April 2012 Tank of the Month!

[Sorry]

amazing
so much time went into that tank im sure

 

[psteeleb]

WOW! GO DFWMAS!!! Great job Pete!!

thanks Ben, another Texan with an awesome looking reef and a great mermaid shot (maybe mermaid in the making)

Gratz Peter, very nice tank!

thanks Hangman187, Welland as in Canada?

Beautiful tank! Congrats!

Thanks Tang Thang and welcome to RC!!

Very beautiful..........Congratulations!!:celeb3:

thanks - belated welcome top RC and sorrry to read about your nem.

awesome tank! can a link to the videos be posted?

thanks woganaga - I read up on your ich ordeal, did the fish pull through?

Congrats, Pete!
You know, if your tank hadn't been the first one Donzi saw in someone's house, he probably wouldn't have been so excited about getting into this hobby :lmao:

For everyone else, as good as the pics & vids are, this tank is awesome in person!

thanks Sushi, not much I can add to that other then another thanks for the help you bring to the forums

Awesome brotha.Congrats on your beautiful tank

thanks Dan, and did anyone tell you your tank is a mess, you need to stop getting those clams all excited like that :lol:
but heck, look at it this way, you didn't have to feed the corals tonight

Beautiful tank. Sucks about the 300g leak. I want a tank like this someday

thanks Browserz, and agree on the 300g, not so much for the tank as for all the corals and fish, but like I said in the write up it was a great learning experiance. I just wish I had all that tank space again

 

[SephGrave]

Congratz you deserve it! Very good work!

 

[Sport507]

Wow

Wow

That tank is nothing less than a work of art. I could only hope to get there some day.:thumbsup:

 

[Fishingpcola]

Pete, congrats! I enjoyed your 300g and watching build the 110. You are always willing to answer an email and offer your advice.

 

[psteeleb]

Beautiful tank! Quick question, dont your harlequin shrimps mess w your starfish?

sorry I missed answering your question
yes the harliquin shrimp eat the starfish, there is a picture of them with a blue linka in theTOTM thread, but I also feed them chocolate chips stars. I have to buy stars now that they wiped out all the asterinas.

 

[psteeleb]

Congrats! Nice tank.....

thank you very much

Congratulations on TOTM! Your tank is beautiful!

thanks and welcome to RC

Congratulations Pete!

thanks David (another fantastic reef freind in Texas, David helped me set up my APEX and is one of those guys willling to always lend a helping hand)

Congrats again...

thanks Rob, I'm really enjoying your build, awesome updates

congrats.. nice tank bro..

thanks, and wow I just checked out your FTS, awesome job
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2156040

Great tank!
Would you mind providing details on this statement about bio pellets?

"I struggled with carbon dosing, but decided to try biopellets and as expected found them to be very detrimental to maintaining a diverse biological balance as part of the mini ecosystems we strive for...."

I added a reactor to my 120 "reef" in hopes of keeping nutrients down. The jury is out on whether they have helped or hurt. I am looking for educated opinions on how BPs have worked or not worked for others.

Thanks

thank you, and I hope I was able to answer your questions

Very nice tank, well done.

thanks and a late welcome to RC

Congrats , nice job!

thank you very much

Super cool!

thanks - and another late welcome to RC

congrats..............great looking tank

thanks fetta

Sweet...

thanks and another first poster, thanks for the feedback and welcome to RC

Congrats, Pete! Well deserved.

thanks Chris and thanks for all you contribute to the hobby. hows that new AC unit working out in the fish room?

 

[bud217]

Beautiful tank!

 

[Rogger Castells]

I love the diversity of corals, I know how hard it is to balance keeping hard corals and filter feeders in the same system, greater job on the lights too! Congratulations!

 

[vektron]

Great looking tank, congrats...

 

[Daa Reef]

Congrats awsome tank

 

[rigleautomotive]

haha good one Pete.I am still feeling the pain man.It was a milky mess for a day and a half and the last couple days cleaning the skimmer and changing the bags.Oddly enough the corals look happier this time then the past.I guess the bio filter or some other factor is in better shape and the nutrient rush was handled better.

 

[desert's ocean]

indeed an amazing reef tank:eek1:

 

[packman90]

Nice

 

[b_claeys]

beautiful tank you have there.

in the article you mention you have automated as much as possible and that you feed multiple times a day.
I have been searching for methods on how to automate feedings, in particular the feeding of reefpearls and frozen mysis

could you explain how you automated this or if there are sites which explain this further in detail?


Thanks

 

[afamousjohnson]

Looks AWSOME! Love seeing successful mixed reef systems.

 

[blakers82]

Lovely aquarium. I have a skinny aquarium too and I know it can be a challenge to aqua scape with so many corals. You have some very nice corals. :thumbsup:

I have a few particular questions about your maintenance. How often do you find yourself changing your medias and how much are you running at one time (activated carbon, GFO, etc...)

Your write up contained these comments..."Typical to most calcium reactors the pH is controlled via Co2 solenoid. The unit is also only run during the lights on cycles to create less pH swing and has two alarm settings that let me know if the flow through the reactor slows (by prolonged solenoid closed durations), or if the CO2 bottle may be empty (by prolonged solenoid open durations)."

Would you mind posting your APEX code in this thread? I don't mean to clutter up your thread, but I know there would be some helpful information for those running Neptune controllers.


Reef on!

 

[psteeleb]

Lovely aquarium. I have a skinny aquarium too and I know it can be a challenge to aqua scape with so many corals. You have some very nice corals. :thumbsup:

I have a few particular questions about your maintenance. How often do you find yourself changing your medias and how much are you running at one time (activated carbon, GFO, etc...)

Your write up contained these comments..."Typical to most calcium reactors the pH is controlled via Co2 solenoid. The unit is also only run during the lights on cycles to create less pH swing and has two alarm settings that let me know if the flow through the reactor slows (by prolonged solenoid closed durations), or if the CO2 bottle may be empty (by prolonged solenoid open durations)."

Would you mind posting your APEX code in this thread? I don't mean to clutter up your thread, but I know there would be some helpful information for those running Neptune controllers.


Reef on!

thanks

I just reset all this and didn't test it so I hope I have it all correct but the APEX codes are as follows:

Alarm
Set OFF
If Outlet V_CA_C02_Ala = ON Then ON
If pH2 > 06.90 Then ON
If pH2 < 06.30 Then ON
If Time 20:00 to 11:00 Then OFF
the second line in the code is looking at a virtual outlet and will trigger if on

It then looks at the pH inside the Ca Reactor (pH2). If pH2 is over 6.9, potentially indicating a failed solenoid or empty Co2 bottle the allarm turns on

If pH2 falls below 6.30 the alarm triggers, may happen if the solenoid gets stuck open

The alarm will be off from 8 at night to 11 in the morning when the reactor is off or starting up

the virtual outlet I call V_CA_C02_Ala
Set ON
If Outlet Ca_Rx_pH = ON Then OFF
Defer 060:00 Then ON
If Time 20:00 to 11:00 Then OFF
the above code is for the virtual outlet
the second and third lines are looking if the solenoid (Ca_Rx_pH) is open or allowing Co2 to flow then the alarm trigger (virtual outlet) is off, if it is still off 60 minutes later it turns on, triggering the alarm. This is a good indicator that the flow in the reactor slowed down not needing Co2 for over 60 minutes to maintain pH.

The last line turns the alarm off from 8 at night to 11 in the morning so not to trigger when the reactor is off or starting up. This is probably redundent to the other line like it on the alarm code

the reactor CO2 solenoid
Fallback OFF
If pH2 > 06.60 Then ON
If pH2 < 06.50 Then OFF
If Time 20:00 to 09:00 Then OFF

 

[psteeleb]

beautiful tank you have there.

in the article you mention you have automated as much as possible and that you feed multiple times a day.
I have been searching for methods on how to automate feedings, in particular the feeding of reefpearls and frozen mysis

could you explain how you automated this or if there are sites which explain this further in detail?


Thanks

currently feeding is all manual - but I do have plans for the future
here's a video I did a while back on feeding at night, I also feed phyto in the morning (if I'm away my wife or son takes care of the feedings)

<object width="853" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ot_gPvDNipk?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ot_gPvDNipk?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="853" height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

 

[psteeleb]

Nice setup!

thanks - you have some beautiful corals in your smaller tank and I can't wait to see your 120 come along. SF is my old stomping grounds (a long time ago)

Congrats Pete, very deserved for sure. You have a beautiful tank and your pics and video always make me smile

thanks Brett, and just love how your 225 is coming along - you have made some great fish selections

Congrats Pete, Well deserved.

thanks maroun - your tank is coming along awesome, everyone out there needs to check it out as you are one of the ultimate DIY'rs for actually taking on the tank build the way you did

Very beautiful

thanks Stefano and hope you get those montepora bugs figured out

very nice set up!!

thanks and welcome to RC

Congratulations
Well deserved m8. I really hope my tank can become like that in time. I really like your thinking of keeping it simple and be patient.
Reef on

thanks Guttungen - I just checked out your tank, you have some beautiful corals - thanks for sharing them with us

Hi,

Very worthy, congratulations.

thank you very much Theodoro

Breathtaking!!! Well done!

thanks - and yes you always need a bigger tank, it's just a known issue when your in this hobby for more then about ...... say 5 days

so busy I missed the TOTM article.....

Congrats!

Thanks Darryl, and holy (enter a word here) you have some beautiful corals. Well done my friend :thumbsup: