avorio Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 The new protein skimmer is already pulling out yellow skimmate. It's not even broken in yet, good stuff. That's great! What protein skimmer are you using? How did you choose it? Link to comment
JayPagi Posted July 22, 2013 Author Share Posted July 22, 2013 That's great! What protein skimmer are you using? How did you choose it? I went with the SCA-301 on ebay. It's simple, fairly quiet and easy to use. Well I should have my computer up and running tomorrow afternoon . So hopefully I will finally be able to finally upload my camera and post some pictures of the latest setup. Really really happy with it. Link to comment
JayPagi Posted August 22, 2013 Author Share Posted August 22, 2013 updates? Yeah... don't take vacations. Tanks a mess right now! Seriously though I have some pictures to post but no internet connection at home right now (in between providers). I will post shortly. Link to comment
Rain24 Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 Don't take vacations is right! I went on one recently to the detriment of my tank. I lost a bunch of coral. Only two are hanging in there. I hope yours recovers from your vacation soon. I'm nursing my duncan (who will now be named McLeod since he seemed like the only survivor at first), and my plate seems to be determined to bounce back. Please post an update when you can. Link to comment
NanoTopia Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 Yeah... don't take vacations. Tanks a mess right now! Seriously though I have some pictures to post but no internet connection at home right now (in between providers). I will post shortly. Jay, we need an update! NOW! Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 11, 2013 Author Share Posted October 11, 2013 So it's been a long as time since I made an update on NR but don't worry I've been following along like a NINJA. Well lets see where do I start... I went on vacation for 2 weeks in August and left my tank in the hands of a very good friend who did an excellent job tending to the tank. I did however lose my Duncan colony and almost lost my biggest acan colony (now fully recovered). I think this was more due to water quality than anything my friend did. Since changing over to the sumped style system I think the tank may have been battling a small cycle. Upon returning from vacation I was removing the extra big top off container I had temporarily set up and managed to blow my DIM4 controller and driver by crossing up my plugs . Oh gosh that was a piss off. I ended up stealing the driver from my 5.5 pico to get me up and running, though I'm only running on 14 lights now, not 18 but everyone is happy. On the same night the lights went down I noticed I had a leak, my sump was cracked. To this day I don't know how it cracked but it did. I quickly had to swap it out with a standard 10 gallon tank with no baffling. Now please imagine how dejected I was feeling and not having much room in the budget aka nothing I was really considering taking the tank down. I went as far as creating a "Getting out of saltwater sale" on my local forum but never published it. Water changes went from every week to every 2 or 3 weeks. The sand and rock work began to turn green, oh I was a broken man. After a month or so of this behavior I couldn't take it anymore, that's just not who I am. I've since decided not to sell but continue to maintain this tank and ride it out until it looks like a true reef tank. I've been cleaning it like crazy lately trying to get rid of the excess algae and it's starting to look great again. I don't have any extra funds to upgrade my lights right now but it is something I want to do at some point. The standard 10 gallon sump is serving it's purpose so it will stay until I come up with something else. Here is the latest FTS sorry not a great pic (iphone) I have to set up a photoshoot, more to come. As you can see I changed my scape when I set up the sump. It's basically 2 islands with a narrow passage in between, there is also a small tunnel system on the right hand side (can't tell from this pciture). Link to comment
NanoTopia Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Jay, You're a better reefer for it, glad you kept it going. I have not been on a real vacation in years! I have decided there is nowhere I need to go more important than my tank right now, LOL. 9 times out of 10 the tank suffers when you are away from it for more than a week, regardless who is taking care of it. Sorry for all your troubles JAY, but glad to hear the tank is coming back Link to comment
awyeth1119 Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Okay so after analyzing the stand a bit I determined there were a couple of week points so I took some 2 x 3's and BEEFED it up. Basically I supported the middle shelf which is only held in place my dowels. I also modified the Elos Osmocontroller Sump bracket so I could use it on my tank. I trimmed it down, applied heat and bent it over. Then drilled some larger holes for 2 suction cups. It's not fancy but it works... here it is. I need to get some hose then test the system I will let everyone know how it goes. How's this stand holding up? I have one of these at my house and i'm thinking about setting up a nano tank at work. I'm thinking about setting a 13.3 gal tank on it. Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 11, 2013 Author Share Posted October 11, 2013 Jay, You're a better reefer for it, glad you kept it going. I have not been on a real vacation in years! I have decided there is nowhere I need to go more important than my tank right now, LOL. 9 times out of 10 the tank suffers when you are away from it for more than a week, regardless who is taking care of it. Sorry for all your troubles JAY, but glad to hear the tank is coming back It was hard being on vacation and worrying about the tank but sometimes you need to get away. Thanks I'm changing out filter media and running the skimmer really wet these days, but it's making a difference. I've never dosed before either, well properly but I'm now testing every day to establish a routine. How's this stand holding up? I have one of these at my house and i'm thinking about setting up a nano tank at work. I'm thinking about setting a 13.3 gal tank on it. The tank is no longer on this stand but it did work for over a year. I purchased a couple of BESTA units from IKEA which are quite solid and I've been using those. The EXPEDIT stand was a little suspect to be honest but if you can re-enforce it and screw it to the wall with some brackets it would be well suited. Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Giving the tank some much needed attention these days, starting to get rid of the GHA on all of my rock and surprisingly theres a fair bit of coralline algae under that crud. The sand bed is starting to look great again and my corals seem really happy. Anyways until the tank looks up to snuff again no updated FTS but in the mean time enjoy these filler macro shots. This is the wall bracket I had a friend make up, no more wires! This piece has always been brown but is recently starting to colour up. Some ric's... Here is the start of ric alley. Note the algae... eww. Purple mushrooms are starting to multiply And finally some frogspawn Link to comment
Rehype Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Looks great jay..love the scape Awesome pics BTW Link to comment
Illuiix Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Get more florida rics!!! Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Looks great jay..love the scape Awesome pics BTW Thanks hype. Get more florida rics!!! Noted. Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Glad you are keeping with it! Nice tank! I like ric alley! Link to comment
Giga Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Pretty sweet setup! Love the light bracket Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Glad you are keeping with it! Nice tank! I like ric alley! Pretty sweet setup! Love the light bracket Thanks guys. I'll try to take a picture of the overall setup and how it looks in the room. I need to mod my lights though, it's way too bright and white. Still using 1:1 7 x RB to 7 x CW. Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Oh yeah i'd definitely change the lighting up there but then I love blue. Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 Oh yeah i'd definitely change the lighting up there but then I love blue. Right now I have enough spare LED's to revise the lay out a little bit to better suit this aquascape. I may add an extra RB to give my colours a bit more pop. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 If you wanna bring out the willy wonka in you, take out all the cool white - add 2-3x warm white and fill the rest in with royal blue and a bit of standard/cool blue (a 4:1 ratio of RB to CB). Colors for days, man. DAYS. Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 That's what I did in my old tank. No cool white, loaded with RB and some WW. Link to comment
JayPagi Posted October 17, 2013 Author Share Posted October 17, 2013 That's what I did in my old tank. No cool white, loaded with RB and some WW. And you had plenty of pop? I'm thinking two small clusters should be enough as the tank is really shallow. Link to comment
NanoTopia Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Liking the upgrades Jay. More pics ! Link to comment
JayPagi Posted November 23, 2013 Author Share Posted November 23, 2013 So what's new? Well I just re-configured my LED light so it now holds 7 x RB, 3 x CW, 1 x Blue, 1 x Red, 1 x Violet, 1 x Green. These are LED's I wasn't using from my 5.5 AIO. It's a tad blue and I'm hoping to replace a couple of the RB's with 2 violets but overall I am much happier with it compared to the RB and CW mixture I had. The pictures are quite dim, not my best effort I am just getting used to the new colours. I also need to get around to building a new sump as the current one has no fail safe and tidying up the wires. I'm looking to add some more corals over the next few months and hopefully see some growth that I haven't really experienced. Time to up my reefing skills. New FTS for November 2013 - the cord is ugly i know. A bit of a closer shot. A view from the left side of the tank, you can see the new monti cap I added. And finally some new zoa's. Link to comment
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