Dawn's shrimp chalet & 5.5 AIO !

[vlangel]

57 minutes ago, Orangutran said:

Dawn, your jar is coming along nicely!! Is yours the 1 gallon size? I think I picked up the same one as yours if it's 1gal, I returned the .75gal version (with the metal lid), so I will need to repost my empty jar with condiment shot! The extra quart (and extra height) is needed, because I am going to have 1-2 inch of sand, for my masterplan! muahahahaha!

 

Btw, which bulb did you order?  

Actually my jar is almost 3 gallons!  I decided if I was going to house 100 feeder shrimp in it that I needed the maximum volume allowable.  Of course there is the fringe benefit of added stability.

 

I told Dave which bulb I wanted and he ordered it for me, (since he is the ebay person in our family).  I can't remember exactly which one but it had 6 white and 6 blue diodes, I if I remember correctly.  The white were in the 14k and the blue were like actinic.  Since I am new to LED, I chose something close to what is on my seahorse tank rather than a lot of spectrum colors.  The bulb was under $20 and it came from CA but it is made in Hong Kong.  I hope it works ok.  When it arrives I can tell you more.

[Orangutran]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

Actually my jar is almost 3 gallons!  I decided if I was going to house 100 feeder shrimp in it that I needed the maximum volume allowable.  Of course there is the fringe benefit of added stability.

 

I told Dave which bulb I wanted and he ordered it for me, (since he is the ebay person in our family).  I can't remember exactly which one but it had 6 white and 6 blue diodes, I if I remember correctly.  The white were in the 14k and the blue were like actinic.  Since I am new to LED, I chose something close to what is on my seahorse tank rather than a lot of spectrum colors.  The bulb was under $20 and it came from CA but it is made in Hong Kong.  I hope it works ok.  When it arrives I can tell you more.

Man, hard to tell the sizes of all these jars! No wonder they need the condiments shot. I would go bigger too if I could, but I don't wanna push my luck at work. When I asked my boss, I told her it would be "planted" and have an air pump. Didn't even mention it would be saltwater. LOL

 

Oh, no worries about the bulb. I thought you got that ABI one everyone else has. 

[vlangel]

2 hours ago, Orangutran said:

Man, hard to tell the sizes of all these jars! No wonder they need the condiments shot. I would go bigger too if I could, but I don't wanna push my luck at work. When I asked my boss, I told her it would be "planted" and have an air pump. Didn't even mention it would be saltwater. LOL

 

Oh, no worries about the bulb. I thought you got that ABI one everyone else has. 

 

Here is a pic of the bulb.  There was no markings or ID on the box.

[vlangel]

 

Well, I was hoping for white light and I got it so I am extremely pleased.  I ordered a 6 white, 6 blue diode bulb but I got 8 white and 4 blue diode bulb.  Its ok though.

 

[vlangel]

 

Here is my light in context of the reef jar and seahorse tank.  I am not sure I like it as a hanging light but it is much brighter than I expected and I want the option to hang it higher and farther away from the jar.  If it does not burn out tomorrow it was a great value for what I want it for.

[seabass]

I'm loving it Dawn!

[vlangel]

2 hours ago, seabass said:

I'm loving it Dawn!

Thanks seabass, I am liking it too so far.  I am still nervous about using LED, but its time to learn.

[vlangel]

Ok, now that my bulb has arrived and my cycle is winding down I figured that I could start stocking macro algaes.  Before I did that I did a 100% WC and added more seachem stability.

[vlangel]

 

Next I snatched some cheato, red titan, red grape and halimeda and got my little mini fuge going.  I am hoping that there is life in the cheato.  My sump fuge for the seahorse display is crawling with amphipods.

[vlangel]

 

I think the plan for coral is to have gps in the very foreground, like grass. In the darker areas I would like to try my hand at acans again.  I feed mysis to the ponies every day and always have some left over.  I have a couple frags of gorgonians in my fuge so I will put those in the higher light areas.  Has anyone ever tried to keep an RFA in a bb tank nestled close to the rockwork?  I would love to have a beautiful RFA if I don 't need to add sand.

 

I may remove the top rock also and replace it with a much smaller rock, or just leave that area open as the macros fill in.

[gena]

Looks great, Dawn!  These bacteria in a bottle work wonders .

 

[seabass]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

Has anyone ever tried to keep an RFA in a bb tank nestled close to the rockwork?

Yes.  That will work if it's happy where you put it.  I'd recommend adding it after things have stabilized a little, and hopefully an increase in pod population.  That might help prevent it from moving somewhere you don't want it.

[SeaFurn]

Would love to see an RFA in one of these contest picos! 

[Pjanssen]

How are you keeping your macros in the the jar?

[vlangel]

7 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

How are you keeping your macros in the the jar?

 

I have a small acrylic jar that is housing my rio powerhead and my cheato sits in that jar on top of the rio.  Macro algae that is more easily controlled, like codium can be put where ever I would like.

Or did you mean how am I keeping the cheato in the small jar?  The answer to that is the rio powerhead theoretically is pulling water flow down to the bottom of the small jar and hopefully keeping the cheato somewhat contained.

 

Someday I may use the jar for mechanical and/or chemical filtration when the contest is over.

[Harrisonbored]

I really like how this came together!

With that top rock do you feel your macros will get enough light?...I'd hate to see them turn to mush on you

[vlangel]

 

I don't know if you can see from this pic but the top rock is in the middle of the jar and the macros are behind it where they still get light.  It is my hope that some of the red grape grows up higher where it can be seen from the front of the jar.  Red grape is sparce enough to still let light in for the cheato, I hope.

4 hours ago, Harrisonbored said:

I really like how this came together!

With that top rock do you feel your macros will get enough light?...I'd hate to see them turn to mush on you

 

[vlangel]

I am adding a few frags from my seahorse DT.  One was a striped mushroom that I added last night.  It is a pretty mushroom but it kept getting lost in the big tank.  It was opened up today and looking good.  I am hoping that it will do better in the reef jar.

 

Since the mushroom did alright I decided to add a very small frag of xenia, a small kenya tree and some gsp.  

 

I moved the light up to the same height as the T5 fixture on the seahorse tank.  I am only going to have the light on 6 hours a day to start out also.  I would like to visit a lfs and see if I can find some acans, duncans and blastos frags. Hopefully I don't burn anything.

[seabass]

9 hours ago, vlangel said:

I am adding a few frags from my seahorse DT.  One was a striped mushroom that I added last night.  It is a pretty mushroom but it kept getting lost in the big tank.  It was opened up today and looking good.  I am hoping that it will do better in the reef jar.

 

Since the mushroom did alright I decided to add a very small frag of xenia, a small kenya tree and some gsp.  

 

I moved the light up to the same height as the T5 fixture on the seahorse tank.  I am only going to have the light on 6 hours a day to start out also.  I would like to visit a lfs and see if I can find some acans, duncans and blastos frags. Hopefully I don't burn anything.

Some of your coral stocking sounds eerily similar to my plans.  I promise, I'm not trying to copy you (just a case of great minds).

[Lula_Mae]

10 hours ago, seabass said:

Some of your coral stocking sounds eerily similar to my plans.  I promise, I'm not trying to copy you (just a case of great minds).

I have mushrooms, xenia and gsp in mine too...

[vlangel]

10 hours ago, seabass said:

Some of your coral stocking sounds eerily similar to my plans.  I promise, I'm not trying to copy you (just a case of great minds).

 

26 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

I have mushrooms, xenia and gsp in mine too...

Lots of great minds!  LOL!  I am heading out to a lfs now hoping to find some good choices for stocking.

[gena]

5 hours ago, vlangel said:

 

Lots of great minds!  LOL!  I am heading out to a lfs now hoping to find some good choices for stocking.

Surely you are home by now?????

 

Hope you found some great stuff!!!!

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, gena said:

Surely you are home by now?????

 

Hope you found some great stuff!!!!

I got a little but it was somewhat disappointing.  There were no acans and no sun coral and those were 2 coral I was looking for.

 

I did come home with a sinularia frag, an idaho grape frag, a yellow polyp frag, some vibrant yellow zoas and a mushroom.  Tomorrow I may go to a different lfs.

[gena]

5 minutes ago, vlangel said:

I got a little but it was somewhat disappointing.  There were no acans and no sun coral and those were 2 coral I was looking for.

 

I did come home with a sinularia frag, an idaho grape frag, a yellow polyp frag, some vibrant yellow zoas and a mushroom.  Tomorrow I may go to a different lfs.

Oh I forgot about yellow polyps...such a vibrant addition.  I never see those anymore when I'm at my LFS's.  Probably why I've forgotten about them.  I'm going to keep an eye out.  They would be a great addition to a pico jar!

[RIP Sebastian]

It looks great!