B16A2NR's 3.5 TRUVU

[Carinya]

Those green zoos are intense! If you ever frag them, keep me in mind. Pretty please?

 

Tank looks just lovely. Nicely done. Here's hoping that it does well in the mid to long term. I think the ice probe will be key.

 

Hey, was I mis-informed that linkia starfish were NOT reef safe? I coulda sworn they were a no-no. Can you set me straight?

 

Only small suggestion I have is that the upper portion of the tank looks a bit bare. It's merely personal choice, so of course do what you find visually pleasing. But you might consider having a taller rock outcropping on one side and/or perhaps a photosynthetic gorg like a ribbon gorg in order to add some height. The tank is really beautiful & this is the smallest of small and humble suggestions.

 

C

[suubz]

lol -- 'semi-pornographic pictures of corals'

 

VERY NICE indeed.

[suubz]

I am thoroughly impressed with the superior intellect and edumacation that most members reveal when explaining their intentions for a suggestion to other members' projects.

If I ever get around to posting details about my little TRUVU project (when I receive all of the parts and actually get started); I hope that you all share the same level of thoughtful advice that you have shown here.

Keep it up all... and uhm... don't let the MAN bring you down... or... something... yah.

[SSMangrove]

let me get some clam centerfolds! you know what they kinda look like!!

[B16A2NR]

Carinya: I will keep you in mind if I ever decide to take frags of that piece. My current plans are to never make frags out of this tank unless corals are touching and agression is shown. I really want to fill this tank in, and give it a much more established look.

 

I completely agree on the upper portion lacking enough rock and aquascaping, my plan for that portion is find a really coraline encrusted 2 lb piece of live rock for the top left part of the tank to cover the aquaclear intake and have that rock dedicated to different colorations and species of montipora.

 

Heres todays full tank shot, as you can see the green star polyps are opening up, and my starfish has made his way to the front of the rocks.

[SSMangrove]

Looks almost unreal b16.. like something youd see in a marineland catalog only.. not crowded.

(they take pics of 5 yellow tangs in a 12 gallon eclipse)

[Carinya]

Niiiice. Great plan for the montipora too.

 

Well even if you decide to frag those a few years from now, the email address on my profile here is one I've had forever & will pretty much always be active. I'd be glad to give you a good price for those. So just keep it in mind.

[B16A2NR]

Heres Hank the goby. He made his home in the front of the tank and weaves through a network of liverock around the chiller. He spends most of his day staring aimlessly in front of the tank in hopes for food. I am looking to find a pistol shrimp to keep him company and dig him a cave.

[SSMangrove]

awwww tawd thats so cute! the other one may have kicked the bucket (RIP 12 gallon) but you soon will have the joy of enjoying their crazy symbiotic relationship once again. props to you for IMO the best fish you could get for the tank. Hank.. its fitting.

[B16A2NR]

Actually SS this is the original Hank from the 12! Hes the only one that survived the crash, I put him in my propagation tank's sump fuge for 5 months where he has lived off of copapods. His parter in crime pistol shrimp wasn't as lucky. I agree gobys are the best fish they are way more fun to watch than clowns and have much more character.

[phergus_25]

tank looks awsome, and on the subject of cars i am going to buy a 300ZX Twin Turbo soon any experiance with them?

[SSMangrove]

Yeah get one with low miles...

 

Something to know:

 

You can achieve upwards of 400 hp with the Jim Wolf Chip, Intake and a good catback exhaust system. More power could be realized too with a test pipe. I too was very serious about getting one, but for my pricerange at the time all i could find was ones with high miles.. you need to find an old guy thats the original owner and only drove it on weekends or something. What is your ultimate goal with the car? Road monster or luxury sportscar? Fortunately, you can have both if you have the money (the car is considered an exotic so expect to pay a lot for parts)

 

Back to the reef:

 

B16A2NR: Seriously?? Wow good ole hank, i thought that name sounded familiar... Too bad his buddy didnt make it too, but he wont be alone for long I'm hoping. I agree, goby over clown anyday. Too bad that poll conducted a few months back wasn't in gobys favor. (thanks to the movie that we all know and hate/love) Post weekly pics b16 so we can see the growth! i know they will take off..

[FiShTaCo]

I just got done with this thread....B16?! That is an awesome

 

project you did there!

 

I just wish these Rice-Rocket threads

 

would stay in there own forums!! Haha!!!

[theANEMONEA]

What's the dosing/water change regimen gonna be like? You had an auto top-off on the 12 w/kalk, are you gonna do that again? Also, what kind of star is that and how do you plan on cleaning when the corals get huge?

[B16A2NR]

I plan on keeping my nutrients as low as possibly by dosing only bio-plankton, and b-ionic. Water chages will be done bi-weekly 20%. calclevels will be tested to find a steady dosing schedule. I am dosing B-ionic because I dont want to mount float switch on this tank just yet, and dosing kalk otherwise is very risky.

 

My evaporation rate is suprisingly low concidering its 70 watts over a 3.5 gallon. I think its in part of the chiller and glass cover keeping most of the evap in.

 

From what I read both of the stars in my tank aren't linkias. They are some other.

 

How do I plan on cleaning? If you mean as far as the tank I am getting either a nimble, or tiny magfloat. I positioned the rock to give me access to the front and sides, and I will hide the magnet behind some rocks when I'm done.

[B16A2NR]

I decided to build up my live rock structure with another 2 lbs of cured fiji. Its the two top rocks on the left and right side. They seem to fit my aquascaping very well and unlike my base liverock make it easy to attach frags to them since they can be easily removed. I glued on my blue ricordia, orange zoo's, daisy polyps, and blue zoos to the rocks. Do they look out of place to anyone? What I like to do to make it appear like a single rock is mount sps between the cracks. This will probably my last addition and final aquascaping of live rock to the tank.

 

Yesterday my orange star fish decided it doesn't want to stay in my tank anymore and self destructed himself. I removed him before water parameters were effected. My other green star is still doing fine, I raised him from a little arm nub that wandered around my prop tank. Will get some pics soon.

 

I noticed while aquascaping my rocks that my 20k shifts hues or color spectrum every minute or so. It goes from an intense blue to a lighter blue to almost white color and back to blue again. Its a fast enough change that my eye can see the color difference. Am I tripping out from UV radiation or has anyone else experienced this?

[phergus_25]

well i deciede to keep my honda for now, 98 accord EX, for the cost of parts and what not, but i still want one bad. I'm planning on lowering it, getting some sort of chip, and a short throw kit

 

On the subject of lights mine seems to do the same thing, only slower, i can come in sometimes and think "my 20k is too white i want a diff bulb, but then sometimes it is almost too blue, i dont know its far past burned in.

 

And the tank looks awsome, i like the way it flows twards the bottom

[Friskaburger]

That 20k lighting is great. Love the coloration ur getting in that tank. That truvu is really awesome! I wanted to know if you were still going fine with all that lighting, and not getting any warping or heating problems. I wanted to do something similar to what you were doing, but I want to plumb to a fuge. I know that you didn't want to have a sump or any external devices though. Great work! My friend drives a nice S13 hatchback with a red top. =( It's a freakin nice car, though not cali street legal. Gutted cat, nvidia prototype catback exhaust. arc bov, pwr fmic. It makes me miss my car back at home!

[B16A2NR]

No real heat issues. I did make the mistake of mounting the coralife moon light to close to the halide and the its case warped a little bit. The fan keeps temps fairly cool, the glass keeps most of the heat out of the tank, foam core insulation between the bulb and acrylic canopy keep it from melting, and my iceprobe chiller keeps my temps to a 1 degree range 24/7

[Friskaburger]

Awesome, that's good to hear. What exactly are you using as that foam core insulation? I'd be interested to see how you're doing that.

[bowfront26]

that is awesome B16, very nice. I will be buying a YWG soon enough thanks to you...

[theANEMONEA]

The scaping looks aite right now, but it'll look a lot better when those zoos or the gsps start to spread. BTW, are those the same gsps you've always had, like the ones you sold me? Cuz if they are they're gonna get really long and that might look kinda shiesty... oh yeah, i'm glad to see "Hank's ok". I remember that guy- you had one hell of a time getting him and that shrimp into the same hole

[timb000]

Nice! Just sit back now and watch everything grow...

[SSMangrove]

lookin good toody.

 

you should be like that takashi amano guy; set up reef tanks(intead of plant tanks) at big parties and corporate office openings and come back 3 days later to break them down. Believe it or not, people do this with planted tanks frequently-- especially in rich areas like for showing off a house setting up an "instantly" beautiful tank to show whats possible to do in the home,then coming back to dismantle it a few days later. Takashi amano does that with planted tanks and the dudes got lotsa moola from it. Thumbs up G.

 

ss

[B16A2NR]

Friskaburger: for foam core insulation I used some a small piece of foam core board from a landscape architecture project and cut it with an exacto to fit under the Bulb. Tore off the 2 thin layers of paper covering the styrofoam, and wrapped it in aluminum foil to reflect light and provide better insulation.

 

Theanemonea: The GSP is the same strain that you got off me. It only gets all long and curly like the pic in my banner when the middle polpys can no longer spread out and can only grow longer. Theres a funny story behind the GSP, and its heritage goes back a long ways. Me and Goose went to tropical paradise and split the original colony of GSP into two. I than propagated it in my 12 gallon for a year to upwards of 50 people. Than my 12 gallon self destructed when I moved back to LA after summer. 6 Months later I bought some guys tank for the 70w MH setup and recognized him as the guy who bought frags off of me a long while back. So I got back my original strains of xenia, and gsp.

 

I should be picking up some really really nice sps frags today in LA. This will be my first strong attempt at Acros. We will see how it goes. Right now most of the corals in my tank are fairly common easy to take care of, but with really nice coloration. You will start to see my coral selection shift more to SPS, rare LPS, accented with nice color morphed zoo's and rics. It will be fairly gradual as I don't want to dive head first into SPS. Wish me luck!