Sushi Posted December 29, 2010 Author Share Posted December 29, 2010 Alright ... finally got the chance to crop and process these photos. This is the first set of two, I have a couple more pics that I haven't had a chance to post. Enjoy the first set! Link to comment
myjohnson Posted December 29, 2010 Share Posted December 29, 2010 Sweet mother of pearls! Nice macro shots man. Link to comment
Lawnman Posted December 29, 2010 Share Posted December 29, 2010 Your overflow looks awesome.I can't wait for mine to look like that. Link to comment
Clavius85 Posted December 29, 2010 Share Posted December 29, 2010 Wow... that is all I have to say. Link to comment
Sushi Posted December 29, 2010 Author Share Posted December 29, 2010 Thanks everyone... As for the overflow, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do when the red monti cap hit the overflow, cuz I knew it would start growing on it and likely upwards. At first I didn't quite like it because it kind of takes away from the cave-like aquascape but now I've just come to accept it. We'll see how it turns out in a couple more months, if it looks really bad I might have to start scraping it! Link to comment
animalmaster6 Posted December 30, 2010 Share Posted December 30, 2010 Those corals look amazing, nice Greenbanded Goby as well!! Awesome pics too. Link to comment
snostorm Posted December 30, 2010 Share Posted December 30, 2010 wow that is beautiful. Inspiring. Link to comment
Sushi Posted December 30, 2010 Author Share Posted December 30, 2010 Thanks As for the greenbanded goby... yep I have two of them, and they're all big fatties! I'm down to one gold neon eviota goby though, I don't think I'm going to add any more gobies because the 3 that I have left are pretty territorial. Plus, the cardinal has pretty much claimed the entire tank to himself... I think he likes where he lives. Link to comment
Zmeny Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 Sushi, you happy with the Maxspect or planning to change soon? Just wondering because I am having a hard time deciding on an LED for my new MINI...Looking at the SOL Super Blue but afraid it's overkill. Love your system and looks like you are getting great growth with the Maxspect. My favorite Mini hands down! Link to comment
Zo0k365 Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 Yo sushi, one thing I noticed with maxpect lights is that they produce amazing colors on sps, but don't show them. It's difficult to explain. I took a piece of birdsnest out of my friends tank who has a maxpect G2 and the thing was GLOWING in my tank. I mean I had never seen one with such good color untill I put it under my light. It was sort of washed out looking in his tank but grew like no other. Not to mention it started to fade back to "standard" color under my lights (AB 13K MH) even though I have high lighting. Link to comment
Sushi Posted December 31, 2010 Author Share Posted December 31, 2010 Sushi, you happy with the Maxspect or planning to change soon? Just wondering because I am having a hard time deciding on an LED for my new MINI...Looking at the SOL Super Blue but afraid it's overkill. Love your system and looks like you are getting great growth with the Maxspect. My favorite Mini hands down! Yep, satisfied with the Maxspect for sure. Not planning to change in the near future, because things are pretty happy in the tank as you can see. Growth is great, but there is definitely more to getting good growth and colors than just good lighting. To be honest though, the SOL Super Blue looks beautiful, and I don't think it could be overkill because you can fine tune intensity to your liking. I'm sure either choice will be great, if it were me though... I'd try out the SOL. I only went with Maxspect because I got a killer deal on it when they first came out. Yo sushi, one thing I noticed with maxpect lights is that they produce amazing colors on sps, but don't show them. It's difficult to explain. I took a piece of birdsnest out of my friends tank who has a maxpect G2 and the thing was GLOWING in my tank. I mean I had never seen one with such good color untill I put it under my light. It was sort of washed out looking in his tank but grew like no other. Not to mention it started to fade back to "standard" color under my lights (AB 13K MH) even though I have high lighting. I think I understand what you're trying to describe. You have to consider one important thing though, and that's LED bulb configuration. I have my bulb configuration set up differently than other stock Maxspect systems. I have more white LEDs swapped out for Violet and Blue LEDs. On top of that, depending on what lighting cycle is on (there are 3), the corals can look differently. This is why I like the Maxspect so much... there are three channels to allow for timing and daylight cycles to let you fine-tune your photoperiod. When I have all three channels of lights on (including my 30w LEDs), the tank is SUPER bright but colors are washed out; best way to describe it is to think of a 10K halide. But, when I have only my 3w LED channels "on", the corals burst with color (these are when I take my pictures). It hits a sweet spot and corals fluoresce like crazy under the bulb config that I have. I guarantee you, if your friend tweaked his bulb config, he would be getting "GLOWING" colors when the 30w LEDs are off. It's hard to explain, but I think you get the rough idea. Let me know if you have any other questions or observations. Link to comment
Gennaro Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Sorry for the delay, I didn't quite have time to clean up my sump so I just took a quick snapshot. I'm detailing the re-routing of the sump below. Thank you! Update on the tank - in October, I pulled the sump out and redid the flowpath. First thing I did (since sump was wet), was turned off the return, let the backflow from the tank stop filling and removed about 3 or 4 gallons of sump water. I also drained the freshwater from the top-off reservoir and took out all equipment the heater/top-off/probes etc. Once the sump was able to be handled outside of the stand, I removed the back baffle (slanted piece of glass) with a razor blade, some elbow grease, and about 15 minutes of careful scraping. The main purpose of this was to make the return chamber larger. I flipped the sump 180 degrees around so that the top-off reservoir was repositioned to the RIGHT side of the stand. The incoming flow from the drain was subsequently diverted to the filter sock chamber where the skimmer used to discharge out of. The flow path would push water past the filter sock chamber into the chamber with the circle overflow, and finally through the black baffle into the return chamber. Regarding the skimmer, I grew tired of trying to adjust the skimmer that came with the Mini (NS100) so I put a Tunze 9002 in the chamber following the filter sock. I was pleasantly surprised at what a nice fit it was and that the water line in that chamber is easily controlled to allow the 9002 to efficiently skim. I will admit that it's a tight fit, but it's got some wiggle room on 4 sides. Also, I want to mention that I had to remove the top trim of the sump so that the skimmer cup would be more easily accessible. With the trim on, I found that the clearance for the removal of the skimmer cup was a bit tight (had to tilt and angle the cup out), so I just got rid of it for ease of access. To help eradicate the microbubble issue, I placed a bag of chemipure underneath the filter sock (since flow travels underneath the baffle to the next chamber), and some live rock rubble in the return compartment following the black baffle. I put a variety of macro in the return compartment along with the LR. I'm hoping the macro will take off eventually aiding in some nutrient export. Finally, a picture to describe what I did. Please excuse the messiness I didn't have time to properly route the wires yet and wipe down the sump, but you can get an idea of what the sump looks like now with the flow diverted. Also, this is about 10 days worth of skimmate from the 9002, not bad when compared to the finicky NS100. Hi, can you please PM me or better yet email me more photos of your sump setup? And describe your Tunze set up in details?... Thanks a million, love your set up! :-) Gennaro gbini@mac.com Link to comment
plainrt Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 God damn tank looks good.One of my favorites. Link to comment
Grimmpls Posted April 20, 2011 Share Posted April 20, 2011 zen like my friend. too cool for school. crazy kat cool. Link to comment
Sushi Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 Hey everyone... the tank is still running and the corals have grown considerably. I'll try to post up some pics as soon as possible for you guys! Link to comment
d'Espresso Posted May 22, 2011 Share Posted May 22, 2011 Welcome back sushi!! Can't wait to see your tank soon! Also great to hear your tank is going still Link to comment
Sushi Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 Thanks d'Espresso Never left, just been slightly MIA... pics coming soon, just need to upload and post! Link to comment
Sushi Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 May 22, 2011 Full Tank Shot Pink Xenia Blastomussa merleti Purple Polyp Birdsnest Angled Top Down Corner Shot Side Shot Top Down with Distortion (sorry I didn't turn off the vortech!) I'm going to have to prune the tank soon, corals are definitely outgrowing one another in some areas. Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted May 22, 2011 Share Posted May 22, 2011 May 22, 2011 Full Tank Shot I'm going to have to prune the tank soon, corals are definitely outgrowing one another in some areas. It looks awesome Sushi! Wow! Link to comment
Grimmpls Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 looking good sushi! I just got a Elos mini and I have been very inspired by yours. Hope to have mine done cycling soon so i can get some pics up. Link to comment
Hognoxious Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Just beautiful - a work of art. My most favorite tank on Nano-Reef. Link to comment
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