burnahs 10gallon T5 mixed reef

[burnah]

hey!

 

i decided to upgrade my current 3gallon nano:

 

12 watts T5HO

AC-mini with skimmer in it

a few sps and softies

sixline wrasse

tiny black percula

 

pic:

 

to a 10 gallon tank.

 

i already bought the tank, salt&supplements and sand, as well as the light. i will use a t5 pendant with 4x 24watts, one of these is blue, which should let me grow sps.

 

i will use the skimmer from the 3gallon in the AC, and add a eheim-canister filter with coal and ZEOVIT, as well as small powerhead for additional flow.

 

here are the first 2 pics of the tank with the lights on:

(theyre not as blue as they look, more like the 14k bulb in a MH)

 

this pic gets the real color of the bulbs better:

this is just a photo to show the tank and lights, the tank will be put on a stand and the lights will be hung from the ceiling

 

 

please let me know what you think. will start the new tank tomorrow, let it cycle and put the things from the 3g in there when the cycle is over...

 

thanks in advance

[jenniebutterfly]

looks good

[BelowH2O]

You'll like the 10g. Very versatile size.

 

What type of fixture is that? Those lights look great, T-5s have a really nice spectrum.

[Maxvan1]

Originally posted by BelowH2O

You'll like the 10g. Very versatile size.  

 

What type of fixture is that? Those lights look great, T-5s have a really nice spectrum.

 

I agree those lights are very nice, not to blue, but not to yellow, just perfect.

[burnah]

its an ATI. german brand, 4 24 watts: 3 10k kelvin, 1 coral blue.

[burnah]

painted the back of the tank today and mixed the water with the salt.

 

tomorrow i will put the tank on its place, fill it with water and put the sand in, let it rest for some hours and then put in the things from my 3G.

 

will post pics then

[DarkXerox]

Great stuff! I like how even though T-5's have a 'low' wattage to them, even SPS do well if tank parameters are kept in check. A lot of really great tanks only use T-5's.

[burnah]

this fixture is amazing... even under my small 2bulb-12 watt fixture the green slimer does well... so i guess it must beat the MHs

[burnah]

as said, i set up the tank today.

 

here are the pics:

 

before filling, notice the difference in brightness to the old tank which seems to be DARK although its lights are on:

 

here are the lights again, the blue bulb is the 2nd from the front:

 

puttin water in the tank:

 

so far so good, already added so LR-rubble and a hermit.

 

i will wait until the water clears up until i add any other things

 

i hope this works, so wish me luck

[burnah]

i put in the livestock yesterday evening, here is the first full tank shot:

 

 

hope you like it, and please tell me what you think.

 

thanks,

 

martin

[Y.M.C.A]

T-5 rock

[burnah]

yeah they beat MH but theyre still quite expensive IMO, i paid 250 euros (320 dollars) for the fixture

[Undertheradar]

I have found you can find great deals on them from place to place. Or, making a retrofit isnt so hard. It really comes down to finding a good reflector. For example, look at the prices you can get on Tek's from this garden supplier...

http://www.altgarden.com/site/lightsystems.../tek-light.html

[DRZL-sauras]

hahaaa...beat MH...pshhhhhh

[burnah]

yes they do... i have the direct comparison of 96 watts of t5 and 70 watts of MH

[burnah]

heres an update, just some new pics, no new inhabitants

 

 

 

 

the montiporas have gotten much brighter, the one on the last pic even got purple tips. the green slimer has grown some more polyps.

 

hope i will get some new SPS next week and a new pump (maybe a seio

 

what do you think so far? any suggestions/ideas or comments?

 

thanks in advance

[TheCoralReef731]

great, i too support T5 lighting. How often do you replace your bulbs.

[Divided Sky]

whoa. you Europeans are pimps. Dude you guys were on halides, skimmers, and calk reactors before America even got over the fish-in-box stage. I dont even know anything about T5s, but i'm already convinced. keep it coming you suave, porsche driving bastards. =)

[Divided Sky]

oh also, Nice tank dude. on a side note, Did you guys join the EU recently? I have my economist lying around somewhere that had a great article about the constitutional referendum. Must be big news around there. keep us posted man

[burnah]

peter: LFS told me to change them every 8-10 months, but i heard that you can even have them for 18 months, check over at reefcentral they have some threads about T5s.

 

 

divided sky:

well we have been in the EU since 1995, and slowly im gettin annoyed by them, the big states do whatever they want withoug consequences because THEY can make laws, and the EU controls already very much. the constitution will make things more difficult, and we are going more and more int he US direction - EU government being controlled by multi-national businesses:(

 

if you wanna have another BIG thing from europe, get ZEO-vit... its some kind of filtration where you use special rocks to grow bacteria which on the one hand somekinda grab the nitrates and with very heavy skimming you pull out those, and on the other hand they are coral-food... you get sick colors due to the lacking of nutritients and great polyp extension because they are feeded, at least thats how i understood that.

 

havent seen many zeovit tanks in the us, but one of my LFS swears on it, and their SPS have colors which are like the ones of the people on RC with barebottom tanks and no fishies and so on, but they have sand in it and lots of fish. im in the process of getting such a zeovit reactor, isnt expensive, you can use any can-filter and put that stuff in there, put the bacteria in there and from time to time feed the bacteria... they keep the water crystal clear.

 

and i do not drive a porsche, more like audi. though i really want an alfa romeo

[Divided Sky]

Well at least you have a true multi-party system. We are pretty screwed here, politcally speaking. But I am going to school in Canada in a few months so hopefully it will be a little more sane there.

 

Hows the tank doing? Get your ZEO-vit yet? I really like your 6 line wrass. They are quite interesting fish with lots of personality. Any updates for us?

[mushroom head]

I love all your shrooms!What kind of shrooms u have?

[burnah]

yeah multi-party system which does nothing but de-activating itself...

 

have no zeovit for now, will get it next weekend... tank is doing fine, my montis are growing quite good for 2 weeks, the green slimer grew some new polyps too.. have some probs with hair algae though, and the skimmer pulls out tons of crap

 

mushroom: i have a blue with green stripes, a red with blue spots, a completely red one, a very green one and a green ricordia in there...

[mushroom head]

Cool!

[burnah]

bought a pistol shrimp today, hes quite big already... 1.5 inch.