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[CUSTOM] jmorris


jmorris

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OK, two votes for the red stripe (also the name of a refreshing Jamaican lager, which gives it extra points), but I'm still conflicted... the red head was my first :wub: as far as gobies go after all. I think I need to go see the gobies she has in person to decide... but I wont be adding a goby for 1-2 months anyway, so I've got time. I also need to look into the actuall habitat preference of both these gobies more thouroughly to decide if they will even do well enough in my tank to bother with.

 

Thanks for looking SLO, and YGPM

 

BTF, the pipe coming out of the top right corner in the main tank is the inlet from the raised refugium. About 3/4 of the flow from the Mag5 return from the sump gos tothe main tank, the rest goes to the refugium first, where it flows back to the main tank through natural gravity/siphon action... I'll try and get a few plumbing shots on in the next couple days. I still need to set up my ATO too though, so give me some time.

 

Thanks for looking and commenting, I feel the love again! :blush:

 

Jared

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Blind Tree Frog

If it helps I can give you a simple way to help decide on which fish. To quote what you said.

 

Also, my fish choice may change, as my friend just informed me she may have some really neat little gobies which may edge-out the very cool red-head goby in cuteness/coolnes points...
.

 

Now, let's focus on the key words in that.

 

Also, my fish choice may change, as my friend just informed me she may have some really neat little gobies which may edge-out the very cool red-head goby in cuteness/coolnes points...

 

To reword

Hey, tee hee. I've got these super cute teenie little cool fish that are cute as hell, but not as cute as me, and if you put them in your tank i'll totally love you and be over at your place to look at them like every day and while they won't be as cute as me you can stare at my ass as I'm bent over looking at the super cute fish in your tank. Tee hee. So please pick this fish please *bats eyelids over puppy dog eyes and quivering lower lip*

I mean, I'm sure it didn't sound like that originally when you heard it, but I'm pretty sure that's what she meant.

 

:P

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Too funny Blind!!!!!

 

I would also side with the Red Stripe, first for the beer, second for the looks, but it depends what the two fish look like in real life!!!!

 

Another option for me would be a small blenny. They have always been very personable fish in my tanks. One would definately find a crevice all its own.

 

P.S. I do like the tanks and rock work, I would be interested in a more detailed explaination of the system overall (pics or diagram)

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Also, I have a 4" fan from hamilton helping to cool/ventilate my stand, and it is LOUD! Anyone know of a good quiet four inch fan? I have already cut the hole and installed this one, so any advice must be regarding a 4" (four inch) fan.

By the way, did I mention how much this system already kicks ass? :D

Jared

 

 

Hi Jared,

 

That’s a sweet little setup you’re putting together.

I wish I had waited to join this contest instead of the “busted” NC6 contest.

 

One way to quiet a fan is to run a lower voltage to slow the speed.

I’m assuming the 4” fan is rated at 12 volts, but you could experiment with a

variable voltage adapter to get the sound to an acceptable level.

With 4” fan you still should get a lot of air movement even at reduced speeds.

 

GOOD LUCK with your new babies,

Rick

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I have an 8" Honeywell fan you can use if you want to evap. all the water in your tank daily :lol:

 

I vote redstripe...In fact, I want one too. Do you guys get them at the shop ever?

If you do, order one for me when you get yours (1 month or so for me before I am "fish ready")

 

Nice scaping'...I was in Rocklin today and was thinking I wish I could check out you set-up..damn work and school always gets in the way of reefin'...

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Went to work today (at the LFS) and stared at the red-heads we have in... still really like them... but then agian ,the red-stripe is pretty cool... damn decisions!

 

Anyway, I also got a load of cool frags for free & cheap today, so here are some crappy pics of them, and the re-aquascaped tank. Oh, I'm not much for species ID, so don't ask me what species they are.. these are all acros, though I may be adding some montipora, pocilopora, porites, etc...

 

post-15106-1131528584_thumb.jpg

 

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Also, I figured I'd attempt a pictorial of the mechanics and plumbing, but a lot of it is hard to take meaningful picturs of, so hopefully some of it makes sense:

 

post-15106-1131529366_thumb.jpg

 

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Cheers,

Jared

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OK, so here's a VERY detailed discription of the system... hopefully you can cross refference it to the pics to get a beter idea. or, you can just ignore this novel entirly, and enjoy my tank withthe knowledge that it works...period. :P

 

The sytem is made up of three tanks: a 2.5 gallon minibow sump, a 2.5 gallon custom cube sps display tank, and a matching 2.5 cube refugium. The refugium sits above the level of the sps tank, to allow it to drain into the main tank by gravity, maximizing pod transfer (hopefully :fingerscrossed: ). The main tank has an external overflow box with a Hoffer Gurgle Buster standpipe (as seen in the third pic). The overflow water enters the sump via flexable bilge-pump discharge hose from home depot (great material for overflow lines, as it flexes without kinking, and yet is ridged enough to not flop around). The end of the overflow line goes to the bottom of the sump, and has a bag of Purigen right at its outlet. Next in the sump, is the UTR/Wetworx skimmer (check out his thread in the DIY library), then the Iceprobe, then the 100w AGA heater (made by hydor, but not crap like the old Hydor heaters). The microbubbles generated by the skimmer and the overflow output are taken care of by lots of very porus LR chunks placed stratigicly about the sump (in all the little nooks and cranies, but not right up against the heater or chiller). Return flow to the tanks is acomplished by a Mag 5 (500gph) ran externally. There is a very noisy 4" Hamilton fan pushing intot he stand right behind the return pump... this only runs durring the day when the heat from the MH needs to be negated. I plumbed the Mag 5 to the sump with a tru-union to ease maintanence (and it has already come in handy... I can take the hole sump out in about 2 minutes when needed). On the inside of the sump, a 90* elbow pointed down is on the intake bulkhead so the waterr is being puled from the very bottom of the sump. This design helps decrease microbubbles also, and ensures that incase the water level drops dramaticly for some awful reason, (say, the skimmer outlet gets pluged, water is pumped out the skimmate outlet, overflowing the skimmate cup, spilling all over the inside ofthe stand, and seeping out onto the floor?... um, yeah :blush: ... oops!) the pump does not run dry untill the sump is nearly empty. The return line is flex vianal tubing, and splits via a Y fitting right after the pump, with one line going to the main tank, the other to the refugium. Ball valves allow me to controll how much water goes to each tank, so the main tank gets about 3/4 of the flow, and the refugium gets the rest. 1/2" vinal tubiung fits very snugly on 1/2" CPVC, so I used 1/2" CPVC to plumb the return lines after the split. On the main tank side, the retun water enters the tank via a three outlet Calfo style manifold (4th pic). On the refugium side, the water enters via a simple "spraybar" that extends down the center of the back wall, and T's off at the floor and extends to both sides. the holes in this are 3/16", and create a nice distribultion of the weak flow into this tank. From the refugium, the water simply flows down to the main tank by gravity though the pipe you can see in the 2nd pic. The closed loop system is run by a mag 2 (though I have a Mag 3.5 I'm considereing putting in its place B) ), and runs through a SCWD. I am aware of the problems some people have had with SCWDs, but IME, they just have to be set up and maintained properly, and they will run for years. The plumbing from the intake bulkhead in the tank to the pump is quite crazy, with eight 45* bends and a piece of PVC called an EZ-span coupling (an adjustable PVC coupling with a union at one end... very niffty) to get around the Iceprobe and the sump. I plumbed the CLS outlets using 1/2" Loc-Line, since the compact Loc-Line ball valves would fit where standard PVC ball valves wouldn't, and the poseable bending action of the Loc-Line allowed me to get the ouputs from the SCWD in the idea positions to maximize flow and reduce backpressure. Inside the tank, the intake starainer for the CLS is in the center/back of the tank floor, and is hidden by the rockwork, and the outlets are at each back corner, with three 1/2" Loc-Line segments ending in a Y fitting. The ATO system consists of a flotswitch from www.californiareefs.com, an aqualifter pump, some sexy black tubing, and a 2 gallon bucket form Lowe's. A hole is drilled in the lid of the bucket to allow the suction line from the aqulifter in, and a couple 1/16 holes are drilled elswhere in the lid to allow air in as the bucket empties. A hole is drilled in the top edge of the sump for the aqulifter outlet line to enter, and the tubing is positioned just above the waterline. Temporaraly, I have a VERY RELIABLE suction cup holding the floatswitch in place, but I will make a little acrylic bracket for it this weekend (I do not recomend mounting a floatswitch for an ATO with a suction cup, because if it fails, your tank is either gonna get all your topoff water, or none at all). The big green cup is the skimmate cup. The turkey baster siting on the ATO bucket is the most versitle aqaurium tool I know of: blows off detritus, picks up untouchable critters (like bristleworms), transfers pods, empties skimmer cup, prime's siphons. Thge jumble of wires is really not a jumble at all, it just looks that way. both powerstrips are securly mounted, and all cords have driploops... there's just 11 cords, so it's a little crazy.. Istill need to instal a GFCI in placeo fthe standard outlet on that wall... hope the house doesn't burn down before I get to that this weekend! :unsure:.

 

The last pic is of my 70w MH DIY Regent fixture mounted in the canopy and shielded by the slpash gaurd. It is actually a perfect fit for the 7" tall canopy, and ismounted quite squrely, I'm not sure why it looks crooked :huh: . It is cooled by two 3.25" Coralife fans, which actually put out a really decent amount of air, and keep it amazingly cool... cool enough to touch the fixture in the middle of the day! :o

 

The controller for the Iceprobe is mounted on the outer left side of the stand so the probe can reach into the tank itself (the overflow chamber, actually, right next to the digital thermometer probe), and not sit in the sump with the chiller unit and the heater. I found that having the probe in the sump so near the two temperature control devices caused "feedback," and the temp constantly varried, but by putting the probe in the tank, the real temperature of the tank water is meassured, and the Iceprobe can respond acordingly, and the temp stays between 80-80.5* (right where I want it).There is a little fighting between the heater and the chiller :slap: , but they are workign things out :grouphug: . I should also note that the chiller heatsink/fan are actually outside of the cabinet, so the heat it draws from the sytem doesn't just hang around in the cabinet and get absorbed back into the system.

 

So, that's the system... any other questions? :D

 

Jared

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how about a few pics?

 

FTS of main tank

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FTS of refugium

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both tanks

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first of the frags to show any PE

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Cheers,

Jared

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Amazing - absolutely amazing... Im lost for words :o

 

wow, thanks! :blush: I like how it turned out too :)

 

I'm looking forward to seeing your setup to... get those pics taken!

 

Jared

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hahaha I know I need pics! No but seriously that is one of the nicest.. no let me rephrase that... that is far and away the nicest pico I have ever seen. The whole compostition just worked unimaginably well together. Congrats man, excellent pico, and GO 05!!! - with your pico, tigah may not be capable of winning!! :lol:

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Looking sweet j! You've got my vote. How about a pic of the system with the tank lights off in daylight to see the canopies better?

 

Thanks! Here you go...

post-15106-1131601043_thumb.jpg post-15106-1131601861_thumb.jpg

 

and a couple close ups show why I need to repaint the main tank canopy... really messed it up cutting holes/installing fans... oops :angry:

post-15106-1131601009_thumb.jpg post-15106-1131601914_thumb.jpg

 

hahaha I know I need pics! No but seriously that is one of the nicest.. no let me rephrase that... that is far and away the nicest pico I have ever seen. The whole compostition just worked unimaginably well together. Congrats man, excellent pico, and GO 05!!! - with your pico, tigah may not be capable of winning!! :lol:

 

Thanks for more of those superlative compliments! lol!

 

Well, I may not have to beat tigah if he doesnt get his act together soon! j/k! Bring it on Tigah!

 

 

Jared

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The first casuallty! RIP Acro. humilus :tears:

 

beautiful mini colony of yellow/green A. humilus died spontaniously within hours of being placed in my tank. it was dipped for 5 minutes in Kent Tech D and 15 min in Salifert's Flatworm Exit (since it had some damage, and the tank it came from had flatworms)... must have been too much stress for the little colony.

 

On the bright side of things, I got a nice healthy bright green Monti cap frag today, about 1"x 1", and it seems to be doing great!

 

Also reallized the DI water I was using had some significant PO4 in it (bad carbon canister), and so I added some Phosgaurd, and did a WC.

 

Jared

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yep, Slo... ssame water, same problem probablly. :(

 

The good news about the PO4 is, we fixed the problem causing it, and I was able to bring the PO4 in my tank back down to 0 in 24hrs with 1/4cup of Phosgaurd. Got to bring my Ca and Alk bak up now, as they inevitablly fall with the use of phos. reducers... well, at least that's fixable too. :)

 

Jared

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Damn PO4!!

 

Even with my RODI unit and brand new filters I've still found slight traces of PO4 in my old 29...Not anymore...

 

I bought a phos reactor from marine depot that will run 24/7 from the first minute this new tank is running!

 

Oh hey J, I made baffles like you suggested...I haven't filled the sump back up yet so I dont have anything to report yet.....I'll let you know!

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yeah, those PO4 reactors work pretty well, but they have a noticeable neg. effect on Ca (check out the discusion on phos removal on RC). I like Phosgaurd as a great way to quickly lower PO4 in the event that I have a spike for some reason (large dioff, accidental overfeed, or the situation I just had). I've found that Phosban will turn into a cement-like brick if run in a bag, instead of the reactor, for more than a few days in a high Ca setup. Plus, Phosgaurd never clouds my water like Phosban inevitably does (damn rust-dust!). For the most part though, most PO4 problems can be eliminated by a good refugium.

 

But this brings me to the reason I like well planted refugiums: their ability to bank PO4 and NO3. All you need to do is trim the algae regularly to "withdraw" some of those excess nutrient "funds", and the algae's new growth banks nutrients even faster... cool stuff. Another aspect of a diverse refugium that I apreciate is its ability to suport a wide variety of interesting, useful, and nutritious microfauna. Finally, and posibly most importantly to this system, a well designed and maintained refugium produces an entirely different asthetic appel than your average reef tank.

 

Jared

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