180g Complete Walkthrough- Updated

[jimmy n]

Skeets,

Extremely nice setup with very high quality equipment. The lighting, while nearly excessive, looks outstanding. The water clarity is remarkable and the corals are coloring up nicely.

Unfortunately, your pictures of the cabinets and such did not load for me. I saw the build up to the finishing touches.

Very impressed.

Nice work

Jim

 

[jimmy n]

Skeets,

Extremely nice setup with very high quality equipment. The lighting, while nearly excessive, looks outstanding. The water clarity is remarkable and the corals are coloring up nicely.

Unfortunately, your pictures of the cabinets and such did not load for me. I saw the build up to the finishing touches.

Very impressed.

Nice work

Jim

 

[ksarauer]

Very nice setupo, the tank looks awesome! Way to go Skeets!

Kevin

 

[Mai]

skeets
What did you get from Inland Aquatics? Was it the refugium flora and fauns packages?

 

[dphins]

Great job skeets! Very nice install.

 

[skeets]

Skeets,
Unfortunately, your pictures of the cabinets and such did not load for me. I saw the build up to the finishing touches.

Very impressed.

Nice work

Jim

Did you get the broken link boxes, or did it just not load because it took too long? If you didnt get to see the rest, you are missing a lot....
There is like 30+mb of pictures so...

 

[skeets]

skeets
What did you get from Inland Aquatics? Was it the refugium flora and fauns packages?

I got one of the packages, and then added more worms, and pods to it. I got the normal package and not the "refugium" package.

 

[skeets]

Very nice tank skeets! Do you have to siphon up detritus from the tank, or does it all go to the sump?

I wrote a section about this.
I have to siphon like a quarter sized pile of detritus out every 2-3 weeks in my display. Nothing gets trapped in my sump anymore because of the filter bags.
Every week or so I blow the rocks off and my filter bags collect anything that was on the rock.

My tank is devoid of detritus, the flow patern is set up perfectly.

 

[skeets]

Wow............I dont know what to say..god dam..I really like your set, you did a very nice job.So what does the mustang in the backgound ther run in the 1/4 if you don't mind me asking?
thanks

We are going to be running 8.40's come march when our new motor is finished.
Here is a website for our car... Bott Motorsports

 

[clamlvr]

i am speechless :eek1:

 

[birdman204]

Sweet, I especially like the overflow.

 

[ReefWraith]

The cabinetry turned out great Skeets! Very nice to finally see those pics you've been promising! Aaaahh... what a great feeling when everything finally comes together eh?

Reef On!

 

[JayS]

Love the look with the cabinetry, also like all the flow!

 

[mikeo1210]

I have so much lighting because I wanted a 10k/20k mix. I needed to run 400w 20ks, because 250's just wouldnt cut it.
I have had my new lighting setup(5 bulbs instead of 4) up for a couple months now.

I have a PAR meter to check my parameters with, and I literally get 200PAR when I turn the meter over to read reflection off the bottom of the tank.
My lowest light coral recieves like 280PAR and some of my higher lit corals are getting 900-1000 PAR.
So yea, I got a whole lotta light... definitely overkill but I love the color and the growth rates so its worth it in my opinion.

All of that probably costs about the same as running my couple 250s here in California. lol.

Couple more ?s if I could (getting great ideas here)..

Does that spray bar pump run 24/7? It could theoretically just be used every couple/few days if you wanted I imagine.

Also curious, have you compared the par between the 250 DE and the 400 SE at the same depth? I know they're diff. temps but wondered what you got.

Lastly,Did you hire a cabinet maker or do all that yourself?

 

[kaspm]

Very nice setup, you have made me think a lot more about my setup and i hope mine looks as goods as yours
Jason

 

[skeets]

All of that probably costs about the same as running my couple 250s here in California. lol.

Couple more ?s if I could (getting great ideas here)..

Does that spray bar pump run 24/7? It could theoretically just be used every couple/few days if you wanted I imagine.

Also curious, have you compared the par between the 250 DE and the 400 SE at the same depth? I know they're diff. temps but wondered what you got.

Lastly,Did you hire a cabinet maker or do all that yourself?

The spray bar pump is on 24/7. I choose to have it on at all times because I want to keep everything shoved out from below. I have turned it off in the past and when I do detritus gets trapped down there. When I turn it back on, it blows it all out but thats not what I want.
I want the detritus always in suspension so it can get removed from the tank. Turning the pump off, even for a day and letting it settle goes against the tank philosophy.

I have tested the differences between the 400w SE Radium and 250w DE AB 10k.
It is not what I would call a scientific test... but they both gave me around the same PAR at the bottom of my tank. However the AB bulbs have much more PAR higher in the tank.
Therefore the AB intensity drops off much quicker in depth than the Radium. The AB provides more PAR overall than the Radium.

I did not do the cabinets myself, the info is in the thread about it.

 

[skeets]

The cabinetry turned out great Skeets! Very nice to finally see those pics you've been promising! Aaaahh... what a great feeling when everything finally comes together eh?

Reef On!

Definitely nice to have everything finished off. The cabinets arent done justice in the pictures... they look awsome in person. I didnt envision this setup being as nice as it turned out honestly.
I can thank it to patience, and sitting on ideas before rushing to impliment them.

 

[AJtheReefer]

Wow. World Class Setup!

 

[Mickey]

WOW.................I'm speechless. Everything looks great and shows all the effort you put into it.

Mickey

 

[Tri916]

I have to tip my hat off to you SKEETS. Everything has been well documented for information and ideas, not to say everything about it is awsome. Its threads like these that give people like me different avenues to think about.