Imisky's Sticks and Colors Reef (Nov.12,2012 A years worth of growth)

[imisky]

Holy cr@p, your tank looks amazing. Nice job hanging the par bulbs.

 

 

Looking great. Do you have any plans to add some new stuff?

 

-Dave

 

 

Tagging along for new looks at a great build!

 

Thanks guys its good to have so many people following along.

 

Dave, yup there is some plan to add new corals and fish. I'm thinking some acans and maybe a couple basselets or more damsel fish as I love the way the interact in big groups

[TheNordCelt]

Scape looks good man.

[imisky]

Scape looks good man.

 

thanks

 

 

 

so i pulled out the trusty air meter to see how many LPH of air this skimmer is actually pulling. Now i was expecting this thing to show me something like 400 LPH as the skimmer is rated at 580LPH since most manufactures tend to boast the numbers a little bit. but to my surprise this is what i saw..

 

just to clarify the unit is showing numbers in LPM so take whatever you see there and multiply it by 60 and you get LPH. This beast of a skimmer is actually pulling anywhere between 600-660LPH of air at any given time as the ball bounces a tiny bit from 10-11LPM. so props to SWC for not boasting their skimmer performance but infact rates it moderately a bit lower then how it runs in the real world.

 

Keep in mind performance may vary from 1 skimmer to the other and the water level it sits in so just to be fair the settings were taken under the condition of:

 

1. fully opened air valve

2. sits in 8" of water

3. gets lots of love <-- not sure how this one effects it but hey why not.

[imisky]

a few new tank shots, i have to find some time to take pictures of the corals but hopefully these will give you guys an idea as yo where the tank stands, corals are coloring up amazingly with my new feeding regime of 4 times a day with small fish pellets by NLS along with DIY fishfood 2x weekly.

 

[SLOreefer]

the tank is lookin good!

[imisky]

the tank is lookin good!

 

thanks SLOreefer, I've been wanting to do more with the tank but life is just constantly taking a toll on the amount of time i can play with it. To the point where almost everything on the tank is automated except for glass cleaning.

[TheNordCelt]

Hey looking good man.

[Lee Van Reef]

This tank is great looking! Its a real inspiration/

[SLOreefer]

I hope to get my tank to the point where most of it is automated! That is the goal with my next tank I am working on. I just need to figure out which equipment I want to buy in order to automate it better.

[imisky]

Hey looking good man.

This tank is great looking! Its a real inspiration/

 

thanks guys

 

I hope to get my tank to the point where most of it is automated! That is the goal with my next tank I am working on. I just need to figure out which equipment I want to buy in order to automate it better.

 

On one hand having everything automated is good, but on the other you'll want to play with it more eventually. At least thats what i found with me. plenty of sources out there to see what people are using, just chose what works for you.

[imisky]

finally! a bit of a break. With the alloted time off to relax whats better to do then sit back and enjoy the tank right? So as i do that i pulled out the camera and started taking some pictures. It was only after that i shot the photos that i realized the ISO setting on my 5d was set at 1600. The photos are still pretty decent but if you look close enough you'll see the obvious pixels. So with the lazy state and desire to relax a little im going to say these are good enough. Enjoy guys

 

ponape: (recoverying from Super ULNS)

 

hawkins

 

orange fungia

 

wild acro i picked up

 

gold rim blasto

 

green slimmer

 

boreallis: (it RTN-ed 3x and this is the size it is at again)

 

field of ultra acans:

 

a super purple SPS with a repulation to grow slow, anyone want to guess?

[Arkayology]

The tank is looking great! Those LEDs seem to be doing good job.

[TheNordCelt]

Nice shots, what lens?

[Zo0k365]

Sick I've been wanting to do a tank like this.

[Rehype]

looks incredible imisky. Ive always been a big fan of your setups. Your coral seem to be recovering really well.

[imisky]

The tank is looking great! Those LEDs seem to be doing good job.

 

Thanks! the LEDs are doing more than i expected, i always wondered how they would affect the colors and it seems like corals dont need all that much UV if any to color up.

 

Nice shots, what lens?

 

The setup was a canon 5d mk1 + sigma 150mm f2.8 (one of the best macros ive used)

 

Sick I've been wanting to do a tank like this.

 

Thanks, perhaps its time to set one up the way you've always wanted.

 

looks incredible imisky. Ive always been a big fan of your setups. Your coral seem to be recovering really well.

 

Thanks Rehype, It's amazing how fast corals can recover. From my 5 years of reef keeping I've always been thrown with the idea that corals take a long time to color up sometimes up to 6 or so months. This has shown differently i guess and its rewarding to see

[qwuintus]

Looks good but I'm curious why you went with those bulbs?

 

Seems like a lot of money if you paid retail for them- aren't they about $100 each?

[imisky]

Looks good but I'm curious why you went with those bulbs?

 

Seems like a lot of money if you paid retail for them- aren't they about $100 each?

 

I've always liked the way that Japanese reef tanks turned out. The way they light there systems is so drastically different with the use of spotlight type lighting and yet it still works. So i opted to go for something similar as i no longer wanted the one piece fixture look anymore. The bulbs were expensive but imo definitely worth it. Im a simple guy who simply want the light to turn on and off, the controller part of the lighting sounds more or so like a gimmick to me as we went years with MH and everyone was happy. So i opted for the cheapest solution that would give me the style i wanted the tank to have.

 

if you looked at other options which most are one piece fixtures:

 

2x SWC 60W fixtures running at 600ma you get 2w roughly so its technically only 40 : $500/ea (i get less light)

vertex illumina (36") : $2000 (out of the question

maxxspect 110W + lens: ~$550/ea + shipping cost, i would need 2

 

 

And i like the look to be honest it makes tank maintenance super easy without having a big fixture over the tank covering most of the space above the water.

[imisky]

So im stuck at home today with nothing to do and since i havent updated for a while, I guess its time.

 

All the corals are doing decently well, alot of them has browned out due to the hectic design competition 2 months i had a while ago and is finally recovering at a fast rate might i add. While some corals didnt care about the alk being at 5 some did, esp my bigger colonies. The smaller frags kept growing at a super fast rate.

 

Ponape (march)

 

Ponape (now)

 

Borealis(march)

 

Borealis(now)

 

Blueberry cheese cake monti:

 

hawkins

 

German Blue Digi

 

Browned out true Orgeon Tort (red polyp and no green at all even under low light)

 

20K lokani with neon green polyps (new)

[Zer0]

Great coral dude. Where did you get that Borealis? I'll be looking for a frag of that soon.

[Giga]

fantastic

[Kylebeano]

fantastic

Times infinity

[imisky]

Great coral dude. Where did you get that Borealis? I'll be looking for a frag of that soon.

 

oh man...i got that borealis a good 4-5 years ago from the states and i dont remember the store name. Recently I havent seen any on any website sorry cant be much of a help there. I know i was trying to find a vender with borealis when mine RTNed and couldnt find any. Good luck though!

 

fantastic

Times infinity

and thanks guys!

[Zer0]

Aww poo.. I love that coral.

 

Well, at least I will be able to see it in your tank.

[Rehype]

Looks incredible....glad those pieces recovered so nicely.