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Coral Vue Hydros

The Butchered Finnex


masterbuilder

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  • 2 weeks later...
AcroporaLokani

Beautiful tank, I envy your coraline. And your tank should not be named "the butchered finnex" your tank should be named "finnex should take a page out of my book".

 

Where did you get the foam for the back wall and what brand did you use?

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masterbuilder
Where did you get the foam for the back wall and what brand did you use?

 

I got the foam from Fosters/Smith. Its black pond foam. As usual I didnt get enough and used some Great Stuff foam I got from Lowes.

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One heck of a job. Reading through this entire thred, I see many people have asked about the stand and if you have plans or could produce some but never saw a response. I too agree that you should do some building of these on the side... extra money for you and beautiful stands for us. :lol:

 

Anyway, what brand and type of epoxy did you use. I have read many different dicussions on this and thought I would ask.

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masterbuilder

Thanks for the comments. The epoxy is West brand, I have used dozens of brands and this is by far the best (hint, if you need a clear epoxy, get a type called laminating epoxy) Its one of the few that come in qualities larger than those tiny bottles found at Lowes/Home Depot. Loctite Epoxy comes in small, but still useable sized bottles and is a good one for smaller projects. Both are reef safe.

 

As far as the building and selling stands. I would do it, but it’s unlikely that I could sell many or any. Even if I charged less than min wage, the stands would be more than 99% of people would be willing to pay. If I had a moderate priced cabinet guy build it for me I would expect him to charge $1500-$1600, drawers add alot to the labor costs. I did it for much less because most of the wood used was left over from various projects (I am a contractor) and obviously I got paid in sweat equity. The rumor is: money has quit growing on trees.

 

Mark

 

p.s. More pics soon. Santa brought me a clam, couple of lps and sps. Need to let things settle in a little longer.

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Thanks for the information. I am looking at buying a Finnex 30 and basically wanted a stand that just had 2 doors but wanted a top much like yours. Maybe a little taller so I could mount some ballasts under it and totally conceal the lighting.

 

Can't wait to see the new pictures!!!

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masterbuilder

All the lights from a retro would have fit under my canopy. Where I miscalculated was, I wanted 5 lamps and I needed 1 - 1.5 inches more depth (front to back) for everything to fit. Ended up changing things so the TX-5 would fit . I almost made a new canopy but I was sick of working on it and it was so much easier to cut a hole in the top to fit the fixture. An easier solution to the stand...just buy any stand/nightstand that you want and build the top pieces, stain to match. Mine just sits on the bottom cabinet.

 

Mark

 

p.s. I like mounting the ballasts remotely. Less heat, no moisture problems, lighter hood.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey Mark

 

I was hoping to see some pics with the new clam.

 

What species and size?

 

As for Red Algae, I upgraded my lights to MH and immediately this stuff started sprouting from my rock.(see attached)

 

Apparently it may be a "coveted" red algae (yeah ok) .There is a field of it growing now and it looks good so I'm gonna keep it unless it gets too invasive.

 

Again great tank and hopefully we can get some updated pics.

 

Andreas

post-21682-1233435977_thumb.jpg

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masterbuilder

Well…about my beautiful 3” Electric Blue Crocea Clam. Bad news, it died after a slow decline over 3 weeks. This is the 1st livestock I have not been able to keep alive since I began keeping nanos 4 yrs ago. I am not sure what the problem was. The clam seemed healthy upon arrival but it gradually quit opening up as much and its mantel began retracting into its shell, finally it seemed dead or nearly so. I removed it before it could foul my tank. I read as much as possible on the Clams Direct forum and nothing I could find/do helped. Maybe I could have tried some more aggressive cures but I feel that constantly messing with livestock stresses them so much that any cure is more than offset by the stress. All the water parameters I could measure were maintained at optimal levels for clams, I feel I had sufficient lighting, no pests found, etc. Who knows what happened…, I feel like such a noob. Oh well….C’est la Vie.

 

After the poor clam died, I took the opportunity to rearrange some of my corals to fill out the space I had been saving for a clam or two. After having my sickly clam for a few weeks, I decided that I will just stick with corals in the limited space I have. Might try a clam again sometime in the future, but happy with my corals for now.

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Sorry to hear about the clam.

 

From my research Crocea's & Maximas are notorious for simply dying...especially smaller ones at 3".

 

The other concern is the fouling up the tank upon death..so good move on getting it out before the final death knell.

 

I still want to try a 3.5" minimum ultragrade maxima (apparently a little easier to keep).

 

It seems every time we try to deviate from the KISS theory..we get ##### slapped back to reality ;-)

 

Good luck and again..a great tank

 

Andreas

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  • 2 weeks later...

Awesome stand. I'm going to have someone build one just like it for my Finnex. Question for you. Is there more to your set-up than just the stand and canopy? In your first pic it looks like there is wood going up the right side of the back of the tank??

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masterbuilder

Yes...there is a peice of 1" wood running up the back of the tank. The wood is attached to the bottom part of the stand and the canopy is attached to the back panel with hinges.

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Ah. I thought it looked like the top half of the canopy just flipped up. So is that just to keep the bottom half/base of the canopy more secure when you raise up the top half?

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masterbuilder
Hey Mark, I wanna see some new pics under the new bulb configuration with the 2 Fiji Purple.

Pretty Please? :flower:

 

 

Hang on...in FL for a week....will do when I get back.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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