180g Starphire A.G.E on its way!

[invincible569]

You will love your Bellus. I love mine. The only thing I dont like about her is that she can be a bully to new fish. I bought the 6201 because of your experience. I wasnt sure if it was the right choice, but I really love it now. Makes me want to buy another. It doesnt stand out at all because its in a dark area where the lights dont shine. Thank goodness for having a wide tank.

 

[tbone28]

I think you'll love it with another 6201 in your tank. I didn't realize just how awesome the flow is until I started stocking my tank with fish. My tangs love it...often times, they'll just let the current blow them across. Can't wait to see how things go when I start buying coral.

Which angels do you have in your tank? I'm also wanting a male watanabe. Any thoughts?

Can you post updated pics (with your angels) in your thread?

 

[tbone28]

My hiding fish decided to make an appearance. My (2) diamond gobies have made a burrow underneath some live rock, and my pink pencil wrasse just sticks his head out from the sand. What a kook! Do wrasses burrow? Cracked me up when I saw it.

 

[Corndork2]

Nice setup!

 

[hatfielj]

Very nice work on the tank. Its really a beautiful set up. I love the aquascaping! Its a really nice use of space. Once you get corals in there and they fill in the open space it will look phenomenal. Plus, your fish are going to be very happy with so much swimming room! Keep up the good work

 

[tbone28]

Thanks. What year in med school are you?

 

[FishTruck]

Great shots! Burrowing fish are so cool!

 

[hatfielj]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11156368#post11156368 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbone28
Thanks. What year in med school are you?

4th year, I'll be done in may :rollface:

 

[tbone28]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11157106#post11157106 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hatfielj
4th year, I'll be done in may :rollface:

Congrats! Must be so excited. Do you have a residency lined up yet? What area of medicine are you going into?

Who's going to babysit your fish when you take call for 48hrs straight as a 1st year intern?

 

[melev]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11153012#post11153012 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbone28
My hiding fish decided to make an appearance. My (2) diamond gobies have made a burrow underneath some live rock, and my pink pencil wrasse just sticks his head out from the sand. What a kook! Do wrasses burrow? Cracked me up when I saw it.

Yes, many wrasses sleep in the sand at night, and are out in the open during the day time. I've never seen one do what you've documented, which is pretty funny to see.

 

[tbone28]

It's totally funny! A pleasant surprise. I guess the wrasse meets meets one criteria I'm looking for in my fish - have character!

 

[melev]

Yes, they are fun to watch. You may discover that you can watch them as they are about to bed down for the night. Mine knew exactly when the lights would go off, and would dive under the sand half-a-second before the tank would go dark. It was amazing, and it did it night after night.

 

[tbone28]

LOL. That's awesome. I'll see if mine starts doing that, too - hopefully!

OK, Fuge question. I finally got a hold of some chaeto. Do you think I need more flow in my fuge? It's about 18g and fed via MJ 1200 through that spray bar. Should my chaeto be floating or tumbling?

 

[melev]

Tumbling is preferable, but in my case I've found it grows even when it is stationary. A MJ1200 moves 295gph, so I'd think you've got decent flow in there even with the plumbing restrictions.

 

[tbone28]

Do you ever manually turn your chaeto? I'm wondering if chaeto dies off when not tumbing (since parts of it are not getting enough light). Would dead chaeto release nutrients back into the water?

 

[hatfielj]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11157873#post11157873 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbone28
Congrats! Must be so excited. Do you have a residency lined up yet? What area of medicine are you going into?

Who's going to babysit your fish when you take call for 48hrs straight as a 1st year intern?

Thanks! I'm in the process of interviewing for residencies now (internal medicine). Very stressful times indeed, but very exciting too.
Luckily I have a very supportive wife to help me out when I'm on call, so I should be good

 

[tbone28]

Good Luck! We need more internal med docs! Are you interviewing at any hospitals in California?

 

[dsaxman]

tbone,

Awesome setup - love the aquascaping and fish selection. I really don't care for the "wall of rock" look, especially in a huge tank. Maybe that's because I love tangs and they don't do so well if they can't swim around. Have you thought about a coral list yet?
Also, being a almost-pro chef, love the kitchen layout. Nice and open and the kitchen isn't separate from the dining area. Half the fun of cooking is having people in the kitchen with you to watch/talk while you cook. Can't do that of the kitchen is walled off without having people in your way. Not sure if you designed it that way, but definitely what I'll be doing when I put my house together. I've got a 75 in my kitchen now, not sure where the big tank will end up in the new place, but having it integrated into the cabinetry is a great idea!

I do have a few questions -

Sump - you mentioned you modified it based on melev's design, did you buy it from somewhere and modify, or did you make it from scratch? If you purchased it, mind PMing/posting me a link/contact info?

Lights - reefgeek now has what looks like the entire line of ATI fixtures posted up. Pricing is about double that of the Sunlight Tek fixtures - any big reason you went with ATI over the Tek fixtures? Also, you mentioned dusk/dawn - can you control the firing of each light/set of lights individually on the ATI fixtures?

Cheers,
Steve

 

[tbone28]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the nice comments We love our new home. It's not custom, so we did not design it ourselves. However, it took us 3 years to find a home that had everything we were looking for. The dining area you see is actually our breakfast nook. It's quite large, so I put my old office table there (it's actually a dining table I used in my office). There's a pass through (next to the double oven) leading into our formal dining room.

We had a 240g in our old home. Too bad I couldn't find a spot for an 8' tank in our new home, so I sold it and bought the 180g. There were kitchen cabinets in the location of the current tank. We took those out, as there were way too many cabinets for us anyway. We love the location of the tank because it's viewable from the kitchen, breakfast nook, and family room. It's where we spend most of our time and where we entertain.

Sump: I checked out the various designs on Marc's website, and designed one to fit my needs. It's a custom sump built by Kritter Tanks. Gen's the owner, great guy to work with. he built my last sump too.

www.krittertanks.com

Powermodules: I had Halides on my last tank and wanted to cut my electricity costs, so decided to go T5's after seeing a few SPS-dominant and SPS-only tanks lit only by T5's. After seeing some pics of Powermodule-lit tanks, I was sold. Timing was right as well, as Reefgeek was going to import them. I still had to wait 4 months, but I was setting up my tank anyway, so I was not in a rush. I like the Powermodules for the reflectors and the active cooling - 1 fan per 2 lights.

You can do a dusk/dawn. There are 2 circuits for the lights. I have 8 bulbs per fixture. One circuit controls 2 lights, the other controls the remaining 6. I've heard that the European version is dimmable. i don't think the US version is though.

Corals: Haven't put too much thought into it yet. I know I want a mixed reef, with a preference towards SPS. I love fish and usually have a big bioload, so I'm trying to stock my tank first with all the pigs that I want and make sure my water parameters are still OK before I start adding coral.

 

[melev]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11159087#post11159087 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbone28
Do you ever manually turn your chaeto? I'm wondering if chaeto dies off when not tumbing (since parts of it are not getting enough light). Would dead chaeto release nutrients back into the water?

No, I have found even the macro at the very bottom is just as green as the stuff at the surface. I've never had it die off either. Just take out 25% or more each month, and then stretch out the remainder slightly as this encourages growth.