Adee's new build

Thanks Dallas!

I started creating my two island rock pile...must say I spent about 8 hours yesterday just looking and trying to get creative and about a hour with both arms up to my shoulders fully submerged trying to get the scaping just to look right! Anyways I intend to do scaping with the SPS's and not the the rock work....sort of sculpt the corals as they grow (like a bonsai).
 
so it starts...

so it starts...

So I finally started with my scaping on Sunday. I decided to again go with minimal LR, creating two low islands with more or less flat table top look. Basically covered the pipes (CLS) with eggcrate boxes. As I have some big pieces already, the plan (eventually) would be to rather prune the acro's into giving the tank its own dimension in terms of aquascaping.

I want this tank dominated by a forest of stag horns for which my shoals of anthias and chromis can swim and and hide...while giving the tangs open space to cruise above the tips of the corals.

As i had much of the corals already sitting next door in the nursery tank, was just a matter of finding a spot to putty them in place. Also I chose to mix and match the colors making sure that the each coral is surrounded by a different color.

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And so this is where I got to last night...have to find some space as I've but almost run out of room. Excuse the bad pics, it was late and the corals were giving off slime from being manhandled into place. The unsightly white putty and the "plastic putty" (the one you soften in boiling water)....will over time blend in, though it does make things look a bit ugly for now.

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Will take more pics as I'm finished with the planting. Will leave the tank to settle in before adding the sand (2-3mm crushed coral sand).... absolutely no bare bottom tank for me :)
 
So I decided to make a makeshift mount and light up one my old t5 set-ups that I had on my old frag tank , that was plumbed into my other tank.

Another little experiment to see what the added spectrum will do to the colors of the corals. This is in my sunlit nursery tank, Geismanns 2x actinic and 2x power blue (15000K). As you can see the corals are already pale from the strong sunlight, but now that I have added some shade cloth above....will see what gives with the added supplementation.

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Gorgeous progress.
The shades are a great idea - lovely being able control your natural light levels. Now if the shades could be motorized on a controller...hmmmm :D
 
Gorgeous progress.
The shades are a great idea - lovely being able control your natural light levels. Now if the shades could be motorized on a controller...hmmmm :D

thanks Mike. Hey....yeah, motorised shades would be great. One day I will eventually get a controller, for now I'm the remote and that everything manually :rollface:

cool tanks

thanks bud.
 
small update

small update

I finished building the added addition to the sun room area, a bricked housing for the chiller and two 200L tanks (top off and salt mix).

Moved the chiller two days ago from my other tank, and plumbed it in...shew, I have about 20m of 32mm pipe that runs to/fro to the chiller and then back to the sump. Had one nasty leak right on the fitting that joins onto the 1HP chiller. I made up some of that plastic putty and it quick sealed that leak in less than a minute...awesome product.

When I switched the chiller on, it's temp gauge showed 25.6...yet all three of the thermometers in the set-up showed about 4 degrees more than that....so perhaps my temps were not as high as I thought. It has been oddly cool the last few days in Jozi (cloudy with afternoon rain)...the chiller has yet to switch on (will go on at 27 degrees), so keen to see how it copes with the system. Corals can now breath a sigh of relief.

Did some fishing in my other tank this afternoon, caught my powder blue and the copper-band. Missed the sail fin twice though, should get him tomorrow. I used a plastic 2L coke bottle suspended with the funnel?neck area cut off and then inverted and placed back inside the bottle. Cut a slit so that even the big PB could get in. Suspended with some fishing line and mysis inside as bait.

Will add as much of the tangs I can get to, before needing to remove all the LR in DT of the other tank, where I will need to get to some of the other shoaling anthias and chromis. Don't want to rush the bio load though, so will add weekly.

Must say though, that the PB looks even more awesome under sunlight.
 
tank pics

tank pics

So I was bored and it was raining...so took some pics. Also some of my first fish additions...they really like their new home.

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Hey Adee,

Just one word... LEGENDARY !!!!!!

You undoubtedly are "Mr SPS SA". :fun4:
Hopefully one-day I will get to see this in person.
 
Hey Adee,

Just one word... LEGENDARY !!!!!!

You undoubtedly are "Mr SPS SA". :fun4:
Hopefully one-day I will get to see this in person.

Hey Nate....thanks, but I rather reserve that word for the guys that were doing this 10 years ago. Its been 8 years and some days I feel like I'm still learning the ropes.

Anytime your around let me know.
 
Added the rest of my fish population and seeing that the sun decided to come out, took more some pics.

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Stuck a blue sheet on the back, so to get a good contrast in the pics

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Now that I've added the fish..... I need to clean up the wiring in the engine room and basically neaten the place up.

Will add the sand in (not a fan of bare bottom tanks) as soon as I see things stabilize.

Added carbon and ran some filter socks to polish up the water for the photo shoot.

Added the 250 Extreme skimmer from my other tank that I've shut down. Left to right: All Reef Octopus skimmers, 5000EXT, 250 Extreme & TS3.


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