RollaJase's Trip Off the Deep End - Custom Rimless 55G

[jack1978]

Dude, nice updates!

[RollaJase]

Dude, nice updates!

Thanks mate .

[jack1978]

Thanks mate .

Do you already have the new light in your possession?

[RollaJase]

Do you already have the new light in your possession?

Already hanging on the tank .

[RollaJase]

So, Interesting thing I have noticed. As part of my water change on Sunday I removed as much of the cyano from the sand bed as I could. Usually I would see a resurgence the following day and could see it get progressively worse throughout the day. So far, this time around I have seen minimal amounts of cyano return. I'm seeing air bubbles start to form on top of the sand in some places and some patches of cyano have returned but nowhere near as bad as before. The tank has a lot more light now and some of the former cyano rich areas had minimal light previously. I wonder if I fried off a lot of the cyano with the light? The organisms in the tank consuming more phosphate through growth seems like a more likely answer now that they are getting more light. I have seen a mini explosion of growth already from the green monti and the birdsnest. The new blue stag has changed colour immensely also, almost time to place it I think .

[RollaJase]

Reef Builders have an article up of aquariums from my home town, Adelaide, South Australia!

https://reefbuilders.com/2016/10/25/a-collection-of-smoking-hot-reef-tanks-from-south-australia/#

Picture 7 in the slideshow is one of the many tanks at my favorite LFS. This one is about 1 year old and is a very simple mixed reef using one of the original Red Sea Reefers (it's a 525 I think). Check out the ginormous Yuma/Ricordia on the rock next to the hammer, the two huge elegance corals are pretty impressive also. Quite a few of the other tanks in the slideshow are customers of this LFS also. All of my staghorn frags came from the first tank in the slideshow. You can see the teal, green and blue right at the back of the tank. The internet is a very small place haha.

[Mikeymikemike]

are you on any of teh Australian Facebook groups?

[RollaJase]

are you on any of teh Australian Facebook groups?

Nah, not really. I'm on a few international ones and ones for the particular websites and LFS's that I frequent. Can you recommend any?

[pappadumplingz]

are you on any of teh Australian Facebook groups?

Your Aussie? Your tank is hella amazing, one of the best Aussie reefs I've seen.

 

Nah, not really. I'm on a few international ones and ones for the particular websites and LFS's that I frequent. Can you recommend any?

I'm on league of extraordinary Australian reefers, and just a local Sydney thread. I reckon that league is really good, and they are doing a massive November giveaway.

[Mikeymikemike]

SPS keepers australia

Salty Veins (this one is more for those who are taking the hobby to the next level)

League of extraordinary Australian reefers

[pappadumplingz]

SPS keepers australia

Salty Veins (this one is more for those who are taking the hobby to the next level)

League of extraordinary Australian reefers

Define "next level"

 

For my next build I'm gonna try have a mangrove centre piece, and start dabbling with sps. That next level enough for salty veins?

[Mikeymikemike]

I'm not sure, I didn't make the group!

[RollaJase]

Thanks for the info guys, I'll take a look.

 

*EDIT*

Ended up joining SPS keepers australia and League of extraordinary Australian reefers. Waiting to be accepted to SPS keepers australia. At least I have someplace to try and sell my old light besides ebay and gumtree now haha.

[RollaJase]

Tank Update - 1st November 2016:

A few minor changes over the last few weeks, mainly (as you know) on the lighting front but also on the Cyano front. I decided to give Cyano Rx a shot over the weekend so I dosed as per recommended Saturday morning and did the recommended water change on Sunday. I think I under dosed a little though, dosing for 50G of water volume where realistically I am probably closer to 60G including the sump. This did effect the outcome slightly but Cyano Rx did do what it is advertised to do. The majority of the Cyano was gone come Sunday evening and today (Tuesday) only the smallest patches remain. In conjunction with Cyano Rx I also started dosing Phosphate Rx as on Monday morning. Two days in and I am noticing some differences, particularly in my skimmer, however I do believe the drop off in Cyano has been contributed by Phosphate Rx also. My measurable Phosphate level has been 0.025mg/l for the 2 weeks since I started testing and the introduction of Phosphate Rx has not changed this.

 

Here is a new FTS, first one under the new light and the first one in a while with very little Cyano.

The full spectrum also makes editing photos so much easier! The tank looks very similar to that photo as it does in person, it's a bit brighter in person, I knocked some exposure out of the image to keep the image sharp.

 

I added a few new SPS pieces over the weekend also, would you believe that these were only $10 each

The first piece is a pinkish red with a mix of white. I initially thought it may have been a strawberry shortcake but now I'm not so sure. The piece has darkened up since adding it to the tank, seeing as it came from a ULNS with low Alk I'm not overly surprised, I think it looks better this way anyway . The second piece is a little unusual. I picked it because it initially reminded me of the garf bonsai that I used to have but the branches on this are much much thicker. It has a greenish almost blue base flesh with green polyps towards the tips and blue growth tips. I'll be very interested to see how these two progress. I haven't hard mounted these pieces yet, I'm acclimating them a little before I decide where I want them to go. I think the red/pink acro will look great next to the green highlighter acro.

 

The brown turd acro is showing some signs of recovery though.

Yup, looks like another green acro but you can see some PE on the left hand side of the piece, the right hand side is mostly dead but has no algae growth so I hope it starts to regrow with time.

 

Lastly, a few more snaps of the light.

The light is quite large, covering the majority of the tank. I have always liked the look of the Orphek Atlantik lights so I borrowed some design queues and built this entire thing by hand. It is pretty heavy and the heatsink is overkill for 6 NB V3 arrays (especially when cooled by 2x 140mm fans) but it has some built in redundancy as it should be able to run passively if the fans fail. My one gripe with the light is the fact that I can't take top down photos easily any more, or view the tank from above very well due to it's size. Maybe I'll re-design the heatsink again one day but for now I am very happy with it.

[ninjamyst]

Very nice and clean! As always, very jealous of SPS price

[RollaJase]

Very nice and clean! As always, very jealous of SPS price

Thanks mate! I get lucky with my SPS. The LFS I visit get most of their new stock in on Wednesday and Thursday, I usually stop in on Sundays if I go. By this time all of their huge, expensive and exotic colonies are gone leaving the smaller less pretty ones. Sometimes I get lucky and there are a few gems left over. They don't like their SPS sitting there for longer than 2 weeks so most of the time these small ones get sold off for $10 each. I would have purchased a few more also but I wasn't going home right away and the friends place I was going to only has a small 10G tank with minimal room to float bags.

[pappadumplingz]

Tank is looking fantastic man. The new light is doing wonders. Have you entered in the leagues November giveaway?

[RollaJase]

Tank is looking fantastic man. The new light is doing wonders. Have you entered in the leagues November giveaway?

Cheers buddy. The light is a huge improvement over the old one. I did enter it! Entered last night, was a pretty decent giveaway.

[pappadumplingz]

Cheers buddy. The light is a huge improvement over the old one. I did enter it! Entered last night, was a pretty decent giveaway.

It's only the first one, so we have four chances to win some stuff hehe. It is a lot of coral to give to one person. I wonder what the store gets?

[RollaJase]

It's only the first one, so we have four chances to win some stuff hehe. It is a lot of coral to give to one person. I wonder what the store gets?

4 chances are definitely better than 1 that's for sure. Yeah, I wonder what the nominated stores get out of it also, probably some freebies for themselves.

[Mikeymikemike]

Looking good, i see plenty of space for more sps.

You should order stuff from reef secrets, they have some awesome pieces at the moment My last pieces from Cairns marine were good, but their local shipments are hit and miss in terms of colour and shape, most of the good stuff goes overseas...

[RollaJase]

Looking good, i see plenty of space for more sps.

You should order stuff from reef secrets, they have some awesome pieces at the moment My last pieces from Cairns marine were good, but their local shipments are hit and miss in terms of colour and shape, most of the good stuff goes overseas...

I was hanging out for Oceanarium to release some more SPS pieces but seems like they are holding off for better weather. I ordered an awesome red milli and rainbow stylo from them a few years ago that I would like to replace. I'll check out reef secrets though, haven't checked their site in a while. I've had pretty good success with Cairns Marine in the past, both my favourite LFS order a lot of their SPS from there and I can generally reserve the pieces I want for a few weeks. The majority of their stuff does go overseas though which is a shame.

[pappadumplingz]

I was hanging out for Oceanarium to release some more SPS pieces but seems like they are holding off for better weather. I ordered an awesome red milli and rainbow stylo from them a few years ago that I would like to replace. I'll check out reef secrets though, haven't checked their site in a while. I've had pretty good success with Cairns Marine in the past, both my favourite LFS order a lot of their SPS from there and I can generally reserve the pieces I want for a few weeks. The majority of their stuff does go overseas though which is a shame.

Reef secrets has some really good stuff. Oceanarium also has these wicked war paint chalices

[teenyreef]

The tank looks excellent, Jase, and the light looks even better! I'm glad the cyano is receding now. Oh, and I'm with Ninja, super jealous of your $10 SPS "frags". At any of my LFS's those would be "colonies" selling for about $150.

[Mikeymikemike]

That's 10 Aussie dollarydoos = $7.50 USD

 

Check the reef secrets facebook page. Awesome echinata colonies on there.

 

Oceanarium are in my state, I think when the weather gets warmer things will be released. They have plenty of zoas though for $20 10+ polyps