uglybuckling Posted November 9, 2004 Share Posted November 9, 2004 Here it is as of tonight. Halides, check. Shimmer, check. 20 gallon "high" tank Prizm Deluxe skimmer (the surface skimmer attachment is floating around in the tank because I'm lazy) 175W halide (used bulb, too white/yellow for me...new 20000K on the way) 2x Minijet 606 45lb Fiji Premium LR gets here Friday. --Bucky Link to comment
SubZero Posted November 9, 2004 Share Posted November 9, 2004 I say dump those packages of yeast in there with some barley malt and see what happens.... Other than that looks like you have the beginnigs of a nice tank Mark Link to comment
jmt Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 Looks great buck. Get a pic of the 20k up. Link to comment
Chyendra Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 are you doing some sort of substrate or bare bottem? Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 11, 2004 Author Share Posted November 11, 2004 There's some aragonite in there, though you can't tell it from the pic. Working on a pic of the 20000K. --B Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 11, 2004 Author Share Posted November 11, 2004 20,000K bulb in the MH fixture. So blooo. --B Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 ugly, what brand is that 20k that you're using?.?. i also have a 175watt halide over a 20high, but my bulb is the hamilton 14k. and it's nice, but not as blue as i would have liked. i'd be really interested in seeing a pic of your tank once the bulb has had a chance to burn in. my 14k looked like that for the first week, but then it slowly started to shift towards white. keep us posted with pics as you go. Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 11, 2004 Author Share Posted November 11, 2004 That's an xM bulb from Hellolights.com. It was $59, which as far as I'm concerned can't be beat. You can also get a 175W ballast for $50 there and a reflector for $30. So that'd be $140 for the whole system....not too bad. (no, I don't work for them, just a fan). I'm also curious to see if the color changes. The difference between this one (20000K xM) and the one I had before (13000K AB), shown in the above picture, is pretty obvious. Maybe after awhile it'll be more subtle? I dunno. Right now it's very pretty. I'm going to leave the setup here over Winter break without any attention for 3 weeks. Should be toward the end of my cycle (the LR gets here tomorrow or Sat). Going to take the MH down during that time, because I don't really trust it not to burn the place down. I'll set it up again in early Jan. In the meantime, I've got a 2x65W PC fixture that I'll be using. Since the only thing that'll be in the tank is LR, I was thinking maybe reduced photoperiod or actinics only or something like that....so the tank doesn't get overrun by algae (3 wks without a water change toward the end of the cycle is a bad thing). So yeah. Burn-in, and the accompanying color change, may in my case take awhile due to lack of use. --B Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 the color will definitely change. maybe not much, but it will lighten up a bit once it burns in. here's a pic of my 175w 14k bulb on the first day that i got it. and here's a pic with the same bulb after it burned in, approximately 3 months.... quite a difference. Link to comment
birdman204 Posted November 12, 2004 Share Posted November 12, 2004 bucky, is that a CO2 regulator and tank for a CA reactor in that pic there? Is that going on this 20? Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 12, 2004 Author Share Posted November 12, 2004 Haha...it is indeed a reg and CO2 tank....it's for my planted FW tank: which is right next to the reef. I was considering setting up a Calcium reactor, probably will if I put in a whole lot of SPS...I live right next to TAP plastics (big wholesaler/direct-to-consumer plastics seller) and the parts to build one wouldn't cost more than a few bucks. Then you just split the CO2 line. Sharp eyes, man. --B Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 12, 2004 Author Share Posted November 12, 2004 Did some aquascaping. Not entirely happy with it, but it'll do for now. Probably going to take out a few pieces of rock later, when my gf gets my 7g cube (12x12x12"). Here's what I've got as of now.... It's about 20 pieces of rock, all fit together like puzzle pieces, so it's surprisingly stable. None of it actually touches any wall of the tank....in spite of what it looks like. Comments/suggestions are welcome. --B Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 12, 2004 Author Share Posted November 12, 2004 (By the way...the live rock, which is Fiji Premium from http://www.reefermadness.us , is much nicer than it looks in that pic. Some of the best rock I've seen, for the price. I will upload better pictures soon.) --B Link to comment
Megalomaniac Posted November 13, 2004 Share Posted November 13, 2004 i like the aquascape.cool tank Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 13, 2004 Author Share Posted November 13, 2004 Been playing with rocks for hours. Finally got it to look a little better: And from the side: I'm much happier with it now. There's pretty good ("moderate," I suppose) flow past the left side of the cave (far left side of the tank). This live rock is very near the front, and I'm thinking it would make an awesome place for some zoos. Shrooms/rics near the bottom, maybe some sun polyps in the cave, and xenia on top of the right mound (next to the power head). --B Link to comment
NewbieReefer Posted November 13, 2004 Share Posted November 13, 2004 nice aquascape...looks tight. Whats the regulator for in the picture? Calcium Reactor? Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 13, 2004 Author Share Posted November 13, 2004 Megalomaniac--thanks. NewbieReefer-- Maybe I'll have a Calcium reactor eventually...but right now the reg/CO2 is for my planted freshwater tank, which sits next to the reef. I bought the halide for the shimmer, not because I want to keep stony corals (zoos/polyps, xenia, shrooms, and ricordia are just cooler, IMHO)....so I may not even need a Ca reactor. There's a pic of the freshwater tank above. --B Link to comment
bowfront26 Posted November 13, 2004 Share Posted November 13, 2004 sweet set up... like the steep cliffs. I can see some nice sps on them cliffs Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 16, 2004 Author Share Posted November 16, 2004 Took a few more pics today before breaking my Smartmedia card or my camera (not sure which yet). Here's my favorite piece of live rock (from Walt Smith, through reefermadness.us....great rock for the price, very few hitchhikers but lots of multicolored algae, great shapes and sizes): My sand bed (already covered in LR junk and turning brownish....cleanup crew time!): Then I've got two three things that need IDing (but only two pics). The first two are.... The white thing in the middle of this picture, which is about 1/2" in diameter (sorry for the terrible focus on this one....like I said, camera is kinda broken-ish): ...and the white thing in the center of this picture (used to be pink or orange), almost a full inch across: The last one is a little worm I saw free-swimming in the water today. He was brown, about 1/4" long, and would wiggle his body back and forth in a sine-wave motion (~~~~~) very rapidly. Definitely not a pod of any sort....kinda wondering what I should do if I see him again. --B Link to comment
Tigahboy Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 What happened to your sweet egg crate set-up? Am I confusing this tank for another one? I like what you got nevertheless...how's heat issues for you? What do you do to keep it cool? Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted November 16, 2004 Author Share Posted November 16, 2004 The egg-crate thing got scrapped because it was too complicated for me to pull off. I would have had to break so much custom-shaped live rock...and I don't think it'd look very good without corals (e.g. I think it's important that a lot of the rock used have corals on it, else it won't look good). Heat issues are non-existant for now, since I'm using power compacts. When the halide gets re-set-up (after Winter break, when I start putting corals in) I'll probably leave the windows open and/or put a fan blowing across the water surface. Halide + fan = evaporation city, but you can buy a lot of make-up water for the price of an iceprobe. --B Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted December 9, 2004 Author Share Posted December 9, 2004 Got some new pics... Full tank... Right side cave... More zoom... One month of coralline/other algae growth and I've already got that much. I shudder to think what it's going to look like when I get back from break. --Bucky Link to comment
uglybuckling Posted December 12, 2004 Author Share Posted December 12, 2004 The tube goes from a mini-jet 606 into the fuge, because the fuge pump was too strong. I'm going to get a surface skimmer for the AC500 eventually, and I'm hoping that will slow it down some. --B Link to comment
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