Another Canadian Reef! 600 gallon Penninsula!
- Thread starter Cougarman
- Start date
muttley000
MTS Sufferer!
Sweet update, your corals are growing like crazy. How important do you feel the UV component in your LED's has been?
Ya unfortunately it's a load bearing wall. The house is open concept and that's the only wall in the middle of the floor.
I'm not sure if it's beneficial or not. It might help with fluorescence. The corals grew under the Orpheks which lacked UV. So UV must not be essential to growth. I do think it was the addition of UV that burned my corals when I made the lighting switch. At low levels though the corals seem to be doing well.
Hi everyone. I had the day off so I thought I'd update the thread. I've made some changes to to the tank. Most notably I removed the Chinese LEDs and went with 4 hydra 52s. I have them raised 20 inches above the tank and with the spread of their lenses I'm able to cover the entire tank. I felt my previous LEDs lacked controllability and perhaps spectrum. These new lightship can control each individual colour as well as UV. So far I've been very impressed. I made the switch back in January so I've had a few months under my belt to assess them. I've gone with less light this time around. I think the current generation of LEDs are too bright. Mounting them high and going with only 4 lights I've seen improvement in growth and colour.
I've had a couple mishaps since my last post. My giant green monti fell over and splintered into a million frags and mini colonies. I've secured some of the big pieces around the tank and I've been to lazy to remove all the frags littering the substrate. The power heads have managed to spread them out across the tank.the worst mishap was I removed the insulation sheet I had on top of the canopy to keep my new light fixtures cool. They tell you how hit they are getting. What I didn't realize was in doing so I released a lot of heat that was warming the water. Water temperature dropped to 70 degrees. By the time I noticed it had been a couple weeks and I lost a few of my younger colonies. I ended up placing a couple 800Watt heaters in the sump to warm the water. I think any electricity I've saved in lighting I've put right back into heaters.
On the positive side I finally got my calcium reactor working and dialed in just right. I had to take it apart and clean every piece then replace the circulation pump. It works great now and I've been able to keep my kh pretty stable. I've continued to have incredible growth in the centre of my tank but Im still struggling with flow on both ends of the peninsula. The flow is too high on the power head side and too low on the far end. My addition of a sea swirl return on the far end has helped a bit. I've been able to turn down the mp60s and reduce flow on the overflow side. I also decided to remove a lot of the rock on the end 3 feet of the tank in hopes of reducing resistance and increasing flow on that end. So far so good but it has only been a couple weeks.
My red cap is taking over the tank. Pieces seem to be appearing everywhere and growing out of the rock. I don't really have room for any more colonies but since I also suffer from the same disease as all of you so I've been picking up frags here and there and attaching them to the rock work wherever I can find a spot. I do like the overgrown look of the centre of my tank. My challenge is to get the ends looking the same. I may break down and add a couple power heads to the far end of the tank.
Fish have been doing great. I just realize my giant dussumieris tang I've now had for 10 years. That's pretty amazing.
Anyways here are some pics. The top downs are good but I will take more side pics at night when the reflections aren't so bad.
I've had a couple mishaps since my last post. My giant green monti fell over and splintered into a million frags and mini colonies. I've secured some of the big pieces around the tank and I've been to lazy to remove all the frags littering the substrate. The power heads have managed to spread them out across the tank.the worst mishap was I removed the insulation sheet I had on top of the canopy to keep my new light fixtures cool. They tell you how hit they are getting. What I didn't realize was in doing so I released a lot of heat that was warming the water. Water temperature dropped to 70 degrees. By the time I noticed it had been a couple weeks and I lost a few of my younger colonies. I ended up placing a couple 800Watt heaters in the sump to warm the water. I think any electricity I've saved in lighting I've put right back into heaters.
On the positive side I finally got my calcium reactor working and dialed in just right. I had to take it apart and clean every piece then replace the circulation pump. It works great now and I've been able to keep my kh pretty stable. I've continued to have incredible growth in the centre of my tank but Im still struggling with flow on both ends of the peninsula. The flow is too high on the power head side and too low on the far end. My addition of a sea swirl return on the far end has helped a bit. I've been able to turn down the mp60s and reduce flow on the overflow side. I also decided to remove a lot of the rock on the end 3 feet of the tank in hopes of reducing resistance and increasing flow on that end. So far so good but it has only been a couple weeks.
My red cap is taking over the tank. Pieces seem to be appearing everywhere and growing out of the rock. I don't really have room for any more colonies but since I also suffer from the same disease as all of you so I've been picking up frags here and there and attaching them to the rock work wherever I can find a spot. I do like the overgrown look of the centre of my tank. My challenge is to get the ends looking the same. I may break down and add a couple power heads to the far end of the tank.
Fish have been doing great. I just realize my giant dussumieris tang I've now had for 10 years. That's pretty amazing.
Anyways here are some pics. The top downs are good but I will take more side pics at night when the reflections aren't so bad.
I feel like my corals could colour up a lot more than they already have. My phosphates are consistently high at around .1 to .15. I run gfo but when I use too much of it I get stn on some of the colonies. This weekend being a long weekend here I'm planning on adding an old 4 foot mrc dual Beckett recirculating skimmer to the tank. It's a power hog, but hey I'm not in this hobby to same money. I'd like to see if it makes a difference on the phosphate levels.
muttley000
MTS Sufferer!
Nice update, tank is looking great. I really like the way your clam looks under the LEDs.
Lateralus_
New member
Wow, great tank. Looks like it cost a fortune in total, but looks great in the room. I guess some people buy art worth thousands and just hang it on a living room wall, a tank it much more lively.
Thanks Dan F. I got the Clown Trigger last summer. He was tiny, about the size of a Looney (Canadian one dollar coin). So far no aggression towards other fish, doesn't pick at any livestock. Occasionally will flip over pieces of dead coral or rocks but pretty docile overall. My hope is to stunt his growth as I have done with most my other fish. He doesn't appear to be growing much recently. I'd say he's about the perfect size right now.
Just my ipad mini. Livestock probably would look better with a real camera.
Yariel0527
New member
Wow this is what I call a dream tank..
Thanks. It's been the most challenging tank I've ever had.
Thanks. It was kind of a useless area in the house. Didn't seem quite right without a partition. Might as well put a tank in there. There was also an unfinished room in the basement below it. Worked out perfectly.
Asesine build. I somehow found your old thread regarding you taking down your 600G which brought me to this thread. Needless to say, I've been very unproductive the last couple of days at work.
Is this tank still up and running? Seems like tons of changes happened at the end and then things just died down.
I hope it's still going. It is very pretty.
Is this tank still up and running? Seems like tons of changes happened at the end and then things just died down.
I hope it's still going. It is very pretty.
Thanks for messaging. Unfortunately I sold all the livestock in December 2014. I'm unfortunately going through a divorce and I had to move out. The tank still stands and it is my hope that I will retain my house in my settlement and hopefully restart it again one day. I'll be sure to start a new thread for the build. Thanks everybody for reading.
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