250 gallon solar reef

[dave.m]

Man, I'd never get anything done if I had that to look at all day!

Dave.M

 

[Jarob]

Ace, the tank looks better than ever!

 

[hobogato]

yeah dave, it is pretty distracting

thanks jarob, got a new tank going yet?

 

[worm5406]

OK this is a nice tank..

WOW..

The video's... Yeah.

 

[hobogato]

thank you.

caught a neat pic of the gigantea standing up today and thought i would share it here.

 

[hobogato]

took a few more pics - everything is at its most colorful when the white t5 bulb hasn't kicked on yet, but the sunlight is starting to come in and is very orange/yellow.

not the best picture, but i think he was telling me that was enough anyway

hard to get a good pic of speedy

 

[hobogato]

took a new fts as well

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Love that harlequin. Is that a marine betta in the cave?

 

[Reefski's]

awesome! would you tell us about the camera and setting you use for the photography. you have some very nice shots there.

also what mechanisms do you use for nutrient export?

thank you,

carl

 

[Mark...]

Just went through the thread, what an outstanding job. Love the idea of captive fish. Great work with the babies.

The corals are eye poppers!

 

[hobogato]

Love that harlequin. Is that a marine betta in the cave?

thanks, yes i have had the marine betta since 2005.

awesome! would you tell us about the camera and setting you use for the photography. you have some very nice shots there.

also what mechanisms do you use for nutrient export?

thank you,

carl

thank you. the camera is set to 9900k for white balance, F stop of 7 on the fts and 3.5 on the closer shots. iso is on auto, which defaults to 100. exposure time is set to what ever results in -1 on the light meter, and the camera is set to automatically sharpen a bit (shooting a sony and it tends to be a little soft).

for nutrient export, i have the dsb in tank and i do 5 gallon water changes twice a week. i also have a carbon reactor inline on the closed loop with a small pad of filter floss. floss gets changed with every water change and carbon (about two cups) gets changed every two weeks.

Just went through the thread, what an outstanding job. Love the idea of captive fish. Great work with the babies.

The corals are eye poppers!

thanks

 

[hobogato]

we recently broke down a 29 gallon biocube for which i built a diy led fixture. i decided to re-use the diy lighting on this tank. i am going to keep the t5 lights, rework the strip led lights and add the 3w leds in using the dim4 controller. the controller will run the strip leds without an additional driver, so i will have a channel of red, a channel of green, a channel of blue, and the fourth channel will run the driver with the 3 watters. this means i can set it up for a red sunrise and sunset effect with a gradual ramp up/down until the t5 lights kick on/off. i also decided to redo the wooden shells that hold the lights on the top of the tank since they were expanded to house the led strips as they were an afterthought.

on to the pics of what i got done today:

here is what it currently looks like - notice the parts i added on to house the leds

here is the arrangement inside. notice the missing sections on the led strips where they were splashed with water. i will be installing an acrylic splash guard on the new fixtures.

so, today i was able to build the new wooden shells and install the led strips and 3 watt emitters. tomorrow morning i will move the t5s in and wire it all up with the controller.

the one on the top is the back fixture, it has one red strip, one green strip, and two blue strips. the bottom one is the front fixture with one of each color strip and the fifteen 3 watt emitters that are a mix of royal blue and bright blue.

hopefully this will make the top of the tank look a little cleaner and improve the coral colors in the middle of the day when the sunlight is really bright. it will also be cool to use the sunrise/sunset function of the controller.

 

[hobogato]

finished this project up today.

here are the light boxes all finished

decided to run all new wiring while i was at it

all wired up

cleaned up the wiring

here are the light boxes from the top

here is the tank with no supplemental light just after noon. the sun wasn't quite coming in at its brightest yet.

here it is with all of the lights on - seems to be improving the colors of everything a bit in the middle of the day.

 

[hobogato]

here it is with all lighting and no sun

 

[worm5406]

I really like the cover/canopy.

Nice re-do and it does make for a interesting conversation.

 

[hobogato]

thanks, i am very pleased with the extra pop it is giving the corals in the tank.


what's on your mind?

...it does make for a interesting conversation.

 

[worm5406]

Ohh no I just mean with friends coming over.

Most people are used to seeing a hands off approach to a tank and the inhabitants.

Looks pretty
"DONT TOUCH THE GLASS"

wow is that a...
"STOP DONT PUSH THAT"

This gives it a hands on atmosphere. Yes not that we want someone hands in the water...

Good job!

 

[hobogato]

oh, i see. yeah, i really enjoy having the open top. it makes maintenance much easier and it is nice to look in from the top as well.

 

[dave.m]

Maybe I'm blind or something, but I can't find that beautiful Heteractis anemone in the FTSs. Is it on the other side?

Dave.M

 

[hobogato]

it is at the top of the tower on the left - colors dont show up well in that picture.