wasn't putting 20K bulbs in so I took what he was offering. I will let them burn a bit and if I don't like the look, I'll replace all the bulbs. runs hot. it's been hot here and the babysitter turns the ac down low so the tank does heat up a bit. with ac on and a fan blowing, the tank is cool. Link to comment
Jahkaya Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Cool. I will spend the 3 bills and change to get the 1x150 plus the 55. My air is on and bruce will put fans in there. I am gleaning info from your 26 as my 20 is about a week or two behind yours. What will your entire clean up crew consist of? I noticed you didn't have any blue legs Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 3, 2003 Author Share Posted July 3, 2003 there are some blue legs in the tank. I really tossed stuff in there to see some life. red and blue legs, astreas, nass snails, ceriths, turbos (big ones too - bulldozer size). three sand crabs - very entertaining. got the fuge goodies coming wed. - macro algae, worms, bristles, snails, etc. those hood fans pull out some heat but not a whole lot. Link to comment
Brooklyn Johnny Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Originally posted by Crakeur there are some blue legs in the tank. I really tossed stuff in there to see some life. red and blue legs, astreas, nass snails, ceriths, turbos (big ones too - bulldozer size). three sand crabs - very entertaining. got the fuge goodies coming wed. - macro algae, worms, bristles, snails, etc. those hood fans pull out some heat but not a whole lot. Now all you need to add are the humping hamsters Crak! Link to comment
Crakeur Posted July 7, 2003 Author Share Posted July 7, 2003 might put them in after a few more weeks. Satchmo came by on thusday and dropped off some xenia, gsp, a monti digi frag, another monti (possibly cap.) frag and two large shrooms. I went and got a nice buzz on with him, met his girlfriend (real nice, real cute) and then went home to pop the goods in the tank. Everything is doing great but the xenia went right to the lower left, rear corner and the gsp vanished over the weekend. The montipora dig. frag is one that he took from my tank a few months ago and it grew a ton in that time frame. Unfortunately, I have a new, strange problem. I went away this weekend and I tested the evaporation issue (no top off on the tank) and I lost almost three gallons. No big deal, nothing was out of the water. I filled the tank last night at 11:00 and this morning I see that another 1/4 gallon was removed overnight. No lights on, plenty of ac, water is cooled, no leak that I can see, no water on the floor. I can't lose that much overnight. too much. I'm planning a week to ten day trip some time in august and, with that kind of evap issues, I will need an extremely large bucket for my top off system. Not looking forward to planning that. Tank inhabitants are coming this week. I have a guy hitting the transshipper for me tomorrow or Wed so I should get a couple of fish at the very least and I have a critter order (fuge critters mostly) coming on wednesday. more pics to come. Johnny, how about I give you the duracel hamsters in exchange for some frags? Link to comment
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