DivingTheWorld's Custom Leemar 80g Rimless Reef

[DivingTheWorld]

Wile you are talking about the stand... how did you make the doors? my wife has been nagging me to make them for my stand, but i don't have the necessary equipment to do it. any pointers? thank you

That's easy, I cheated! I looked into router tables and cutting bits and all sorts of stuff, but when it came down to it, it was going to be too expensive and too much of a PITA. So I found an online place called Barker Doors. They will make your doors to your specification, size, design, wood, etc. I bought them unfinished so I could match the finish to my stand. They were not expensive and turned out great.

 

[saul831]

That's easy, I cheated! I looked into router tables and cutting bits and all sorts of stuff, but when it came down to it, it was going to be too expensive and too much of a PITA. So I found an online place called Barker Doors. They will make your doors to your specification, size, design, wood, etc. I bought them unfinished so I could match the finish to my stand. They were not expensive and turned out great.

Hahaha nice, that was the website i got a quote from last night.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Here's some updated pics of the tank. It's hard to take a good picture of the colors, but suffice to say the colors are A LOT better than before. The intensity of my Radions is up to 90% max now and I haven't noticed any bleaching.

I haven't been keeping up with my thread due to some other stuff going on. The wife and I headed down to Belize for a week of diving. I tried my hand at spearfishing for Lionfish and bagged about 8 each dive. We ate them almost every way imaginable from ceviche to blackened to grilled to fried. It's now one of my favorite eating fish!

 

[maddhugan]

Thanks for the photos

Thanks for the photos

yeah your tank and stand are awesome. What you said was true. whatever money you spend, the shops won't give you such a sturdy and customized stand.

I'm very hesitant to try chemiclean and since it is just my quarantine tank, I'm judt going to keep my tank with a lot of cyano. lol

I'm building a stand this week (copying your method) and will keep you informed.
I want to finish at least the 4" x 2"/ Plywood structure by the end of this week.


Yeah I heard lionfish getting into the food industry. would try that one day.

 

[scuzy]

you can take better pictures if you white balance your camera first. most cameras with custom settings allow that feature.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Here's a few scuba pics from our Belize trip a couple weeks ago if you're interested:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23774301#post23774301

 

[DivingTheWorld]

So each month when I do my 20g water change, I wait a couple days for everything to even out then check the calibration on my Apex Salinity Monitor PM2 Probe. I use a Tropic Marin High Precision Hydrometer which works great, but requires a water temp of 77 degrees (I run my tank at 78.4 - 79.6).

So yesterday when I got home from work I flipped off my heaters in fusion to allow the tank to start cooling down. This time of year it's a little warmer and it took longer to cool down...so I forgot... Fast forward to 1:30am in the morning and my iPhone started beeping texts and I could hear my Apex start singing downstairs (I have it alarmed when it drops below 77 degrees).

I ended up going down and doing my calibration test and flipping the heaters back on which really made me tired today. But THANK GOD for the Apex!

 

[maddhugan]

Custom Stand

Custom Stand

Hello Divingtheworld

I finished building my stand, now its time to sand and stain it. I'm thinking either green or blue stain.
worked this whole weekend to complete building the stand. It is 48" x 18" x 29"

I had to cut some boards, (wasn't fortunate enough to use the precut ones)because I wanted to use some of the doors that were laying around my house. Didn't want to spend money on doors.

It is going to have a ADA rimless 120-P

This thread could be an aquarium stand building thread on its own. well, thanks man

I will post photos tonight

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Hello Divingtheworld

I finished building my stand, now its time to sand and stain it. I'm thinking either green or blue stain.
worked this whole weekend to complete building the stand. It is 48" x 18" x 29"

I had to cut some boards, (wasn't fortunate enough to use the precut ones)because I wanted to use some of the doors that were laying around my house. Didn't want to spend money on doors.

It is going to have a ADA rimless 120-P

This thread could be an aquarium stand building thread on its own. well, thanks man

I will post photos tonight

Sounds like it's going to be a nice stand!

 

[hollow6210]

DivingTheWorld,

Love the stand and had a few questions that I didn't see anyone ask. I'm probably going to use cherry for my stand once I get around to starting my build, but I like the wood and stain combination you used.

What is the size of trim used for each layer of the skinning?
Did you use a router to make last quarter round (or whatever that last piece is that transitions between skin layers)? If not, do you have a close-up picture or know the type of trim used?
What color of stain did you use with the alder?
Do you have a side view picture after the trim is complete but before stain is applied?

Thanks for your time and the thread--subscribed!

 

[DivingTheWorld]

DivingTheWorld,

Love the stand and had a few questions that I didn't see anyone ask. I'm probably going to use cherry for my stand once I get around to starting my build, but I like the wood and stain combination you used.

What is the size of trim used for each layer of the skinning?
Did you use a router to make last quarter round (or whatever that last piece is that transitions between skin layers)? If not, do you have a close-up picture or know the type of trim used?
What color of stain did you use with the alder?
Do you have a side view picture after the trim is complete but before stain is applied?

Thanks for your time and the thread--subscribed!

For the skin, I used 3/4" solid clear Alder. For the trim I also used solid clear alder, but I can't remember the exact size. I believe it was 3/4" as well? I didn't make my own trim, I bought it from a trim store. It was super cheap, like $20 for all the trim I used so it wasn't worth attempting on my own.

I'm pretty sure the stain was Minwax Wood Finish in Red Mahogany. I had Sherwin Williams do a color match to my existing furniture and it came back to just match the standard stain, no special mixing required.

The only build pics I have are the ones in this thread.

 

[maddhugan]

stand is almost ready.

stand is almost ready.

I was sanding it today. My boat bottom gloss white paint came today. Will blue tape it tomorrow and paint the inside. The stand is almost ready. My blue stain and varnish is coming this Thursday. Kind of scary to go blue, so will test the wood with it first.

Installing the inset door hinges is a pain(meaning the whole door will go inside the frame) . First I thought all hidden style hinges can be used for door "inset." How wrong was I. Finally figured it out.

Don't know how to attach the photo here.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Hello all, I figured I would post an update on my tank.

Everything has been going pretty well on my tank. My corals are all doing excellent and showing great color. Parameters are all within range. Here's a few semi significant updates:

I am now dosing as follows: Every 3 days (one each day) I dose 15ml AcroPower, 4 Spoons Reef Chilli and 1/2 Teaspoon Reef-Roids.

My lighting schedule is fully acclimated and I now run my Radions at full power (100% intensity) for 4 hours a day plus ramp up/ramp down. My corals have never looked better.

I got two new SPS corals! I picked up an ORA Hawkins Blue Echinata and an ORA Red Planet from Cal Reef Co. I did my usual temp aclimation and combo coral dips prior to tank placement. The Red Planet went through with flying colors but the Hawkins wasn't happy. It started to STN... So I fragged off a couple good pieces and glued them to my rock. I think certain corals (Hawkins, Red Dragon) need special acclimation to more than just temperature. So I bought a drip kit and plan to use that in the future. Also I think you have to be really careful to let them touch air as little as possible. Lesson learned... Anyways, it's been a couple weeks now and there is not further STN and the fragged pieces are looking good.

My Apex PM2 went wacky again... It started registering about 3 points low. I did my standard cross checks and my salinity was fine. I did a re-calibration of the salinity probe and now it's totally off. I hate this thing... I'll try to re-calibrate in the next week or two. For now I'm just manually checking via Milwaukee and TMPH.

Last night I was looking at my Appleberry Monti under the UV lights and I noticed a weird slug looking thing... I went into action mode and yanked the plug from my rack and dropped it in a bowl of tank water. The slug hopped off quick. I was going to just dump it, but I figured I'd check here first. Turns out that it is a Stromatella Snail which are good algae eaters. Weird, I started with dry rock and have double dipped everything that went into my tank. Life finds a way...Jurrasic Park. So he was moved to my sump frag tank.

I took a really good picture of it if anyone is interested in my posting.

 

[saul831]

Any Chance you can share your new light schedule?

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Any Chance you can share your new light schedule?

Absolutely. I copied it almost entirely from Kaman8 so HUGE credit goes to him for either coming up with the schedule himself or at least sharing it with me and others. He runs a very similar set up to mine and was doing well with his schedule. I made a few very slight adjustments, but it's basically his.

It's all custom so will take me a little while to type it all in...

 

[D-Nak]

Absolutely. I copied it almost entirely from Kaman8 so HUGE credit goes to him for either coming up with the schedule himself or at least sharing it with me and others. He runs a very similar set up to mine and was doing well with his schedule. I made a few very slight adjustments, but it's basically his.

It's all custom so will take me a little while to type it all in...

I'd be interested in it as well. :beer:

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Here's my new dual Radion XR15w Pro light schedule from Kaman8:

Time Intensity Red Green Blue Royal Blue UV Clear White

06:00 0 0 0 0 35 35 0
07:00 5 0 0 0 35 35 0
09:00 15 0 0 0 100 100 0
09:30 60 0 0 49 70 100 0
10:00 85 0 0 60 80 100 25
10:45 90 35 20 65 80 100 45
12:00 100 30 25 100 100 100 50
13:00 100 35 30 100 100 100 60
15:00 100 30 25 100 100 100 50
16:00 100 25 20 100 100 100 40
17:15 85 25 10 65 80 75 15
18:00 70 0 0 60 80 100 0
18:30 45 0 0 35 90 100 0
19:00 15 0 0 0 100 100 0
21:00 5 0 0 0 35 35 0
22:00 0 0 0 0 35 35 0

I apologize for the wacky formatting, it was the best I could do.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

One other thing I'll mention is that it's been over a month since I dosed my tank with Chemiclean and I still have absolutely no sign of Cyano. My new lighting schedule has very little usage of Red & Green light so it's "possible" that's a factor, but I think the Chemiclean just did a really good job eradicating it from my tank.

 

[saul831]

does this look the same?
<a href="http://s157.photobucket.com/user/saul7301/media/radion%20schedule%20_zpsk4uf4lw6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t45/saul7301/radion%20schedule%20_zpsk4uf4lw6.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo radion schedule _zpsk4uf4lw6.jpg"/></a>

 

[DivingTheWorld]

It's hard to tell because with Fusion you have to highlight each line to see the levels. I can see that your intensities are different and VERY low. It looks like you're using dual XR15s as well? What size/dimensions are your tank and what are you planning on growing, softies, lps, sps?

If you have been running at those low intensities and have coral in your tank, be careful raising your intensities. You can probably raise to say 45% max right away, but then what I did was increase 5% once a week until I hit 100%. If you don't have corals yet, you're good to go.