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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Gabe's Custom 10G Shallow Contest Cube


gabe3eb

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No worries Eager. There is a list on that contest page with links to all the participants tanks. Mine is not as far along in terms of livestock, I don't even have lights yet! However, all of my corals are in another tank just waiting to get moved over once my lights arrive. I will probably go ahead and order a clean up crew from John at reef cleaners this week. The light will be ordered from Nanocustoms.com as soon as they release the wide optic PAR38 bulb.

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Well, I'm having some serious thoughts about pulling out of the contest. There are a few factors here and none of them involve taking the tank down. Just releasing myself from the constraints of the contest. I want to participate, but after having a long talk with the wife last night, and doing some career planning, I might end up back in the desert early this coming Summer. If thats the case, I won't be able to keep the tank up for the entire contest, or at least would have to take it down right towards the end of the contest. Also, if I wasn't in the contest, I could make the tank to my exact specifications, instead of being limited in the budget. I'm going to think on it for a couple days and will keep this post updated regardless.

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Ah well I hope you figure everything out. Thanks for keeping the thread updated in the meantime though. This has to be the best 10G I have ever seen. I am really looking forward to seeing it stocked!

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Well, after adding the "dry rock" I got for free locally, it triggered a nasty new cycle in the tank. Glad I waited to add corals.

 

Anyway, this is a little bit of cheating, but I took some pictures of my 28g. Let's face it, posts without pics suck. It looks like a fruit stand and I sold a good deal of stuff recently. Most all of this stuff minus the Mushrooms and some of the Zoa colonies are going to be in my new tank.

 

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Bam-bams, radioactive dragoneyes (both from Calvin), Nuclear Greens from Reef Koi, no clue where I got Birdsnest or other rando SPS.

 

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Two of my favorite pieces. A Neon Green with Purple Growth Rim Fungia and a Pavona Maldivina. Color on the Pavona isn't quiet true. It rocks in person.

 

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My Darth Mauls! Love these things. The color balance is a little off here. You can also see a monti cap, tub's blues, whammin watermellons, and a nice Duncan.

 

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Armor of God Colony. Impossible to use for the contest, would be over a third of the budget. Damn I need a camera that doesn't drown out any florescence and actinic lighting.

 

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Current FTS of the 28g, most everything will be in the 10g. You can see my Fromia Starfish here too :D

 

Also, HUGE thanks to Jake Adams for showing me the innards of the PAR38 bulb and giving me the kick in the ass I needed to just order the thing and worry about coverage later. Also, HUGE thanks to Nick from nanotuners.com for offering to change out the optics for me, gratis. Lights and ATO arrive next week.

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Zounds! Can't wait to see these beauties in the 10g.

Me either. I'm shooting for a week from now as being the soonest possible time I could get them moved over.

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Just do a couple gallon water changes every day or so and your cycle should be over in no time. You've got some nice looking pieces by the way.

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Sweet stuff for your tank! I like that birdsnest especially!

 

-_- I can't wait to get my tank filled up too. Getting impatient but I have to remind myself that slow and steady wins the race.

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Bah! Well, the "dry/dead rock" I added has really messed with the tank a good deal. I added it over 2 weeks ago. The water quality was fine before that since I had thrown a couple live pieces of rubble in the tank from my established tank. The rock I got definitely triggered a funky spike that I just cant figure out though. Here are the test results:

 

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Nitrite, where the hell did you go!?

 

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Sunnova...

 

Anyways, before the Nitrite test committed suicide, it was very bright purple. Probably between the 2.0-5.0 mark on the test kit. pH is fine, Ammonia seems to be low (can never tell exactly with the ammonia test), and Nitrate seems to be around 5.0.

 

In other words, the cycle of kinda funky and I think I'm just going to do a water change.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Also.... Merry Christmas to me...

 

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Hmmm, according to that graph, I would be somewhere just shy of the 20 day mark. Suppose that is advocating not changing water yet too. I will be mounting the PAR38 today after finding a rig at Home Depot yesterday. Will add some pics.

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After fumbling around with my lighting choices and having nano-customs rock socks, I have made my final choice of lighting. A PAR38 20K fixture with 60 degree optics. I'm sure you just want pics, so I will make it a brief post. First two pics are with flash, last two are without. True color is somewhere between. Pardon the mess of cords and water jug. I just hooked up my auto-topoff too and was testing it with water from a jug.

 

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The ability for me to "shoot" the light onto the tank from a location not on top of the tank is awesome. One of the best ways I will be able to enjoy this tank is looking straight down from above. In the first shot, it looks like the tank is missing a light fixture all together even though its fully lit :D. I'm very happy with it right now. I do want to up the flow a little bit and I'm throwing some ideas around of how to do that.

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Great top down shot... awesome way to view tanks... I like the layout of your rock too... lots of sand space. Look forward to seeing what's next as far as transferring the corals goes.

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Well, a very astute observer pointed out to me that with the bulb's current placement, coral color on the front side of the pieces will be lacking. This mainly relates to my SPS, which would be getting light only on the back side. I might have to add another LED spotlight to highlight the other direction. I think I can accomplish this with something from superbrightleds.com. They have quiet a variety of E27 base socket LEDS, some with CREE 3W bulbs in them. Good prices too. I'm definitely digging the whole spotlighting affect that I am getting and want to build on it though. Retroing a PC bulb somewhere on top of the tank would just seem cheap at this point.

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Well, the params have been stable for the past half week or so. I threw in a small zoa colony, a nice SPS frag, and my first love, Buck - a yellow clown goby. I'm really worried that he isn't liking his new home though, he is swimming around a lot more now than he ever did in the old tank. Hopefully he will be alright come tomorrow.

 

In other news, I now feel for everyone that talks about how difficult it is to take pictures of LEDs.

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Turn your 15's into 16's and you got my tank ! :lol:

 

Awesome! I would love to see some pics for a little motivation! I should be adding all my corals in the new few days.

 

 

In other news, buck looks just fine and the SPS and Zoas I put in yesterday look great too.

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