Surfer D's 5.5g 'I'm topless!'

[lnglostsurfer]

So I found a scrap piece of plexi that fits into the hood pretty well and it protects the LEDs from the water as well as the water from the heat generated inside of the hood from the heatsinks. Now my temp swings are less than a full degree.

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130607_124401_000.jpg.html'>

Also got some pictures of allllll the snails (well not all of them but you can get a general idea of how many there really are.)

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130607_124443_678.jpg.html'>

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130607_124340_437.jpg.html'>

And hopefully they can help with the small patch of hair algae...running lights less to help them out.

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130607_124428_617.jpg.html'>

[dtitus1]

If its just that one patch hit it with hydrogen peroxide out of the tank and scrub it off with a toothbrush. You will absolutely not regret it and the snails will eat whats left cause it makes it easier for them. Hit it before it spreads.

[ExSmoker]

Great job on making a 5gal look big, hope you nuked that aspita for good.. Have you already built your ATO? Your LED Gu10 build, are thoes the flate square chips or the regular gu10? Would like to see your light build... Have you thought about making an black acrylic tank top with a open back and fan? could make it more low profile and sleek looking and less top heavy.

Just a thought is all.

[lnglostsurfer]

Great job on making a 5gal look big, hope you nuked that aspita for good.. Have you already built your ATO? Your LED Gu10 build, are thoes the flate square chips or the regular gu10? Would like to see your light build... Have you thought about making an black acrylic tank top with a open back and fan? could make it more low profile and sleek looking and less top heavy.

Just a thought is all.

Aptasia has been gone, someone had quoted a picture from the first page from when I first started. The ATO isn't built yet, slowly getting parts together for it. As for the LED lights, I didn't use any GU10 bulbs, everything was LEDs that I strung together on a heatsink. I used 5 of the 3 watt royal blues and 1 of the white 10 watt multichips. All were ordered from ebay with the cheap ones just to try it out and ended up working out better than I expected.

 

I originally tried doing an acrylic guard for just the heatsink but I'm not very good with acrylic, nor do I really have to tools to do it right. I was able to get the wood cut to where it looks decent and the back over the filter is open to the window, which is almost always open. So temps are staying down and very consistent, especially with the acrylic scrap piece I found that fits perfectly in the hood.

[lnglostsurfer]

Driver went down on my white LED...another one is on the way but I'm stuck with blues for a bit until it comes in. Unless I can find a decent walwart laying around to tie into it...

 

I guess this is why you should keep extra parts laying around if you do a DIY led fixture....

[FlowerMama]

Looks fantastic with the black sand, my sister has that too in her 29, makes your rockwork pop. Can't wait to see it once you get corals in.

[lnglostsurfer]

So I just watched one of my Florida Ceriths on the glass laying a string of eggs. Anyone know the odds of them successfully hatching? I have no fish to eat them and not much of a pod population either, I know they can eat eggs as well.

 

Also...just looked by one of my nerites and it appears that he has laid eggs as well. We'll see what happens, anybody local may be getting some free snails!

[lnglostsurfer]

Just did another major water change (50%) and blew a bunch of detritus off the rocks. Changed the filter out and suctioned out a lot of the algae. Everything is finally starting to look better. Hopefully this will turn into a rewarding tank yet.

[lnglostsurfer]

Still struggling with a bit of a diatom bloom I guess, hopefully things will clear up soon so I can get some new pictures of things. Side note: got in my float switch ($2.89) Just have to find a cheap aqualifter so I can wire it up and get it going. I figure if I use a digital timer I can have it run for a few minutes throughout the day as a sort of backup of sorts. That way it can't run more than a minute or two at a time, even if it doesn't need water. And with the aqualifter I can have it pull straight out of my water jugs. I thought about using the pressurized bottle with a cheap air pump but it just seems more likely to fail. Updates coming, I promise

[lnglostsurfer]

Alright, so I'm still battling a bit of hair algae on a few frags. Just did a water change and used some of the old tank water to make a peroxide dip for the couple of frags that are half dead anyway to see if I can revive them a bit. Used the rest of the bottle of peroxide with tank water...probably about 40% peroxide. They have been bubbling away for about 5 minutes now, so we'll see what we can do.

[FlowerMama]

This aptasia was in the original tank I setup, I haven't had any issues in the new 5.5. The aqueon tank is completely broken down now with everything transferred over. The only one I had found I pulled the rock out of the display with nothing on it and torched the spot with the aptasia and haven't seen anything since. I used 90% dry rock and one chunk of rock from the aqueon tank. Figured it would help introduce some pods and some coralline algae. I'm really happy with the way this tank is coming, as soon as I know everything is as stable as I want it I will start adding some more LPS/SPS, pretty excited.

I have pods blossoming every 3 wks or so - I can probably get some with the turkey baster for you- they're always in there. I have lots of coralline on one rock, it's like peeling off. I can scrape some of that too for you.

[lnglostsurfer]

We'll see, that one chunk of live rock that I threw in there is finally starting to seed everything. I haven't really done anything with the tank at all yet other than top offs and water changes so everything is starting to settle in now. Diatom bloom is about gone as well as algae, snails are working on the last bits of it now. I'm about to be on vacation for a week so we have a friend coming over to feed the cat and top the tank off.

 

I think with all of the extra snails I had in the tank from my reefcleaners order, the ones that didn't make it have been decaying in the tank. Pretty sure that is the main cause for a lot of the bacteria going on right now. After a few major water changes (50% each week) I think most of that is gone. Lights just turned off for the day and even with it being almost 90 out my tank is still sitting at 78.8 degrees. I was worried originally about putting my tank by the window but it doesn't seem to be affecting it. Some of the algae may be from the sunlight though...oh well

[FlowerMama]

Hey, what's up? You know we have another NRer moving into town? !. FlCandy. She'll be in our neck of the woods. I let her know a little about our 2 lfs- Mtns to Sea and WNC Aquarium.

 

How was your vacation and your tank? Did you hit any LFS out there?

[lnglostsurfer]

Vacation was good, no lfs in the middle of Iowa though. Tank is still going strong, actually looking pretty good but no updates or anything new. In the middle of the buying process of a house out in candler, everything is going really well so far. No real time or extra money for anything new in the tank. We'll see once we can get moved in. We will definitely have to all get together soon though. Your tank is looking great!!! I finally got back on nano-reef and had about 150 new notifications. Hard to keep up with everything with how busy I've been.

[FlowerMama]

Congrats on your house then! for some reason I thought you were going to TN, not IA. And thanks for the compliment. I'm done buying corals. It's full. Have to be patient, let it grow and focus on my 20L plans for January. It is really hard to not be able to get things when you don't have the room. It's like torture. Took me 4 mos to fill the tank w/ corals.

[lnglostsurfer]

Yeah, I can't wait to see what happens with the house, I'm really hoping there's room for a 40 breeder or something...but we'll see. Lot of expenses after we move in though. Main thing will be saving up for a new kitchen so I'm sure that's higher on the list for my girlfriend than a fish tank. I'll be sticking with my 5.5 for awhile at least. Hopefully there will be some cash left over here and there to start filling it up with coral. Haven't even had a chance to check in with Shawn to see what she's had lately.

[lnglostsurfer]

Wow, so I kind of lost track of time between trying to buy a house, getting engaged, and plenty of other things. I've still managed to keep the tank going with top offs and a few water changes so hopefully I can start updating things a little more in the near future. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a chance to hook on another string of LEDs that I've had laying around for awhile. Get this lighting to where I want it. I'll have to put up some fresh pictures as well. I promise I'm not gone and forgotten!

[FlowerMama]

Yeah, we'll need to see some pics with your led strip up. Hey, let me know if you'll need boxes for a move, my parents have tons of boxes, I'm helping them move tomorrow and Saturday and I can grab a lot- I mean they have probably like 60 boxes. This way we'll fold 'em down for ya. No reason to buy any.

[lnglostsurfer]

New blasto head is already opening up and looking fantastic. Must be doing something right haha

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130913_132705_823.jpg.html'>

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get any work done on the LED, so everything is still the same as it has been for months. On the bright side, my DIY Led has been running for months so I feel halfway comfortable in my work now.

[FlowerMama]

New blasto head is already opening up and looking fantastic. Must be doing something right haha

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get any work done on the LED, so everything is still the same as it has been for months. On the bright side, my DIY Led has been running for months so I feel halfway comfortable in my work now.

 

, that's a nice balsto, looks like it's in great shape. At least you tried DIY and you know you can. I'll never try, I'll buy ready made.

[lnglostsurfer]

Yeah, for me it's not even about saving the money, because I could probably buy it for a similar price as buying all the parts I end up using for projects. I just like the challenge of making something myself and having it work.

[lnglostsurfer]

Went to WNC Aquariums....place is still kind of a crap hole. Decided to leave and head to Shawn's at Mountains to Sea aquariums and found this little gem hiding in a corner. Two little mushrooms that look like they are going to have some really cool spots on them. They are slowly starting to stretch out, been in my tank about an hour now.

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130914_133829_529.jpg.html'>

 

Mushrooms was definitely something I was missing...one more void filled!

[lnglostsurfer]

Note to self: Avoid dropping molten hot ball of solder on foot. Or stop wearing sandals when soldering.

 

 

Either way, got the other string of blues soldered up to the new power supply. Color is a little more on the blue side but probably just because I was used to it being pretty white. I think it will grow on me. Camera phone only picks up straight blue so I may have to do some adjusting to try to get a good picture. Corals seem super happy about it though, and I haven't seen my zoas 'pop' like this in a long time, even under the moon light.

[FlowerMama]

Yowza, sorry to hear about your smoldering feet.

 

Nice looking mushrooms you got there. It was hard for me to tell how her zoas, mushrooms, and maxi minis look because she doesn't have blue lights really. How did her place look, any changes? You'll have to tell me more.

 

When are you guys moving? I currently have 20 boxes for you and then like 5 small ones in my garage. I helped my parents from Fri - today packing and unpacking. My sister came from Chicago today to help my parents unpack the rest of the week so I'll have more. I'm assuming like 10-15 more boxes by the end of the week. Another 10 the week after that, etc. It's crazy because the painters have to put another coat inside so they can't put stuff up right against the walls yet so the garage is full of things to unpack. My sister and mom are perfectionists so it's really irritating to them in their own special way that everything is unorganized and cluttered.

[lnglostsurfer]

Figured I'd snap a quick FTS with the new lights.

http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/lnglostsurfer/media/IMG_20130921_112929_223.jpg.html'>

Hard to get the actual color. It's fairly blue, I'd say similar to a 15000k halide. Everything is looking pretty good so far, staying clean and stable.

 

Shawn's place is coming along really well, looking forward to a lot of the changes she's going to be making. A lot of her corals are propagated from the same mother colonies so she doesn't get a lot of different stuff in. HOWEVER she said she's going to start getting corals and fish both from a different source so I think we will get better quality, better selection, and hopefully more reasonable prices. Sounds like she is also going to be using more LEDs in the shop too so colors and everything will be a bit more accurate. I'm hoping she gets some more fish too for when I upgrade in tank size after the move...

Wow, really hard to even tell what's in the tank with the reflection, I love having my tank right next to my computer by the window but it makes getting pictures really hard unless it's up close shots of corals. Guess I just need to take them at night once it gets dark out, I just don't want to turn my lights back on just to get pictures.