el fabuloso Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 I'm definitely hopeful and not ready to give up on this tank just yet. First thing I have to do is to weed out the caulerpa with a machete. I gotta clean everything up, do a bunch of water change and add a couple more pieces of live rock and the tank should be halfway back to where it was before. grats on the clown hosting! i wish mine would host my finger leather. that would be awesome It's about damn time too. That hairy mushroom use to be a lot bigger and fluffier and almost looked like a carpet anemone which is why I got it with the clown but the clown would never touch it. Then I got the torch coral hoping he would host that but he wouldn't touch that neither. So I'm really glad he's hosting it now. Link to comment
j'field Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Hi el fabuloso, I'm sure you can make your tank back to it's fabulous past glory again! Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted February 11, 2009 Author Share Posted February 11, 2009 The Big Cleanup After listening to Bob Fenner speak at the local reef club last weekend we finally got motivated to cleaning this tank out and it's amazing how much improvement a little cleanup can do. Also added about 5 lbs. worth of live rock to get the biological buffer back up to par. The hitchhiker bivalve died from the crash but one of the newly added rocks has one on it that looks almost identical to the one we had before. Score! Mushrooms are still happy as ever... ...and the blue cloves in this tank have been doing even better than they are in my pico! And weeding out the tangled mess of macroalgae uncovered even more blue cloves that we couldn't see before. This hitchhiker feather duster not only survived the crash but grew a lot. We've weeded a majority of the macroalgae save for a few that will be kept in check so they don't grow into Jumanji-esque proportions like they did before. The tank isn't nearly halfway back to where it was before but it's a good start. Nitrate levels have gone down a lot with no traces of phosphates though I suspect this is due to the macroalgae outbreak that probably absorbed a lot of the nutrients from this tank. I'm generally all for running a skimmerless tank but seeing as to how this tank gets easily ignored and neglected, I might consider putting one in this tank for good measure. Link to comment
Lalani Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 It's ALIVE!!! Great clean-up job, fab. Link to comment
DBTReefer Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 that's a huge improvement! i love those cloves and mushrooms. Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted February 11, 2009 Author Share Posted February 11, 2009 Thanks! It feels good getting this tank cleaned up. Now I can sleep better at night. Link to comment
Lalani Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 I like the new av too. <----- el fab Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted February 11, 2009 Author Share Posted February 11, 2009 Ha ha! Thanks. That was me at the Strip on New Year's Eve. Link to comment
danktank Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 GREAT CLEAN UP its starting to look amazing again keep it up fab ull have it back and beautiful in no time Link to comment
Nosey Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I love this project, I had seen it months ago, but then i couldn't find it again. I need to set up something like this! Link to comment
Nosey Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Do you know if anyone makes the same unique side view design, but in a bigger size, like maybe 40-50g. Or would you have to make it yourself? Link to comment
midnight720 Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 EL Nice cleanin it. that tank was looking off the hook... I can't wait to see how it look like after it restore. Link to comment
j'field Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Yeah! Like what I expected to be Fabulous! Looking good and I'm sure it will be even better in no time when more nice colorful corals are in! Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted February 14, 2009 Author Share Posted February 14, 2009 Thanks for all the comments guys! Do you know if anyone makes the same unique side view design, but in a bigger size, like maybe 40-50g. Or would you have to make it yourself? I've yet to see a "peninsula" type tank in that size range but I think you can easily get one custom made. I got an alarming call from my friend last night telling me how this tank nearly burnt down her place! This time it had nothing to do with the electrical switch but rather it was caused by water dripping directly into the power strip. DRIP LOOPS ARE IMPORTANT!! It was hard to make a drip loop with this setup though considering the tank is up on a counter and the power strip is directly below but it's a perfect example of how we shouldn't take any chances when working with water and electricity. I haven't seen the damage but apparently the power strip is completely melted but I'll check it out later today and make sure to take some pics to share on here. EDIT: The Accidental T5 Retrofit I went to my friend's house to check out the damage and the fire was pretty bad. The power strip was melted and the ballast was burnt out. Had this happened a week ago I would've decided to take the whole tank down and frag everything away but the tank is finally getting a fighting chance so I figured it was worth salvaging. First of all, I officially advise against this setup. The build and design of the tank itself is good but I've had way too many electrical issues with this tank which apparently isn't uncommon for this model. I found myself having to think of a quick fix so I ran around looking for different options only to find that retrofitting the hood for this tank was going to be hard. Another option would've been to get a whole new fixture altogether but that would've taken away from the aesthetic and design of the overall setup. My reliable LFS guy suggested the Current Nova T5 SlimPaq retrofit which surprisingly wasn't only a good fit but also something I could actually work with while keeping the canopy. I took the hood apart and wasn't surprise to find horrible wiring under the reflector. I gutted the whole thing to salvage the reflector. I decided to line the inside of the canopy with aluminum foil since the reflector is a lot shorter than the new T5 fixtures. Not sure if it even makes difference but it's a quick fix. And yes it looks pretty ghetto but hopefully I can find a permanent solution for it. Fastened the new fixtures in with zip ties because the aluminum foil wasn't ghetto enough. I decided to take out the diffusers in order to get the most out of the lights. There are four 20" fixtures altogether: two 10W 10,000K daylights and two 10W 460nm actinics for a total of 40 watts of lighting. The two daylight bulbs are linked together and the two actinics are also linked together. I was able to squeeze everything in together with just enough room to accommodate them all. The new lights are amazingly bright and intense. So much so that I had a hard time adjusting my camera to get the right exposure and white balance. One thing I'm definitely impressed with is how much cooler these bulbs are. The color temperature is a lot cooler than the old PC fixture but it's also brought out good coloration in some of the corals. I was hoping to be able to replace one of the fixtures with a 420nm bulbs but so far there doesn't seem to be any 20" 420nm actinics. The new lights also affect the fuge since the full length reaches all the way to the back of the tank. This gets rids of the extra fuge light since there's no room for it anyway. So that's it! It's funny how a little accident can lead to new things and this tank just accidentally got upgraded to T5 lighting. This is a new frontier to me so I'm definitely doing some retrospective research to learn more and see what I can do better. Tips on reflectors and any other recommendations are more than welcome. Hopefully soon so I can get rid of the aluminum foil. Link to comment
gloves Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 round and round it goes...to bad it burned...nice retro tho! Link to comment
n0rk Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 That's one hell of a rollercoaster going from the photos from August to the outbreak to the clean-up... nice to see you're slowly getting it back to its former glory :] Link to comment
chaostactics Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 fantastic tank! love the orientation and presentation! those rhodactis shrooms are bad arse wish you lived closer I'd totally try and snag one Link to comment
davey Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 I am pretty sure the 20" t-5 only come in 10k and 460. Thats the bummer with them instead of the 24" tubes. Link to comment
el fabuloso Posted February 19, 2009 Author Share Posted February 19, 2009 This tank has definitely been a roller coaster ride so we'll see how it turns out. Funny story about that Rhodactis. That thing was huge and fluffy when I saw it at the LFS and looked a lot like a carpet anemone so I got it with the intent of finding a clown to host it. When I finally got the clown he wouldn't touch it so I got the torch coral in hopes that he would host it instead but he didn't touch it either. Then after most of the corals got wiped out he ended up hosting the mushrooms anyway. I was a little disappointed to discover how limited I was with the 20" T5 although rumor has it that Current is suppose to come out with more options this year so we'll see. Link to comment
EnjoiFish Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Lookin good! Glad to your tank is recovering. I've always loved this one. Link to comment
Jamo Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Whats happening to this after the raffle win? Link to comment
addicted2reefin Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 staying with the ghetto-ocity of the tank, i think u should get 2 48" icecap slr reflectors, at 20 a pop and cut em in half so u got 4. Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted June 11, 2009 Share Posted June 11, 2009 Is this tank still alive, Fab? Link to comment
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