*d2mini's new 200g Reeftastic Build*

[silentscream]

Dennis, how do you secure your sponges? Or do you place them in such a way they don't blow around the tank? Just got my part 2 last night, what a long night!

Hope the storm doesn't cause problems for you guys out there. Good luck.

 

[d2mini]

Dennis, how do you secure your sponges? Or do you place them in such a way they don't blow around the tank? Just got my part 2 last night, what a long night!

Hope the storm doesn't cause problems for you guys out there. Good luck.

FUN!!!! Part 2 is like freakin Christmas! :celeb3:

Well, for one... I find most of them do best in low light, so I put them under overhangs, at the very end of the tank, in the back... so they tend to stay where i put them pretty much. And if you look, many of them have a bit of rock or calcified substance at the base so you could glue/epoxy them to rock if you want.
The tall tree sponges I usually but in back just because of their height and will shove them behind the rock and that usually secures them in place.

 

[jason2459]

Again, just wanted to say thanks for posting about that Tunze Care magnet in that other thread. I know you mentioned it in here before too. That thing is amazing.

 

[d2mini]

Again, just wanted to say thanks for posting about that Tunze Care magnet in that other thread. I know you mentioned it in here before too. That thing is amazing.

Cool!
I love mine. Sucks that it doesn't float, but apparently Tunze doesn't want to pay for the rights. I think it's magfloat that carries the patent. Oh well, makes it cheaper for us.

 

[KingTriton1]

Dennis,

Maybe you can help me out here. I just receive the tunze backup battery and having some trouble connecting it to the existing box with the other speaker wire. Did you strip the new wires and solder the ends then screw them down in the box or is there some sort of connection adapter thats available that you know of?



Love the setup BTW. Glad you have a backup source esp. from all the weather thats been going on down there.

 

[d2mini]

Hi,
All you need to do is connect two short lengths of wire between the Tunze Safety Connector and the battery. Then connect the battery tender to the battery.
I bought two crimp-style connecters with the loop on the end to connect the safety connector to the battery. The other end of the two wires are stripped and pushed into the little black box at the very top of the pic and secured with the screws.

Pretty sure that's it, from what I remember.
If something still doesn't seem right I can double check for you tonite.

 

[KingTriton1]

Gotcha. The little black box was what was throwing me off. Tunze said they don't recommend using just screwed down bare wire bc it can lead to a bad connection. I know they make connectors such as the pic below (which Tunze uses I think, however, doesn't keep them in stock or supply them), but just can't find them anywhere.



Im thinking of soldering the stripped ends like picture below



but will probably just go with the bare wire if that seems to be working fine enough for you. Thx

 

[d2mini]

Yeah, i didn't know Tunze doesn't recommend it, but I also don't have to worry about salt or humidity since my stand doesn't have a sump in it.
That may be at least partly why they say that.
Those connectors look cool if you can find them.

 

[d2mini]

Get your sunglasses out... took a few top-downs this weekend. :smokin:

 

[d2mini]

 

[fredro]

Drool...

 

[bucfan]

Beautiful tank and growth. Just wondering do you use any supplements? Or do you just feed heavily?

 

[d2mini]

Drool...

Beautiful tank and growth. Just wondering do you use any supplements? Or do you just feed heavily?

Thank you.

I feed Reef Frenzy once a night.
Added an eheim feeder recently to supp with a few flakes once in the morning.

And I run a calcium reactor.
No other dosing or feeding as of right now.

 

[soulpatch]

Woot I feed reef frenzy too. Finally something I have in common with this awesome tank. HA HA.

Love the pics and especially that you label them for people like me who dont what they are just by looking all the time.

 

[AndysReef]

How do you like the gyre?

 

[d2mini]

Love the pics and especially that you label them for people like me who dont what they are just by looking all the time.

I do that so people don't have to ask (if they even see the names), but mostly so I can remember myself!

How do you like the gyre?

It's ok. I like the flow pattern.
Build quality is so-so, mine has the old magnet so it's a little louder than the new ones, there's just the basic controller and can't be fully controlled by my Profilux, no battery backup, and I have yet to take it apart to clean it because I'm too scared with all the little parts. I finally gave it a vinegar soak after 6 months of use. So i bought a Tunze 6105 for the others side. Full Profilux control and a battery backup connected in case of power outage.

 

[d2mini]

Time to change up the frag tank a little!

Been going back and forth and thinking I need to make some improvements. Currently the rack is stair stepped.
Here's an old pic...

There were a few things bothering me about this rack.
1) Not sure I really saw any benefit to it being stair stepped. Yeah, it got the higher light coral closer to the light fixture, but it also pushed them farther back. Not sure how effective this is. Or how necessary in a small tank like a 40b.
2) Mainteance is a chore. The egg crate shelves aren't that easy to remove and get back on.
3) Due to #2, removing them to clean them is a pain and there can be a lot of frags on each shelf that need to go somewhere in the mean time.
4) Hard to access fallen frags or chalices that I had growing out underneath

So I started going back and forth and was going to do a flat rack a few inches off the floor using more black egg crate and pvc legs. I was going to split it in half... so a two-piece rack.
But after fooling around with it this weekend, it wasn't really working out like I hoped, so I decided to take a different approach.
I came up with the design pictured below and since www.buildinganobsession.com is local to me and does great work, I contacted them and they are building this for me out of acrylic.
You'll notice that the clear section is a little taller.
It's taller and in the middle so it's closer to my MH for higher light SPS. And it's clear so I can put some low light stuff like chalices underneath on the tank floor.
These will be supported with legs made from acrylic rod. And this rack is built in smaller sections to make maintenance easy.
I can remove the frags from one rack at a time and soak it in vinegar and then return it to the tank and move on to the next rack.
It will also make accessing the tank bottom for cleaning or stray frags much easier.
The holes in the pic below are just for illustration purposes. I whipped that out quickly without worrying about scale.
But the real thing will have 1/2" holes spaced 1.5" on center.

So overall this should work out much better than the original DIY stair stepped rack.
Should be picking it up this weekend!

 

[Reeferz412]

How's that bellus angel behaving?

 

[d2mini]

How's that bellus angel behaving?

The only Angel I have is a female Spotbreast (Swallowtail) Angelfish.
She was the first fish I bought for this tank almost three years ago and she's never been a problem.

 

[soulpatch]

Probably over thinking it since you have space to grab the racks but why not add in two holes on the edges staggered front and back so that you could use a clasp to lift them out and put into the temp holding tank while you clean?

I always had trouble grabbing my dad's fuller rack in that I would hit the underside of a frag and knock it loose or into something else. He was using egg crate so i merely used some older "handles" from my FX5 cannister to pull them out. no more fallen frags or those that roll under another rack that is a pain in the butt to get to....