biggs Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 I haven't stopped by here in a while. But I've had some tough family stuff happening lately and found the best way to deal with it is to waste money like crazy upgrading my JBJ Nanocube a little... I ended up moving my cichlids from a 55 to an old 44 we had lying around. In order to save money, I decided to put a 33 long on the 55 stand so that water changes would be easier and so that I wouldn't have to spend a fortune on lights. Anyway here's the quick specs. 33 Long with a 10 gallon sump. Sitting on my old stand and using a hood I made. Lighting is supplied by 2 x 40 watt 10ks and 2 x 40 watt actinics. Lighting is less than a foot from the lowest coral in the tank so good old-fashioned lighting gets the job done. No acropora or anything else that demands intense lights though... In a couple days I will use the old LEDs and stuff from my old tank to rig up some moonlights. Sump is fed by an overflow box with a Mag 2 pushing the water back in. A cheapie Seaclone skimmer (got it for free), heater, and some live rock live in the sump. Soon I will partition it into 3 parts and one will be a mini-fuge. Right now there's a Pinpoint pH probe and a Rainbow Alert thermometer in there. Tank has 30 pounds of Tonga Kaelini from Dr Macs (met them at BWI), 13 pounds of rock from my nano, and almost 100 pounds of argonite (some dry, some 'live' bagged, and some real live from my nano.) Flow is provided by the sump return and a MaxiJet 1200. I had two MJ1200s but it was way to much flow and was messing things up. Current inhabitants: 2 False Percs Clowns 1 Blenny type fish (can't remember exact one) 1 Skunk Cleaner 1 Peppermint Shrimp 2 Brittle Stars 1 Fighting Conch 4 Astrea Snails 3 Turbo Snails 3 Nassarius Snails 1 Orange Nudibranch (crazy looking) 3 Scarlet Hermits 1 Halloween Hermit 1 Mexican Hermit 20 or so small Blue Leg Hermits Halimeda Hawaiian Feather Duster Orange Button Polyps Yellow Polyps Seamat Polyps Red and Green Zoos Bubble-Tipped Looking Ricordea Ricordea rock with like 20+ Polyps Flowerpot Coral (long story) Xenia in a few places and other stuff I lost track of... In a month I will add an anemone. And if my pod count is good in 6 months perhaps a mandarin. Also a baby hippo tank who would get replaced yearly as not to outgrow the tank. Here's some quick pics: Link to comment
Sushi Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 that is one kick @$$ tank. it has by far the best aquascaping i have ever seen in my life. truly an inspiration. Link to comment
biggs Posted May 21, 2004 Author Share Posted May 21, 2004 All the credit goes to Dr Mac of Dr Mac and Sons Corals. They handpicked the rock for me based on tank size.. I just did the best I could with what I was given. But it ended up fitting together so well that they must have picked those pieces on purpose... Dr Mac is a godsend in my opinion. I call him whenever I need help and he never seems annoyed about helping me. Try calling most people with his credentials and asking for help. You are usually greated with a didactic or condescending response. He's never made me feel stupid... Thanks!!! Link to comment
ａｗａｋｅｄॢ Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 sooooO great nice tank~! i really love long long wide and short tall tank... :love: Link to comment
trmiv Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 33 long? that is cool sized tank, what kind is it? AGA? I know they make one, but I never seem them for sale. same length and width as a 55, but only 12" tall isn't it? i love it. great aquascaping, i love how the long tanks allow the long reef structures. my next tank is definetly going to be a long. Link to comment
Korbin Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 Cooool! I like it. Lots of room for fish to travel around. Link to comment
Farrah Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 Wow, I really like that long... and great aquascaping! Everytime I see an awesome tank, I change my mind about what size I want my next one to be! Link to comment
ninhsavestheday Posted May 21, 2004 Share Posted May 21, 2004 ghez that thing is freakin long... Link to comment
coral reef Posted May 22, 2004 Share Posted May 22, 2004 i have been waiting for someone to do a reef in that size thankfully someone did looks real good Link to comment
biggs Posted May 22, 2004 Author Share Posted May 22, 2004 Thanks for the kind words. Setting it up has been a lot of fun. It's a standard All Glass brand tank. It cost about 50 bucks. And yes it has the same footprint as a 55 gallon. It's about 13 inches tall though so you save lots of money on rock, water, and lighting. Best bang for buck size in my opinion. Link to comment
Undertheradar Posted May 22, 2004 Share Posted May 22, 2004 Now I know what that would look like...I have a 33L just laying around now that I was thinking of slappin a 4x65watt fixture on...or a 36x12x12 20gallon with a 2x96watt over it...but I always thought the length would look weird. But, as you have shown, it looks great! Link to comment
biggs Posted May 22, 2004 Author Share Posted May 22, 2004 Hey Undertheradar. A guy on Reefcentral was going to sell me a 4x65 JBJ Formosa strip (the kind that you can buy the fliptop legs for) for $140 bucks plus shipping. I no longer want to buy it so perhaps you might be interested. Shoot me a PM if interested and I'll get you guys together if you want. Link to comment
BAIN Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 I have a friend that has that same tank(footprint of a 55 and 13" tall) They sell it as a 40 long. Link to comment
Purple Haze Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Jeez, I didn't need to see that I was thinking 20L but now seeing that has me thinking. Would you happen to have any pics of the inside of the canopy? How many inches between the water and the lights? Very nice! Link to comment
tsalter Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 SWEET!!!! I love the 33!!!! I bought one last month was going to upgrade from my 5.5 into it but we are being forced to move so I am going to wait to set it up. I will look at your tank for inspiration. I am setting mine up with t5's I have them all ready to go. right now with just a 65k and 20k was thinking of doing a surge tank but probably will just do power heads. It might turn into a bedroom tank I dunno. I am glad to see others with 33's have fun Tom Link to comment
JIM27 Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 I saw one of those AGA 33L's for sale at my lfs the other day. Looks like fish would love the length. Link to comment
biggs Posted May 31, 2004 Author Share Posted May 31, 2004 First of all, BAIN. If it's the same footprint as a 55 and 13 inches high then it's a 33 long. The math wouldn't add up right for a 40. Off the top of my head, it would have to be about 2 or 3 inches taller than mine to be a 40. About the hood. Here are a couple pics I just took. The top piece of wood sits about 6.5 or so inches off of the water surface. And the lights are a little under three inches below that top piece of wood. So it's about 3.5 to 4 inches from bulb to water. Oh and before anyone asks, the white plastic in the hood is commonly called 'eggcrate'. It's a light diffuser from home depot that's good at keeping fish from jumping and snails from climbing into the overflow box and causing the sump to run dry and flood the display tank. Comes in 2' x 4' pieces and costs about ten bucks. My next minor modification is to line the hood box's inside with mylar emergency blanket stuff. It's like 2 bucks at Walmart and will cause the light reflected off the inside of the box to hit the water. I just need to lift the hood off and staple it on and I'll be done. Then I gotta get around to rigging up my moonlights. All I need to do is remount them to a piece of wood. But I've been lazy about it lately. Link to comment
just dave Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 What's the reason for the light diffuser? Link to comment
GazMan Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Hi, I dont think i'm the only one to wonder whats the exact dimensions of your tank ?. Gaz Link to comment
tsalter Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 33L 48.25Lx 12.75WX 13.375H 40 long 48.25 x12.75W x 16.825H Link to comment
GazMan Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Not too bad a size. might try something similar. I think i'd have to tweek the dimensions a little to take advantage of the traditional T8 lights. Maybe 48 (L)x 24(W) x 15 (H). Plus i'm not a great fan of DSB, like it thin but deep enough to show off the whiteness of the coral sand substrate. Proberly have to uprate to 6 tubes with a 50/50 mix of white and antic tubes. Suppose the benefit of such a tank would be no problems with overheating and expensive to run MH bulbs. Granted with 6 tubes you'd be pushing over 200W but on a short tank things shouldnt be too bad. it's not as though your going OTT wanting seriously light loving SPS. The thing thats still worrying me about doing something similar would be flow rates and getting then upto a reasonable level. i detest pumps and heaters inside the tanks. So a way of hiding these needs to be devised. Maybe having a corner overflow with a powerhead hidden out of the way with a submerged pipe return, like a spray bar would workl. not sure of the turnover per hour tho. Gaz Link to comment
biggs Posted June 2, 2004 Author Share Posted June 2, 2004 My tank has 2 x 295 GPH powerheads. So that's almost 600 GPH. Pointed lengthwise down the tank in opposing directions diagnonally to stir the surface. Also about 180 or so real GPH from the sump return over a 4 foot rise that is diffused into the center. So that's 32 gallons of net water (26 G display and about 6 in sump) getting turned over about 24 times per hour. And with the aiming, I cause the middle area to get flow. My fish seem like they are surfing in there. The fish all seem like they would rather be relaxing. Oh and the diffuser is to keep fish from jumping out (not a big issue with my hood) and to keep snails and stuff from escaping or getting into the overflow box's internal area. I have already witnessed it saving my nudi from another trip through the u-tube. He recently was rescued from living in the back-most chamber of the overflow. But he could have easily passed through it. Nudi's are a pain in that regard. Link to comment
Undertheradar Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 A guy on reefcentral was having flow issues with his 33L as well...its hard to get the flow in the amounts and directions you want considering the passage through the tank is narrow...and by the time a stream of water gets 24" across the tank it has either knocked over all the corals in its path and sent the fish surfing cuz its too much...yet when you go lower the water just doesnt seem to make it. I suggested a SCWD from his sump (600gph pump), going through two 24" spraybars...well, not so much spraybars as three or four outlets along the pipe. This allowed a nice wave action, good coverage, and since the output got split up so much, each outlet only had 200gph max going through it. The same could be done with a closed loop. Let me see if I can dig up the diagram... Link to comment
Undertheradar Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Heres a pic of the closed loop idea....it on its side to fit. Link to comment
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