CW from the OC
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Thanks for sharing your build-out Sanjay, it has been very informative!
500G (84X48X30)- NOW REAL !
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Sanjay
Premium Member
Well, I hope everyone had a good holiday. My tank survived by absence. Over the past month the tank has been slowly evolving through the cycling phases. The green fuzzy algae from the rock has pretty much disappeared and there are spots of coraline now on the back and side glass.
Not having the best luck with fish. I guess its my fault for stocking the fish too quickly and lack of proper precautions. Some disease got in and wiped out a bunch of my fish early Dec. I decieded to let it run its course and it managed to wipe out a bunch of my fish.
Here are the pics from yesterday.
sanjay.
Not having the best luck with fish. I guess its my fault for stocking the fish too quickly and lack of proper precautions. Some disease got in and wiped out a bunch of my fish early Dec. I decieded to let it run its course and it managed to wipe out a bunch of my fish.
Here are the pics from yesterday.
sanjay.
Reefski's
Active member
Sanjay, i have been following your thread with great interest as i am planning a tank about the size of yours to commence soon.
what do you use to attach your corals to the rock?
looking great. can you keep posting pictures over the next years so we can watch it grow? or hook up that web cam. lol
Carl
what do you use to attach your corals to the rock?
looking great. can you keep posting pictures over the next years so we can watch it grow? or hook up that web cam. lol
Carl
dgasmd
New member
The tank is certainly coming along. I can see you have a dded quite a bit of corals there. It should be sit back and wait from here on out except for maybe reloading on the fish.
Can you remind us again what bulb/ballast combo you are using now? It looks a little bit whiter/bluer than my XM on PFO HQI for sure.
Can you remind us again what bulb/ballast combo you are using now? It looks a little bit whiter/bluer than my XM on PFO HQI for sure.
Sanjay
Premium Member
The clean up crew I have so far:
25 astrea snails
15 large Mexican Turbo
about 75 nassarius snails
6 fighting conchs
I decieded not to put any crabs in, since most of them tend to kill snals over time.
I need to get some sea cucumbers.
Plus the tangs do a good jub with algae. Just make sure they are not over fed and get lazy.
sanjay.
Sanjay
Premium Member
yep, with corals now its mostly wait and watch them grow. I need to get a few encrusting montis in there.
I finally started my experiment to measure the life of MH lamps on electronic ballasts. So I now have my lighting set up as 3 400W ICECAP electronic ballasts with 3 Giesmann Coral Lamps.
I measured these lamps right before putting them in, and will measure them every month or 2, to track lamp behavior over time.
sanjay.
I have been following along but don't recall the answer to this question, so I will ask it here
. How far from the top of the water did you end up placing your reflectors ?EDIT : I checked your lighting database and didn't find any PPFD/CCT data on the 400W Giesman bulbs. Is there any data that you can share with is about them ? Especially running on a Electronic ballast. Thanks
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Sanjay
Premium Member
Looks like my RO stuff valve and the Autotop off valve have become very unreliable. The ones I have are the pressure activated ones.
I am going to replace these to avoid flooding.
Any recommendations on ones I should look into. I have not looked at any new ones since I bought these 10 years ago.
sanjay.
I am going to replace these to avoid flooding.
Any recommendations on ones I should look into. I have not looked at any new ones since I bought these 10 years ago.
sanjay.
TropTrea
New member
Probably after someone sends a several thousand dollar lighting fixture to Sanjay. I'm surprised that the manufacturers had not already sent one to him if they are even half as good as there web site claims they are. Sanjay's recomendation does hold a considerable weight in the community.
Dennis
Dennis
TropTrea
New member
Probably after someone sends a several thousand dollar lighting fixture to Sanjay. I'm surprised that the manufacturers had not already sent one to him if they are even half as good as there web site claims they are. Sanjay's recomendation does hold a considerable weight in the community.
Dennis
Dennis
DrBDC
Active member
Are you using a controller? I've read the thread but didn't pay attention if you were. The aquacontrollers have i/o that you could run a few floatswitches and set the program up to read them and then activate a pump. It's pretty easy and they now have an i/o expansion module for about 40 bucks that makes the hook up easy. Just write the command so that both switches have to be triggered to kick in the pump or selenoid so that you have a backup in case of sticking, failures, etc. You can also hook up the sensor part of those wet alarm's so that it is a 3rd shut off and or shut off main pump in case of leak.
dgasmd
New member
The best advise I could offer is to do away with the entire system you are currently using altogether. You have used it for 10 years without floods or tank disasters, but it only takes one time for the thing to get stucked and turn your tank into a freshwater tank overnight. A prime example is a local guy with a coral farm using the same system that turned the entire 3500 g into a freshwater system over a weekend when the RO unit got stucked and just kept on pouring water in. Float switches fall in the same category in my book.
The best solution and trouble free with the least amount of potential for disasters that I have seen to date is to get a Litermeter pump. They are not cheap by any means, and I personally found it hard when I bought it to justify their cost for simply a way to top off the tank daily. However, knowing what I know now I would not do it in any other way. Set up a container you fill with the RO/DI unit manually of no more than what you think could be added to the tank completely without changing the salinity much. In my case, I have a 55g drum for top off in a 1000g system. It would take several of those in one day to make a huge impact and it last me about 5 days before I have to turn on the RO/DI unit again. Talk to Schiemer if you want as he has the same system basically. I am sure he will tell you the same thing.
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