lgreen Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 um...150w on a 12" tall tank = all intense light...somewhat Link to comment
corallineadam Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 i love it! and i think the 150w mh will be just wonderful it will be intense but it will not be too bad at all... Link to comment
violinist Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 um...150w on a 12" tall tank = all intense light...somewhat Well all things are relative, but yeah it's a lot of light. On far left and right of the tank though, it drops off and on the left that big mound of rock casts a pretty good shadow too. Got any coral suggestions? Link to comment
glennr1978 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 First of all, I think you're off to a great start! The only real problem I see is your lighting. You can clearly see in one of your pics that it basically doesn't hit the left side of the mound of rocks over on the left. You're going to be very limited to what you can grow in that area and I would think that it could take away from the entire "feel" of the tank. Personally, I would add another clamp on halide, and have each over the rocks. I really like your aquascape btw, very simple but it looks great! Check out my tank, I've got 2x's 150's over it. Also, are you going to get an mp10 afterall? The koralias will do the job, but the mp10 will look MUCH cleaner in the tank. Link to comment
Arkayology Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Get some frogspawn/torch, some nice zoas, xenia, some shrooms to start with and then move on to SPS like birdnest, monti cap and then acropora when you get the hang of things. Make sure you read up on the flow and light requirements (of course you will, but needed to be said lol). Looks like you got a good start. I will be getting an ac110 or ac70 soon to mod into a fuge. You will have to let me know how happy are you with yours. +1 on the lighting. What you have is ok for now, but you will be wanting another of those clamp on MH when you tank matures and you start running out of space in the middle. Link to comment
violinist Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Yeah, I was thinking maybe the far sides could be for shrooms but it is looking pretty dim over there... Maybe after the holidays the fixture will go for sale and I'll get a couple pendants to hang from the ceiling (a battle I was trying to avoid). There's no room on the back for a second clamp with the ac70 there unfortunately. The HK's are ugly warts for sure! Still thinking about the MP10. Do you think 1 would be sufficient? I like the amount of flow right now between the two ph's and the hob. Link to comment
Deleted User 6 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Can you raise that clamp-on MH up a bit? It'll give you more spread overall and you'll still be hitting some nice par on the sandbed. You should be able to keep SPS at any level in the tank. Link to comment
violinist Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Can you raise that clamp-on MH up a bit? It'll give you more spread overall and you'll still be hitting some nice par on the sandbed. You should be able to keep SPS at any level in the tank. For all of the knobs you can adjust on the clamp, I wasn't all that impressed with the positioning options. I can raise it up in height, but at the expense of it coming forward to the front rim of the tank. Ultimately I think I would need to get it off the rim of the tank and mount it on something behind the tank, perhaps a ledge on the wall, to get the height and still have it centered over the the tank. Went at the tank with a flashlight last night. Saw some sort of prehistoric looking crab wandering around, a few more snails, a starfish and various other unidentifiable beasts. Link to comment
glennr1978 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 The HK's are ugly warts for sure! Still thinking about the MP10. Do you think 1 would be sufficient? I like the amount of flow right now between the two ph's and the hob. One mp10 will be more than enough for a 20L. Link to comment
clownfish617 Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Which sps you thinking? Montis' Bird nests i know nothing about SPS btw lol! Link to comment
violinist Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Tossed my clowns in the tank last night and fed them. Wanted to see if the tank would process their ammonia and figured I'd move them back to the bc if it didn't. Tested water this morning and again tonight, 0's across the board. Maybe a slight uptick in nitrates this evening. I'm not anticipating a cycle since the LR came out of stocked reefs at the lfs. Migrated a couple snails and hermits over from the bc as well. Happy critters. Link to comment
latteslave Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Seeing the blank canvas makes me want to get ANOTHER tank! Of course I would be divorced if I did that... With your lighting, I would say just have fun and get what you want. I could see a few nice Acros in there... Any thoughts on clams? Are you going to dose 2 part? If I were starting over again, the one thing I would say for softies is to make sure you take your time deciding on colors and morphs... They will grow well, so spend a little more and get the not so usual suspects. Link to comment
violinist Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Seeing the blank canvas makes me want to get ANOTHER tank! Of course I would be divorced if I did that... With your lighting, I would say just have fun and get what you want. I could see a few nice Acros in there... Any thoughts on clams? Are you going to dose 2 part? If I were starting over again, the one thing I would say for softies is to make sure you take your time deciding on colors and morphs... They will grow well, so spend a little more and get the not so usual suspects. I'll post an updated pic of my biocube tomorrow. I have a ####load of zoas in that thing already, some pretty cool looking. I'm thinking of working them in around the lower part of that rock on the right. I see little worms/tentacles swaying around on the frags. They are all healthy and all of them have new polyps showing up here and there, so I don't know whether or not I should try and kill off the hitchikers before transferring them or not. Also have a frogspawn, blasto, monti cap and florida ric. Anyway, as far as new stuff I like the idea of SPS but honestly it seems like LPS wins for crazy shapes and colors imo. So I'm up in the air and just keep looking at pics and reading requirements. Link to comment
reefer123 Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 taggin along. nice work. has potential Link to comment
nemmy Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 I just got my reefkeeper lite today, by far the best investment for my tank. You should get one! Link to comment
violinist Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 I just got my reefkeeper lite today, by far the best investment for my tank. You should get one! What is it? Link to comment
violinist Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Picked up the MP10 and also an Octopus hob skimmer... Link to comment
glennr1978 Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Picked up the MP10 and also an Octopus hob skimmer... Pics or it didn't happen!! Excellent choice on both pieces of equipment, btw. Link to comment
violinist Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 MP10 just about blew the side off the tank when I turned it on full blast, per the instructions, to align the pieces lol. Dialed it back about 500gph and set it to reef crest. The octopus wasn't the same success... The real estate it consumes inside the tank is way too much for a 20 long. The return tube has a massive sponge on it to kill air bubbles. Long story short, kept the mp10 and returned the octopus for a aquac remora with a 1200gph pump and a surface skimmer add-on. Nice to have a clean surface again. Had to move the rocks around, so it's a cloudy mess in there right now. Will post pics when it clears up. Link to comment
AdriftQuasar Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 I wanna see. Please give us pichers. Link to comment
glennr1978 Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Lol, I told you the mp10 would be plenty!! Link to comment
violinist Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 What is it? Hey I was reading the forum on my phone, hence having to ask what the reefkeeper lite was. Looks pretty slick! Link to comment
violinist Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Here's some pics, it's still pretty cloudy. Tank is too bright for the camera to balance it against the rest of the room (in which I had the lights turned on...) but you can sort of make out the skimmer on the left of the back wall. Closer shot. Only thing I'm not digging about it is the fine spray coming up out of the return chamber (that's the heater tucked in there). It's not a lot of spray and it seems confined to just the chamber area, but we'll see if I start getting salt showing up everywhere. Here's the new scape resulting from having to sacrifice some room on the left to the surface skimmer attachment. Tried a few things, this worked as well as any. Getting rid of the mountain on the left did improve the light over there. Here's the mp10 where the two hk's used to be. Much less intrusive (sorry for the ####ty pic) though the clowns seem pissed off at having lost their fav "cave". They loved those powerheads. Here's a shot of the bc8, sorry about the lack of dof. But that's the stock that could be migrated into the 20L. The place I bought the mp10 and skimmer is aquacave.com. By pure chance, I drove there under the impression it was the brick 'n mortar store I had spoken to in the same city. It wasn't, they are an online vendor. Cool guys even though they don't have a storefront, they let me buy from them and return the octopus skimmer, etc. They have an absolutely sick amount of primo sps frags in 4 massive tanks that they are sitting on. Wasn't clear if they were getting ready to start selling them on their website. They all came from two of the guys home tanks (one guy still has 1200 gallons of reef in his house...). Link to comment
fastandsneaky Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 you from il or wi? aquacave is always nice and lets you pick up if ordered ahead. great place. Link to comment
violinist Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 you from il or wi? aquacave is always nice and lets you pick up if ordered ahead. great place. IL. Takes me about half an hour to drive there. Yeah they seem like a good crew. Link to comment
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