An addicted reefer chic's 40B franken tank w/ 2 30g display macro tanks...

seminoleFLreef said:
Youve inspired me.

Im going to spend money on LEDs for my Cardiff 24 today. Care to share any of your DIY research?
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Honestly the way d.i.y. LED's/LED technology (period) is constantly evolving it is best to do your own research...read EVERYTHING d.i.y. related...use several different sources for anything reef related because no 2 people will ever have the same opinion. Don't take people's word as bond. Let their tank do the talking...if it's not the result's that you would want in your very own tank keep it moving until you find someone with d.i.y. LED's that have a proven growth record. Not just..."I threw this light together over my tank a week ago and it fluoresces." There are a lot of other variables at play.

Start in the lighting forum...look for builds that have full spectrums b/c that's where LED manufacturer's are headed. Don't leap and buy in a day, b/c you won't be happy with the end results.

Start here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=212

Not to be funny...at all...seriously and this is gonna sound effed up...but google is your friend as long as you check multiple resources to verify info.

Give it at least a month...then leap or you'll be kicking yourself in the end.
 
Don't forget Youtube! !! Another source of platform to look into. There's bound to be something in there for your research.
 
BFG said:
Don't forget Youtube! !! Another source of platform to look into. There's bound to be something in there for your research.
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Yes and youtube...

Thank you, BFG!

Getting ready for a major/sold out local frag swap tomorrow so my brain is fried...lol...so I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting. There are A LOT of goodies coming to this tank. Oh and my 2nd MP10 for this tank arrives on Tuesday! I'm sooooooooo effin' excited about tomorrow! I've actually been able to donated several frags to people that I know legitimately suffered losses due to hurricane Sandy, made a few new friend's in the process and bought and sold an epic amount of sh*t.

I will be dipping my new SPS as well as other's in coralrx and throwing them in the QT tank for a few weeks, I have a two bulb t5 over that tank...will it be enough to sustain the SPS I listed in one of my posts above? Should I just go ahead and grab a par38 to go over the QT from a vendor tomorrow? Advice?
 
Sorry, I've just sort of skimmed but I'd like to say I love your ciliata. I used to have one, and she was the most amazing thing. I'd feed your pretty mantis some live foods maybe a little more often (don't know how often you do) just so that she keeps those rapts (spears) functional, and can molt properly. Yellow is a rare coloration, I would love to see more shots of her :)

MeanGreenEyes said:
Lmao...I'm really sorry...I've tried with the point and shoot, cell phone, android photo apps, everything...they either turn out effed up and blue or I lose patience and am ready to break sh*t...you should just be able to point and push a stupid button and magic should happen...not all this "extraness"
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Some tips on shooting pics of yer tank are using a tripod, turning off the pumps/filters, and taking pictures when it's dark in the room (so that you don't get reflections). If you don't have a tripod, hold the side of your camera up against the doorway, wall, stool, in your hand against the glass, or anything to stabilize the camera. Photobucket and Flickr both have the edit option where you can adjust the whiteness, I think. Might be worth checking out, if you wanna deal with the extra effort for every pic (not too hard).

Anyways, just thought I'd offer my .02 to help ya out a little. Nice tank, and handsome dog (pit?), btw ;) :thumbsup:
 
StephLionfish said:
Sorry, I've just sort of skimmed but I'd like to say I love your ciliata. I used to have one, and she was the most amazing thing. I'd feed your pretty mantis some live foods maybe a little more often (don't know how often you do) just so that she keeps those rapts (spears) functional, and can molt properly. Yellow is a rare coloration, I would love to see more shots of her :)

Some tips on shooting pics of yer tank are using a tripod, turning off the pumps/filters, and taking pictures when it's dark in the room (so that you don't get reflections). If you don't have a tripod, hold the side of your camera up against the doorway, wall, stool, in your hand against the glass, or anything to stabilize the camera. Photobucket and Flickr both have the edit option where you can adjust the whiteness, I think. Might be worth checking out, if you wanna deal with the extra effort for every pic (not too hard).

Anyways, just thought I'd offer my .02 to help ya out a little. Nice tank, and handsome dog (pit?), btw ;) :thumbsup:
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What did you feed your's? Live food wise? I find it unbelievable that she sat at my fav LFS as long as she did. She was the best $75 livestock purchase ever, and I believe reasonably priced for such a beautiful specimen. I've befriended the owner's and one of them talked me into purchasing her because he knew that she'd be coming to a good home. I plan on placing an order with Reefcleaners.org on Monday for the 125g cleaner package and spread it out over all of my tanks...so that I have a seemingly neverending supply for her. The lfs was feeding her yellow tail damsels. I'd feed her my EX, but I'm sure that'd be illegal. lol

Photography wise, I'm challenged...literally. Friend's have told me..."oh just play with the white balance." When I do, the photo's just get worse. I don't know how to edit in photoshop and all of that either. Gonna have to bribe a local friend with some skills to work for frags to teach me. I'm definitely going to sit down in the next week and try to use the tips that you just gave. I only have a fujifilm finepix s1500. It's a basic $200 10mp camera. After I finish upgrading my tank equipment I'm going to invest in a better camera and maybe some classes.


Thank you! He's my pride and joy. He's a red nose pitbull.
 
Well, mine would never eat live foods, but you can feed yours anything that's soft-bodied (ex-husbands excluded ;) ). Fish, shrimp, squid, the like. I wouldn't feed yours damsels or really anything SW based (unless you really feel like QT'ing them or maybe dipping them), just because there's the chance that you could spread crap (like ich) to your DT fish. Freshwater ghost shrimp should be enough, and are dirt cheap. The lfs sells frozen silversides, squid, and krill. The dollar store sells wooden skewers for like a buck for...a whole bunch of them.

Photographing tanks is tough. It's just sort of something you have to get the hang of, I suppose.

I have a Shar Pei/Pit mix, and he's the sweetest thing. They get such a bad rep for the wrong reasons. *shaking my head*
 
StephLionfish said:
Well, mine would never eat live foods, but you can feed yours anything that's soft-bodied (ex-husbands excluded ;) ). Fish, shrimp, squid, the like. I wouldn't feed yours damsels or really anything SW based (unless you really feel like QT'ing them or maybe dipping them), just because there's the chance that you could spread crap (like ich) to your DT fish. Freshwater ghost shrimp should be enough, and are dirt cheap. The lfs sells frozen silversides, squid, and krill. The dollar store sells wooden skewers for like a buck for...a whole bunch of them.

Photographing tanks is tough. It's just sort of something you have to get the hang of, I suppose.

I have a Shar Pei/Pit mix, and he's the sweetest thing. They get such a bad rep for the wrong reasons. *shaking my head*
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Yeah you're right! I wouldn't want to feed that parasite to my baby. lol I've tried fish, shrimp, squid, etc. fresh from the supermarket, but gently rinsed in RO as a precaution, she'll grab them...pull them into her cave for all of a minute and carry them back out and toss them in the corner in all of a minute. I've only been able to get her to eat frozen foods such as silverslides, etc. I made my own mix through the food processor enriched with selcon, garlic, frozen seafood mix, shrimp, pellets, etc. and she tears that up. So I don't know, she's picky. I feed her with tongs. I have plenty of tanks to QT those blue and yellow devils in so it's not a problem. Unfortunately nobody locally sells ghost shrimp, except for one store that wants $5ea. Which I think is ridiculous.

I'm going to work on the photography end, promise. Especially since I want to document long term growth rate/coloration with the new lights whenever they arrive.

They definitely do have a bad rap! The elderly people in my building used to run from him, but I guess they've finally learned over the years that this dog is my child...my baby and that I'd never have anything that would harm my two legged babies. So a few of them actually come up to him and pet him. It's taken 6 years for them to come around though. lol Then there are other's that still run screaming when he's not even looking in their direction. When I got him my youngest was 2 and still in diapers. I have a friend who used to bring her 2 year old over constantly, she would try to ride Big Boy and do all of the things that babies are epic for. He'd eat it up, follow her around, constantly kiss her, cuddle with her. He loves kid's...period. He's also protective when he needs to be, when he was a year and a half this clown tried to rob me at an atm. Big Boy sensed something was wrong and started barking and lunging at the guy and he ran off. It was 6a.m. In all the years I've had him, he barks so little that when he does it startles me because he has one hell of a bark. I have a neighbor that literally gets down in the ground and wrestles with him. He loves rough play, he turns into a little puppy all over again. He is my heart and soul, even before reefing. He's that dream, well behaved dog that so many envy. He never even chewed up anything in my house as a puppy, except his own stuff.

Gotta run and do some shopping for Thanksgiving...do you have a tank thread I could check out? If so, please post!
 
Wow $5 for a Ghostie!? That's outrageous.. I could get a tank full of them for that.

You've got a great dog, there. :thumbsup:

You mean shop for Christmas? o.0 I bet next year they'll have the Christmas decor out before the summer is over. *shaking my head*

I do have a thread around here somewhere.. I'll post it when I find it :)
 
StephLionfish said:
Wow $5 for a Ghostie!? That's outrageous.. I could get a tank full of them for that.

You've got a great dog, there. :thumbsup:

You mean shop for Christmas? o.0 I bet next year they'll have the Christmas decor out before the summer is over. *shaking my head*

I do have a thread around here somewhere.. I'll post it when I find it :)
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Yeah...that's what I said! Their prices on everything is totally outrageous honestly. I really don't know how they stay in business. I definitely don't frequent the place unless I really need something in an emergency that my fav lfs doesn't have. (i.e. something for the fw tanks)

Thank you! :)

Nope...not at all...picking up things for my Thanksgiving dinner throwdown. My other hobby besides fw and saltwater tanks is cooking/baking. We borrowed a turkey fryer from a friend that recommended it last year and fell in love with it. There will never again be another oven roasted turkey in my house...it was that good. There were also no leftovers! The only thing that's a b*tch is the peanut oil here in NYC is insanely expensive. $6.99/24oz. It takes almost 3 gallons to fill the fryer. The boyfriend surprised me last night with a brand new turkey fryer. I make everything from scratch that I can...so I needed to pick up my turkey and other ingredients for pies, baked mac-n-cheese, etc.

With 3 kid's...I don't even want to think about that holiday...yet. :headwallblue: :headwallblue:
 
Here's a few pics of old tanks that were consolidated into the 40B. Plus, some fw shots. Yeah...I'm a rule breaker...lol.

Here's my nem in a 5.5g for 6 months under GU10 chinese LED's. Didn't have much of a choice though b/c a tank setup I bought broke in transit to my place. Had to wait for my 40B to be ready. Luckily, I had this well established pico to throw it in. I love GU10's over a pico.

DSCF1215.jpg


DSCF1214.jpg


DSCF1213.jpg


DSCF1204.jpg


My 1st pico...the canister was only run as a reactor for CPE, carbon and gfo and cleaned every Saturday faithfully during my weekly water changes. (Don't ever do it unless you're equally as diligent with maintenance.)

DSCF1196.jpg


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The crocea as a baby in the 5.5g.

DSCF1191.jpg


Crappy old cell vid of my 20 shrimp tank:
 
StephLionfish said:
Nice photos, and tanks! Beautiful Planted tank.

My ciliata thread wasn't a very good one on this forum. Too long and not enough excitement. Most of the best pics are towards the end.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2043437

However, I have another mantis (smasher mantis "”n. wennerae) build in the Nano forum, if you are interested.- http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2223931
:)
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Thanks! I will check them out as soon I get the chance. New lights arrived this afternoon...trying to figure out how I'm going to hang them. Don't know if I want to go with hanging from the ceiling or hanging from brackets on the wall.
 
**WOOT!** Hung my lights all by my dang self! Mr. Jerkface pulled the early sleep to get out of helping with my lights routine again! So, being the evil woman that I am, I got even by pulling out the drill at 4am and hung them myself. It scared the shizz out of him! lol I've never seen a man jump like that. bahahaha Jerk! :dance::celeb2:

Gonna take pics tonight...doing a lot of prep work for my Thanksgiving throwdown tomorrow so don't have time now. These lights are amazing!

**backs away to go run Thanksgiving errands doing her best party dance**


Got a reefer buddy putting up a new tank this weekend with extra cured rock I'm gonna buy off of him and replace the whole left side of my DT. Clowns nem and their xenia forest are going into the top display fuge/gorg/nps tank. (I know...xenia=yuck but my baby's love frolicking in it) 2nd MP10 arrived yesterday too. Gotta hook that up tonight as well as my vortech battery backup and dosing pumps. :fun4:

Non-reef related...my son was bragging to his teacher and friend's about our huge local frag swap that was this past Sunday! Awww...my baby reefer! Had to share. "His" pearlberry frag is looking amazing, as well as all of the other goodies I picked up! I really had a blast!
 
TheKman said:
Good looking tanks! Those lights you ordered are very nice as well hope they work out for you.
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Thank you! I'm really loving the lights and how sleek they are! I only played around with the settings for a few minutes before going to bed, so didn't really set it to where I'd like. Still have to do the software update. I am very happy with the purchase so far, over the moon actually. :bounce1:
 
Forgot to add...I AM ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE with my Mitras! I hung it from the ceiling with the included kit and used drywall anchor "thingy's" that I had in my tool box and 3 inch screws...simplest thing in the world. I also love the fact that the hanging kit was included. The spread is perfect! End to end there are zero dark spots in my tank and I'm running at 40% to start the acclimation process.
 
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