Marinland 60gl cube

[mcarroll]

14 minutes ago, spectra said:

Hey I had both as a kid............ I have been around the block a few times............ not one of the youngsters on here...........

We had to have both to avoid fights in the house.  😄

 

If there was a Golden Era, I think in a lot of ways that was probably it.  

[mcarroll]

Last off-topic post I promise, OP.

 

@spectrahave you seen the C64mini?   I admit to playing Lemonade Stand (both versions) "recently".   😉

[spectra]

1 minute ago, mcarroll said:

Last off-topic post I promise, OP.

 

@spectrahave you seen the C64mini?   I admit to playing Lemonade Stand (both versions) "recently".   😉

I have not...........and hell Waldoz wont care.............

[waldoz]

Nope, I had an Atari  and Sega but should have kept them. 😞

 

Yes, @mcarroll that is for LPS and don't know exactly what we want to run. That is a base starting point.  We have had some sticks and too finicky for us.  So my son and I have settled on LPS tank with some RBTA at the top. We personally like  fluid motion of hammers and frog spawn.  Ideally I don't want to mess around try to figure out what works and doesn't for settings.

 

This was our last settings before we pulled it off the 20L

 

[mcarroll]

8 hours ago, waldoz said:

Ideally I don't want to mess around try to figure out what works and doesn't for settings.

The "base formula" is that blue's are the anchor...it does all the "heavy lifting" of lighting your tank.  This usually puts your blue emitters at or close to 100%.  (Cheapie fixtures will often burn out at 100%, so they usually get 80-90%.  Higher end fixtures are generally better calibrated to their heat sink, so you can run them at 100%.)  Then turn up whites just until the tank, corals, fish, et al. look good.  This should turn out to be something like "20,000K" in color.  You can experiement with the other emitters, but they should basically just be off unless you're doing something specialty.  Technically, blue and green wavelengths are about the only colors that penetrate seawater to any significant depth.....we add whites only because it's our tank so we get to see it better.

 

Check this out:

From: http://www.deep-six.com/page77.htm

 

[waldoz]

Good thing the tank is only 2ft deep. 

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, waldoz said:

Good thing the tank is only 2ft deep. 

If you're still referring to the color choice...

 

Read that way, 2ft would make your tank something like a tide pool simulation.  Your daylight color would ideally be ≤10,000K – very white.  You'd also consider other aspects of low-tide conditions to emulate.

 

But the color of light you run in your tank should probably have more to do with the depth of water you're trying to emulate for your habitat than with your tank dimensions.  

 

The settings you are running now, for example, would be considered to be something like the light at 10 meters.  (Just eyeballing the chart I posted and comparing with your settings.)

 

Unless you're targeting a specific look like this, most of our corals on average are collected deeper, something more like 20 meters might be a good average.  However, some folks have said that our most colorful corals have come from the deeper depths....30+ meters....under ideal conditions in the wild, sufficient light penetrates to around 90 meters.

 

So for a good color example, this is 100m:

From: https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/physical/ocean-depths/light-ocean 

 

That's about what your tank should look like when you turn up the blues....right before you add "just enough" white to look good, which you can think of as taking the tank "up to 40 meters" or so.

 

This blue frequency (~420 nm) is what anchors the photosynthesis process as well, so this color foundation isn't purely aesthetics....it is practical.

[waldoz]

Interesting.   What does your tank look like and your settings?

[mcarroll]

Here's somewhat of a standard coral you can compare with....not color-corrected, taken through the regular aquarium glass of my plain 125 Gallon tank....some blue shrooms in the foreground...blue-speckled in the back corner:

 

I run Kessil A360X's that I set up for color just about how I told you earlier, so something like 20,000K.  They're on a 12 hour daylight cycle with 30min for sunrise and sunset.

 

[waldoz]

Going to start up the skimmer soon.

 

 

Well actually today, but couldn't find a plug to plug the drain hole. Tried to find a pen cap and my 3d printer is down till part shows up.

[mcarroll]

wad of chewing gum? 😉 

[waldoz]

I found the part on Amazon but its like 13 bucks with shipping for a plug. Going to go to the hardware store and see if I can find something for now. I got to get that thing up and running by Sat.   I have watched a ton of vids on setting it up, but will have to see how it runs.  I have Coral RX and BioAdvance  Complete insect killer on the way.   I also got another 20lb back of sand which will not be here till the 7th of next month. So might put the coral in after that is done so we got maybe 4 more weeks before the transfer. 

Things to do:

1. Get skimmer going

2. Start dosing with Vibrant  (two weeks before lights)

3. Dip them corals add them to tank with CUC.

4. Turn on the lights!

 

I am sure I am missing something. LOL

[waldoz]

Found a plug at ACE for 33 cents.

 

 

  Going to do drain tube later and try to get it in the sump tonight.

 

[waldoz]

Skimmer in!  I think  it's set correct.

 

 

 

Large bubbles but this tank only has the one fish in it so really not much load.

 

 

Here is a short clip of it running. I am kinda guessing where to set it right now.

 

 

Hopefully get this dialed in later and might just run it once a week.

  All for now.

[mcarroll]

21 hours ago, waldoz said:

Things to do:

1. Get skimmer going

I get it.  👍

21 hours ago, waldoz said:

2. Start dosing with Vibrant  (two weeks before lights)

What?  Sounds like a post leaked in from someone else's thread.

 

21 hours ago, waldoz said:

3. Dip them corals add them to tank with CUC.

Thse are to be new corals for the new tank?

 

21 hours ago, waldoz said:

4. Turn on the lights!

I get it.  👍

21 hours ago, waldoz said:

I am sure I am missing something. LOL

Either you are, or I am.  😉  I don't understand where the middle two priorities came from.

 

15 hours ago, waldoz said:

Might be fine especially if there's no risk from a leak.....but I'd consider plugging that from inside so that gravity is working for you rather than against you.  

 

I also wouldn't do more than friction fit it – don't force it to be too tight....too much pressure from the rubber could split the plastic if it aged/brittle for any reason.

[waldoz]

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

 

Either you are, or I am.  😉  I don't understand where the middle two priorities came from.

 

 

So the vibrant is to keep from having way ugly tank when I turn the lights on.   The current CUC is not going to be up to speed and I don't want to just dump a bunch in there.  We like to add them as needed.

 

The coral in our 20L  is getting transferred over and we never dipped anything. 😬    With that we ran into a few problems that could have been avoided, live and learn.

 

Yeah probably  good Idea to flip the plug. 

[mcarroll]

I don't like the idea of using Vibrant like that.  It shouldn't be necessary, and it's not even how they suggest using it.  It's not good for your tank, ya know...the tank is gonna have to go through its phases in spite of steps like this.  Resistance to "the uglies" isn't generally known to make the situation better either....it often makes things worse.

 

What problems did you have with the un-dipped corals?  Anything that's still going on?

 

Your thread on the 20L doesn't seem to suggest anything major happening, for what that's worth....not even algae.

 

FYI, most problems in a new tank come from the ammonia spike when the animals are all first added...especially the fish....which is almost always before the tank is actually ready for it.

 

Your tank should be able to avoid that spike since everything (almost) is coming from an established tank – you have a "complete set" of bacterial, algae....and hopefully everything in between as well....that will use up any/all ammonia produced.

 

I hope this helps!

[waldoz]

The whole bottom of the tank moves when the lights are out.  LOL  We had those blood flat worms  and who knows what else.  This last two years has been good.

 

[mcarroll]

15 minutes ago, waldoz said:

The whole bottom of the tank moves when the lights are out.  LOL  We had those blood flat worms  and who knows what else.  This last two years has been good.

Looks like it only merited a single mention in your 20G thread....not much detail.

 

Did they seem to cause a problem (didn't see one mentioned) or were they just annoying to look at?

 

It also sounded from that comment like you managed to clean them up....are they better now than they were?

[waldoz]

When we had a sixline he cleaned them up but yeah they were all over the tank glass.  We have not seen any but that does not mean anything.  Just want to start with a clean slate.   I don't think in this tank we can have a sixline because they are jumpers from what I am getting.

[waldoz]

Sand was delivered yesterday. It said it was not coming for two months.  Going to put another another bag in. I don't know if we will put the whole 20lbs in there or not as we have 20 lbs already.

[waldoz]

Ended up putting the whole bag in. Also waiting in line for the par meter from local club.  Soon as we get some numbers we will be transferring frags over.  Also have a lead on some pink coraline scrapings and will try to add that after the lights are on.

Tanks been cycling since December so should be good to go .

[waldoz]

Lights on! Going to dip and transfer some coral today after I get some water made.

[waldoz]

Got this guy was going to throw him in the 60.

 

 

 

This is how he looks under lights.

 

 

 

 

Should I keep him?  I know there's some bad one's.😬 He is in a cup in the tank for now.

 

Also split up the frogspawn and h2o2 some sponges on the base.

 

[joshthebox]

1 hour ago, waldoz said:

Got this guy was going to throw him in the 60.

 

 

 

This is how he looks under lights.

 

 

 

 

Should I keep him?  I know there's some bad one's.😬 He is in a cup in the tank for now.

 

Also split up the frogspawn and h2o2 some sponges on the base.

 

Keep the starfish! Good guy