29 gal external overflow all DIY - yep another one

The tank is looking great! That mandarin may never eat frozen food since they mostly love live pods. I want a mandarin so bad but most people recommend 75lbs of live rock or just keep restocking the pods often. Good luck and keep the pics coming.
 
Yah i am aware of the 1000lbs of rock needed for a mandarin rule. But for every person that says that, i've found a person who had success feeding frozen to their mandarin. This has been especially true for the spotted ones. I have several good LFS around me and if i do not think the fish will make it i will give it a good home. I figure with as many different kinds of food i can offer it, one of them has to be intriguing. The good news is that the fish has picked at some frozen enriched brine soaked in selcon. I'm also trying cyclopeeze flake, marine cuisine, and frozen mysis soaked in brine. Somethings gotta work!!

Thanks for the comments, i'm going to work on some DIY LR soon to finish the reef. I'll keep up with the pics for sure!

Miles
 
Tried it this weekend but didn't take any. If she doesn't eat by wednesday i might start trying to catch her and take her to the LFS. Although she has plumped up a little since going into my tank, probably from eating ALL of my copepods. I dropped the food right in front of her and it even hit her lips, but not even a nibble. Oh well, I tried :(
 
Well got my fuge plumbed in this weekend. It was an odd experience because it went very smoothly and i had no leaks. That NEVER happens. I did have a minor flood, about a gallon of water on the carpet. Thats a usual thing though. Its lite by a 20w daylight PC bulb in a cliplamp. I got 8 lbs of sand from Sean, some LR and a small bunch of cheato. 6 beers and 2 hrs later (basketball kept me occupied as well) here is what we have:

Start off with an updated shot of the tank. All is well except a small hair algae outbreak on the sand. It seems my alk was a bit low but i have since raised it and am now dripping kalk at night:
P3260008.jpg


P3260009.jpg


This is the empty fuge with bulkhead installed:
P3260010.jpg


Elbow for drain. Used my dremel and a cutting disc to cut the teeth:
P3260012.jpg
 
nice setup, I too have a 29g and I want to add a sump/ref with my old 10g tank in the garage. I wish I could cut the back of mine but it has fish in it. Do you recommend any syphon overflows for me? I was thinking about using a mag 5 with an overflow with a 3/4" bulkhead. I also have what I think is a good idea for a float switch. I will use a spdt relay and run low voltage through the coil of the relay and float switch, keeping the high voltage isolated on the other contacts. This will keep 120v out of my sump. Also, I had a royal gramma and at night he would come out and attack my clowns --- so keep an eye on yours.
 
Thanks!! I'm not real up on the syphon overflows but whenever they are talked about i think its the lifereef ones i hear are good. The mag 5 should be fine for your return. I hear ya on the float switch and 120v. I will be getting a relay this weekend and rewiring mine. Looks like you got a good plan there. Thanks for the heads up on the gramma. I haven't seen a problem yet but will keep an eye on em!

You have any pics of your tank?
 
here are two recent pictures of my tank, one with the flash and one without --- it is a work in progress. Supprisingly the duller picture is with the flash on. I want to get more live rock and some coral as soon as I get the nitrates lower and get the hang of the whole adding calcium thing. I hope the sump/ref I want to build will help with this, also I can move my bakpak skimmer and heater down into the sump. Where did you get your plumbing supplies from? Would home depot have everything I need? Also, where did you get the sheets of glass, the hardware store?


tank_4-2-05_no_flash.jpg

Tank_4-2-05.jpg
 
Looks pretty good!! Some more LR and your set. I got all my plumbing from HD and ACE, and the glass from a local glass shop. Just called em up and gave them the sizes i needed.
 
More pics to update. My mandarin took to frozen food this morning for the first time!! I'm so stoked as i thought she was a goner. This is the first time in 10 days of trying. I was trying to figure out how to get her out of the tank and decided to toss some food in while i starred at the tank. She took 3 brine shrimp and 1 blood worm that i saw. Anyway, on to the pics!

P3250001.jpg


Babies on the purple frogspawn:
P3250005.jpg


Ric close to splitting
P3250007.jpg


Top down look at my clam:
P3290001.jpg
 
Thanks! I hope it helps at least a few ppl out in the future, or at least assists in providing ideas. I'll be getting a few new frags this weekend, most important an oregon tort. Picking it up sunday, can't wait!!
 
Hey, how do you take such nice pictures, what kind of camera are you using? flash, no flash? All of my pictures turn out really crappy. That clam is really nice, are they hard to take care of? I want one for my tank.
 
My camera isn't anything special, a 3.2 megapixel olympus. I use the cloudy day setting on the white balance, macro mode, no flash, all lights in room turned off, and the key is........(drum roll).......a magnifying glass. Yah, just a $3 magnifying glass from walmart. Makes a world of difference!! It takes practice though, i take around 10 pics just to get 1 good one.

The clam is great. I've always liked em. I don't do anything special for it. Just needs steady water conditions and lots of light.
 
I wanted to get a black perc and the guy at the LFS told me that he wouldn't be compatable with my orange one. You had any problems yet.
 
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