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whitrose02 and bdehlin's 40BR


whitrose02

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Updated 3.27.12:

 

 

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Equipment:

Clear for Life 40 gallon br

10 gallon sump/refugium

Hydor Seltz 320gph Pump

2 Koralia Nano 420gph Powerheads

200 watt Marineland Heaters (x2)

AquaEuro 1/10HP Chiller

Neptune Apex Jr. Controller

DIY'd 36 Dimmable LED 18cw/18rb from Aquastyleonline.com

DIY'd external durso style overflow, 1"

DIY'd Stand

DIY moonlighting (LED's)

 

Our suppliers (all LFS or found at frag swaps): Vivid, Fantastic Frags, Wet Thumb Frags, Fraggle Reef, Garrett's Acropolis, and of course some San Fernando Valley Reefer members who we've traded or bought from.

 

Fish: Misbar Ocellaris, Extreme Misbar Black Ocellaris, Yellow Watchman Goby (paired with shrimp), Leucistic Chromis (he's all white with black eyes), Red Possum Wrase, Multicolor Dwarf Angelfish, 1.5" Baby Tomini

 

Monti's: Orange Plating, Violet Rim Green Plating, Hot Pink Branching Digitata, Purple Haze Encrusting, Rainbow Encrusting

 

Acro's: ORA Red Planet, Royal Blue, ATL Tar Heel's Stag, ORA Borealis, ORA Frogskin

 

Other SPS: Sour Apple Birdsnest, Ponape Birdsnest, Tubbs Purple Polyp Birdsnest, Pink Lemonade Pocillopora, Tyree Pink Setosa

 

Other Corals: Giant Green Polyp Duncan, Fluorescent Green Star Polyp, Red & Green Trachyphyllia, Palau Nepthea, Tyree Neon Green Toadstool

 

Inverts: Narssius Snails, Turbo Snails, Red-Legged Hermit Crabs, Cleaner Shrimp, Peppermint Shrimp, Tiger Pistol Shrimp (paired with Goby)

 

Macroalgae (in the sump): Chaeto, Red Lace

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  • 3 months later...

Updated! We added an algae-eating Blenny (still trying to ID him - we'll add pics in the morning for help on that) and some Kentucky Blue Grass Zoas that I've had my eye on for about 2-3 years when Vivid still called them Jolly Rancher Zoas. We also got a very cool neon-green mushroom with orange bumpy bits...

 

It is a good day! The Blenny is something special so look for it tomorrow...

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
I really like this tank, your coral choice is excellent.

 

Thanks very much! We're very careful about our selection of corals.

 

At first, we just bought whatever, and ended it up with an all one color, so now we try to be diverse in our selection. I think it's turned out well.

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It definitely shows, I'm running into the same problem, I think I'm getting way too much purple.

 

Lol ya. To keep ourselves in check, we keep a FTS with us. We have to select a good spot to put a coral before we buy it. It's helped us out a lot.

 

There have been a few conflicts, like "You can't put the Alpha and Omega's next to our Ring of Fire's... too much red!"

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Since I've gotten a few questions about the LED fixture, I thought I would post a few pics.

 

Custom Lid with 1.5" U-channel heat sinks with black wire for white LED's, and blue wire for blue LED's. Nic's wiring diagram made all the solder points line up perfectly, her planning made this nice and clean. The heatsinks are floated off of the wood using stainless steel sleeves that just fit over the bolts we used.

 

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Dimmable controls installed into the front of the canopy.

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U-channel heatsink for the LED drivers tucked out of view.

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White and Blue on lowest setting.

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White 100%

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Blue 100%

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White and Blue 100%

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We tend to leave the LED's on at about 85% Blue and 80% White, at 100% it's a little too bright.

 

Feel free to ask anything else about the LED's or the build itself.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Did you get a kit from aquastyle or did you piece it together yourselves? how much did you end up spending on your lighting?

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  • 4 weeks later...
Did you get a kit from aquastyle or did you piece it together yourselves? how much did you end up spending on your lighting?

 

We bought the standard 36 LED dimmable kit and spent only $12 on the heatsink. Including the hardware, LED kit, and heatsinks, we probably spent about $160.

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In case anyone was wondering about how good the Aquastyle LED kits are, here's a two month growth shot. I could not be any happier with the growth and coloration achieved by these lights.

 

2.1.12

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3.27.12

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Wanted to show a side shot of the tank:

 

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Very very nice 40b. What skimmer are you using? i would like to try out diy leds someday too!

 

Thank you! We're using a modded Seaclone 100. It's got a terrible reputation, but it works well for us. After switching from T5's to LED's, I wish we had done it sooner. The growth is great, but what is really amazing is the coloration we're getting from them. Everything in the tank pops now, it's been great watching our red planet turn from green to red and take off the way it has.

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Well nice 40. The sps is amazing :)

 

Thanks. We got a bit overgrown on the left to the point where we had to start up a frag tank to put all the birdsnest trimmings. Hopefully all that slow growing stuff on the right will grow better with the LED's and fill up the rest of the tank.

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  • 2 months later...
How bout some pics of your overgrown forest. Are you happy with the growth from your LEDs?

 

 

We are very happy with our growth. We had to hack back our Bird of Paradise and Ponape, and the Neon Birdsnest and plating Monti's need it as well... they are taking over!

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