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Zer0's 25G Trimless LED Cube

Zer0

By Zer0,
in Nano Reef Journals

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pismo_reefer

pismo_reefer

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<_< It's almost September...

 

Zer0, WHY YOU NO POST NEW PICS!?

I have to agree with this statement

I, as well, concur....

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Zer0

Zer0

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Sorry fellas. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene rolled through and pretty much destroyed my backyard and power was out since Saturday afternoon/evening.

 

Still, my tank survived!!! I'm actually really happy right now because everything is looking great. The conch that I got has cleaned up the sand so freaking well, and the sand is super bright white now. Best addition to this tank since the two clowns.

 

Right now I'm setting up to do a water change, and once it's complete ans the tank settles for a little bit, I'll post some new pictures. Doing a water change because apparently I have a little bit of ammonia in there. I'm assuming it's because for a few days I had no means of filtration. I only fed the tank one out of the 4 days without power, but I guess it still accumulated and what not. Shouldn't be a problem though, I'm hoping. We'll just have to see.

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Zer0

Zer0

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good to know your tank is okay.

 

i'll be waiting for pics as well.

 

Thanks dude. I'll be sure to deliver. Even if the pics are poopy.

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Zer0

Zer0

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So a big update today. I'll post up as many good pictures as I can, and also, I picked up two SPS pieces today. :)

 

So yeah, today I went back to Ocean Gallery with the intentions of buying an SPS piece and a zoa piece.. But I wound up getting two SPS pieces because they had almost no zoa selection. I actually saw an ORA Borealis which is the one SPS piece I want the most, but I just couldn't justify paying $80 for a 2 inch frag. I saw the Purple Tri-Color Valida for 40 bucks, and it was a fairly large piece as well as the last one on the rack, so I nabbed it. I think I got it at a good price. But idk what the prices are on these corals. I also went to their SPS sale section and saw this REALLY nice frag, which was blue and green so I also took it. I think it's just your typical acro, but I'm not sure. Anyways, I fell in love with both these pieces. Right now they look amazing under the LEDs and they have some crazy polyp extension. Hopefully they will stay that way as well. Also, on another note regarding my water chemistry, I'm reading zero across the board, and my Salinity is back up to 1.025 right where I went it. Calcium is at 480. Looks like everything is doing good so far. :)

 

Anyways, here's the pictures:

 

Zoanthids from a couple weeks ago when they were being acclimated;

p7090047.jpg

 

Here's what they looked like under the LEDs:

p7090051.jpg

 

Here's when they started to melt under the LEDs lol:

p7140059.jpg

 

So now, after raising my fixture from 8 inches off the surface to 18 inches, and moving the zoas under the overhang, they are starting to look much better and the polyps are getting larger:

p7200081.jpg

 

 

p7090053.jpg

 

Here's teh conch that keeps my sandbed sparkling white. I love this conch, and he's got a couple barnacles growing on his shell lol:

p7200066.jpg

 

I also thought this was funny.. the shell is out of the water but the snail is still in the water :P

photopk.jpg

 

And i took this picture at my LFS, it's pretty self-explanitory:

photo1vf.jpg

 

So now, a few pictures of the nice SPS pieces I got:

p7200070.jpg

 

p7200069.jpg

 

p7200077.jpg

 

p7200072p.jpg

 

 

So yeah.. That's all for now folks. I'll try and take more pictures of various things going on with the tank and also I'll get an updated FTS soon.

 

Thanks for looking.

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Zer0

Zer0

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whoa $80 for a borealis?? :o

 

i need to take that off my wish list

 

that conch is pretty neat looking. it's coming along :happy:

 

Yeah, I'm going to grab one eventually, but absolutely not at 80 bucks. Not going to happen, not for ONE piece of coral. Thanks dude, the conch does work.

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Zer0

Zer0

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Lookin good, this tank is growing nicely and i really like those new acro's

 

Thanks gerbil! My camera doesn't really capture the colors too good, but they have really nice color. The bases look a little browned out, but I'm assuming that's because of the LFS water chemistry and the fact that they were under ugly Halides. They should color up nicely under the LEDs... hopefully. I really want to see how that Tri-Color colors up. Only thing I dislike is the ginormous frag plug on the Valida. I was just too lazy to break it off the plug.. it should look pretty cool though once it starts to encrust over the plug. On the square plug there's actually quite a few things living inside of it. I see the arms of brittle stars and some other wormish looking things as well. Should add a little diversity to the tank, no? :lol:

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Squared

Squared

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did you dip them? always dip. i think that's how i got planaria.

 

also inspect any small crevices on frags <---if did that i may have never had nudis in my tank

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Zer0

Zer0

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did you dip them? always dip. i think that's how i got planaria.

 

also inspect any small crevices on frags <---if did that i may have never had nudis in my tank

 

I didn't do any of that.. unfortunately. I meant to.. but I just didn't buy the dip before I got the coral. I'll be buying coral dip soon before I get any more coral though, for sure.

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Zer0

Zer0

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Can you tell how you did the rockscape? Did you use aqua mend or some sort of putty?

 

I used a combination of silicone, and super glue GEL. Most of the pieces just fit togather like a puzzle, which made it easier. Then, after the big rocks were put in place, I went around to all the smaller cracks and crevices and glued on smaller pieces, in order to make the rock structure more conformed.

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I just tested for just about everything I could and here's my readings:

 

Ammonia: 0ppm

Nitrite: 0ppm

Nitrate: 0ppm

Phosphate: 0ppm

Salinity: 1.025

pH: 7.8

Calcium: 480-500

dKH: 14-15

 

So now.. I'm wondering how and why my dKH is so high.. Could anyone tell me what causes the carbonate hardness to be that high? I use Oceanic salt and I use a 5-stage RO/DI unit. Should it really be that high?

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Zer0

Zer0

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Pretty awesome aquascape buddy. I am sure it will look even better once you put some corals in there.

 

Thanks dude! Much appreciated! I think it's going to look pretty good once I am able to fill it up with more coral and they all start growing in.

 

 

Also, I'm not sure if dKH plays a big part on how well SPS do in an aquarium, but despite my dKH readings, both SPS pieces are looking fantastic. I am getting some incredible polyp extension, and the Valida is really showing it's florescent purple color. I'm in love with that piece.

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phi delt reefer

phi delt reefer

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i would have that alk test double checked. does your kit come with a standard you can verify the kit against?

 

ph and alk usually work together so high alk usually comes with high ph. Not always though...but its a guess.

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pismo_reefer

pismo_reefer

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Looks really good, Zero! :happy:

 

 

I have to do a LOT of editing to even get my pics close to the right WB.

It's hard to shoot under Led's.

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