Sahin Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Sounds like this tank is coming along nicely. I really think your lights are going to be awesome with some SPS. I bet you'll get incredible color. Glad to hear you like the bubble magnus skimmer...I am going to get one for my next tank as well. Looking forward to pictures once your sandstorm subsides. Thank man. I hope my lights enable me to have really colourful SPS. I spent sooo many hours on this mod. You will like the BM NAC6, lots of UK reef keepers have it and I am yet to know of someone talk bad about it, hence the reason I got it. Fresh photos posted above, but the tank is still cloudy. Hope you all like it so far. Link to comment
Rehype Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Awesome job sahin. That is such a genius setup. Link to comment
peewee1467 Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 that room looks so awesome! Link to comment
Sahin Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 Awesome job sahin. That is such a genius setup. Thanks. that room looks so awesome! Thanks. I'll let my wife know that you complimented on the room...her design and colour scheme etc. Link to comment
Sahin Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 Skimmer: I came across a post about setting up a skimmer correctly, and after reviewing the info and playing around with the BM NAC6 all I can say is another big WOW! Bubble Magus have done really well in producing this most excellent value for money skimmer. It is now producing an extremely dry foam, and it is still very thick. Happy with its performance. Here is a link to that thread I was referring to above:Skimmer setup You may find it quite useful. ATI Sunpower T5/LED Hybrid: I am VERY happy with this modification. As I said in an earlier post, I transferred my two Maxima clams into this tank already; well, they are doing very well. In my old tank under a 150w halide, even though they were about 10 inches below the centre of the light, they were still stretching the mantle just a little extra to capture a bit more light. I must stress that they were growing fine as well; producing new shell growth. They may have darkened a little in the year I have had them,by making up for a lack of light by extending the mantle and producing more zooanthellae. What I noticed in the new tank under the ATI LED/T5's is that they are extending thier mantles much less. Both clams have expelled some zooanthellae over the past few days. I know it is not a reaction to stress; but rather, due to a lot more available light. I saw a similar reaction by previous clams I kept when I went from a 150w halide to a 250w halide. So all in all, by observing the reaction of my clams; critters who need the most light, I know my light is upto the level of the requirements of the corals I am going to place in my tank. Noise wise, it is noisy; because I have to run the fans a high speed, but it is located in our living room and I am happy with it. Fauna Marin Triple Doser: In order to provide chemical stability to my reef aquarium, I bought this doser to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Whether I use a commercial two part or go balling lite or even a home made two part is still undecided, but here are a few photos I took of the unit: A closeup shot of the LED lit display. Looks pretty cool. Final shot: Well, it looks very much like the GHL units. With a 24 month warranty on it, I am pretty happy with this purchase. Will post a review in a few months time once its been up and running for a while. I went with this brand because it was sold to me with 1/3 of the price knocked off by my LFS (it is brand new...I am a good customer ) and it has a 24 month warranty. Link to comment
urbaneks Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Very nice setup. I'm in the planning phases on a similar venture. Are you going to get rid of the 28g completely? If I remember right, you had one of my baskets in that tank. Can't wait to see this rank progress. Are you planning mainly sps or a mixed reef. Link to comment
TheNordCelt Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Excellent build, can't wait to see it stocked. Link to comment
Sahin Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 Very nice setup. I'm in the planning phases on a similar venture. Are you going to get rid of the 28g completely? If I remember right, you had one of my baskets in that tank. Can't wait to see this rank progress. Are you planning mainly sps or a mixed reef. Thanks for the nice words. My younger bro is taking the 28G for his mantis shrimp. He isnt into corals and such etc. I did plan to buy one of your media baskets and enquired about it, but then modified mine to house phosphate media - which worked really well by the way. I am going for a mainly SPS reef - I have a love for SPS corals, LPS and softies just dont do it for me. I may have a couple of LPS on the sand - thats it. Excellent build, can't wait to see it stocked. Thanks. I put a lot of thought, planning and expense into this setup, hope it will pay off. Link to comment
Sahin Posted January 16, 2011 Author Share Posted January 16, 2011 Small Update: The tank is progressing well. I have bought a few SPS corals, and they are doing fine. I now have two Vortech MP10's plus the return for water flow. I think the water flow is quite sufficient for now. If there is lot of growth and flow restriction in the future, I can buy a third internal pump. The tank is going through the usual cycles of algae etc. Diatoms have appeared all over the sand as expected. None on the rocks though because the rocks are fully cured and were a transfer from my nano tank. I am still waiting on reef putty so that I can do the rock scaping. Once the rockscape is done, I will post photos and a short video clip. Link to comment
Twinn Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Great setup I really like the ATI mod. I'll be following. Link to comment
Sahin Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Update: The tank is getting along nicely. I'll do a series of commentary on anything I feel is significant: Lights: I'm going to rate it as excellent! Why? Because when I put in my Seriatopora hystrix frags from my last tank, I didnt think much of what would happen to the colour of this coral. In my last tank under a 150w halide, the colour was a light brown, perhaps a tinge of pink in the appearance. With the lights off, the coral always appeared brown. Within days of being placed in this tank, the 3 seperate frags started to colour up. Two are placed permanantly onto the rockwork and these two have coloured up BRIGHT pink. With the lights turned off, the coral is STILL PINK! The remaining frag, is on the sand bed at the extreme edge of the tank, but even this, to my surprise, has coloured up. Remember that my lights are 24inch long and the tank is 30inch long. So this demonstrates just how powerful this T5/LED Hybrid light is. I have two other corals; a bright green milli and an uknown blue acro with which I gauged the effectiveness of the lights; the milli darkened after going in my tank, and lost a lot of the green. But in the past week it has coloured up sooo nicely and has numerous growth tips. The blue acro also lost colour, but has since coloured up. I am certain that those corals placed in my other tank with the 150w halide would hae lost most of thier colour and not gotten it back. My tank is still new...although the rocks and most of the water came from an established tank, the sand is new, so consequently, the tank is still going through a smaller scale algae cycle. At the moment, there is some diatoms remaining, as well as dinoflagellates. Both are starting to reduce greatly now, but do remain on the sand. The rocks are completely clean - since they came from my last tank and have no phosphates leaching etc. Skimmer: is still going strong. It is using about 50watts as measured by a watt meter and I was rather annoyed at this. Other than that, it is performing fine. I only have 6 small chromis, 2 tiny perc clowns and 1 small bangai cardinal, so in terms of bioload, there isnt that much. A single yellow tank that is about 6 inches will produce a lot more poop than all of these together. Photos: sorry about this, but until my laptop is fixed, I cannot get photos off my Nikon DSLR. I have been taking weekly photos though. But I will say that it will be worth waiting for the photos...the SPS are loving my tank, and are colouring up nicely. Water flow: So...I now have 2 MP10's on this tank woohooooo! Yes, for anyone thats noticed, MP10's are working fine in my tank with 12mm thick glass. I first tested with my old gen MP10, and after a month of it working fine, I decided to buy another MP10 as the MP20 is no longer available and I didnt want to fork out for an MP40 due to its price and larger size. With two MP10's and the return provide enough flow. I dont even run them at 100% anyway. Backup Battery: I managed to buy a used Vortech Babckup Battery for almost half price and have it hooked up for emegencies. I tested the battery for over 14 hours and then decided that it would most likely go the full distance, and at the price paid, even 14 hours is good enough. In Central London, electricity cuts are only for a few hours at a time and are rare, so 14 hours or more is plenty. I just felt that with all the money that goes into the livestock a backup battery is worth the investment - more so when it is almost half price! Ca+Alk: At the moment I am dosing C-balance at 5ml of each part and about 1 litre of kalkwasseur a day. I will up the kalk to about 1.5litres a day at the end of the week. Hopefully next time I will have photos to show off my modest SPS tank. Link to comment
steely185 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Looks very nice. Look forward to seeing some new pics. Link to comment
Sahin Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 Update: Tank is progressing well. Still have some diatoms, hair algae and a bit of dinoflagellates hanging around. I know there is phosphates coming out the new sand bed because the rocks and water are from my old tank and I didnt have any nutrient problems in the old tank. I should have the phosphates under control within a few months. Coral Colours: One thing I felt that always lacked in my previous tanks was coral colours. Well not anymore! My coral colours are excellent! Even with the excess phosphates in the system colours are FAR better than I've ever had in a reef tank. I attribute this mainly to the LED/T5 Hybrid Lights. Green: All green coloured corals are super green in the tank. I have 4 differant types of green coloured acros and all have very good colour. Pink: I have a pink milli and a pink hysterix and both are doing well. The pink cultured milli initialy lose all its pink colour but has since started to colour up and is almost as pink as when I first got it. I think in 6 months time this pink milli will be one of my best coloured corals. Blue: I have a few blue colured corals and they are holding their colour ok. Need to improve, but I'm sure once the phosphates reduce to near naturual levels, the blues will get better. Purple: I have a purple acro frag and since it went into my tank from the LFS, the colour has improved a lot. My computer is still not fixed and so I cannot post any photos yet, but I promise I will post something worth waiting for I am taking photos at the moment, but cannot load them onto my computer. I have added a Sander Ozoniser (model C25) to keep the water clarity in top condition. I run the ozoniser every few days for a few hours and the water turns cystal clear. I decided to use one entirely for this purpose and not for bacteria/pest control purposes. I believe having ultra clear water will provide the corals with as much light light as possible. No yellow water. In my last tank I use to notice the water yellowing if I missed a few water changes in a row. I have noticed a few bubble algae appear and so bought an Emerald Crab today. As soon as he went into the tank he started to pick at the rocks...but he hasnt had the chance to go on the rocks with the bubble algae yet. So I will see how he does. I managed to pick up an Acropora Gomezi frag which I'm pretty happy about. The LFS guy wasnt sure what it was and it wasnt in the best of colour or condition - sold it to me for cheap! This is a lovely blue acro that looks very similar to the blue Tort. It has improved its colour since it went into my tank and the blue polpys have started to come out. Overall, I cant wait for the tank to reach 6 months. I know that by then the tank will be mature enough to bring out the full coral colours Looks very nice. Look forward to seeing some new pics. Thanks. Will post photos as soon as possible. Link to comment
TheNordCelt Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Sounds good man, looking forward to those photo's. Link to comment
bmac16 Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 nice build, very clean! Link to comment
Meximazing Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 How do you keep that room clean? ALL WHITE?!!?!?!! CHILDREN?!?! Bless your soul (looks really good though lol) Link to comment
HecticDialectics Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Awesome tank, can't wait for photos! Link to comment
Sahin Posted March 7, 2011 Author Share Posted March 7, 2011 OK, I did promise some photos so here they are. Colours have been adjusted to reflect what can be seen in the tank. I do have a lot of "colour pop" due to the combo of 2xBlue+, 2xWhite, 1x Fiji Pink and the Blue LED's. However, even with the LED's off, the corals exhibit very good colour. Here are the photos. Link to comment
Rehype Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Wow incredible sahin!totm worthy for sure Link to comment
Sahin Posted March 7, 2011 Author Share Posted March 7, 2011 Sounds good man, looking forward to those photo's. Thanks! nice build, very clean! Thanks! How do you keep that room clean? ALL WHITE?!!?!?!! CHILDREN?!?! Bless your soul (looks really good though lol) Thanks, LOL, it is hard to keep the room clean with 2 todlers around, but hey I like the look! Awesome tank, can't wait for photos! Thanks, photos posted above! Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Incredible. Can't wait to see this tank grow out! Link to comment
neuwave Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Can't believe I've missed this thread, awsome tank! Nice collection of acros. Link to comment
CollegeNano Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 The tank empty is sexy enough, but stocked I still can't believe it. My eyes thank you Sahin, your tank is amazing as are your photos. Link to comment
Sahin Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 Wow incredible sahin!totm worthy for sure Thanks. TOTM is something I aspire to, but maybe in a years time or so. This tank is way too young. I am confident that my corals will be healthier and more colourful in a years time. Thanks for the compliment. Incredible. Can't wait to see this tank grow out! Thank you. I wish I could fast forward 1 year of coral growth and tank maturation! LOL Can't believe I've missed this thread, awsome tank! Nice collection of acros. Thanks. In the UK we dont have as nice corals as you guys in the USA, but I have come across a UK reefkeeper who visits the best reefkeepers in Europe, picking up frags from them. And I have been getting my frags from him. very nice! Thanks! The tank empty is sexy enough, but stocked I still can't believe it.My eyes thank you Sahin, your tank is amazing as are your photos. Ha! That is quite the compliment and has made my day! I bet you sure know how to chat up women! LOL Thank you. Look out for a short video clip I will be posting soon. I want you guys to see the coral colours in motion. Link to comment
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