Gobie74's wide peninsula 200

[Gobie74]

Thanks for posting the pics for us, been waiting all day for these lol. Kinda looks like you need a bigger tank already. Pardon the dumb question: what is the glass on top of the tank going from one side to the other, tank brace?

Yes, that is a brace the guys at the acrylic shop made for the tank when I got it. I put it on to have something for the lights to rest on while I was setting them up. I had a piece of plywood over the other half of the tank. Real classy I know, I should have taken a picture.

wow nice looks like you need a bigger tank lol

Well if you look, all the corals are over on the left side of the tank, and most everything to the right is just rock. I still have to do some rock work tomorrow to get that all squared away so I can move the corals to their final positions.

Looking great....Love the led's, did some research on the aquailluminations...really nice and not cheap either....Can't wait to see the progress..

I'll try to post more tomorrow. I still have a lot of work underneath to do. I have to find a good spot for the Profilux controller, doser, and power bars, as well as get all the probes hooked up and probably should recalibrate them. And build a trap for the yellow wrasse to get him out of the 150.

And some aquascaping and pictures of course.

 

[Gobie74]

Last night I started doing some aqua-scaping, nothing final yet, don't really like how it came out, empty on one side, giant rock wall on the other.

Tonight I'll start on the refugium and the shelves for the profilux and doser.

Update to the last message, the six line wrasse is fine, the royal gramma is fine, the yellow coris wrasse took a while to catch but I finally got him and he seems to be doing fine too.

 

[Gobie74]

A couple of shots of what I did on Sunday. I spent most of the day trying to hook up the profilux and organize the electrical. I'm pretty happy with most of it, but the probe wires are a mess. When I get the profilux mounted up in the top of the stand, the wiring shouldn't be visible anymore.

Can't wait to replace that old Vortech controller with a new one

I bought some sand for the refugium at my favorite LFS today, so I planned on getting that going but after the run I'm beat, just going to sit around and watch the USA men's soccer team on ESPN tonight, even though they are playing right down the street

 

[strout]

Love the tank, the tank stand, how clean everything looks in the sump area. Looks like it was done by a Pro almost lol. The only thing I would do, and you may not be able to do this, would be to paint the white PVC pipe going into your filter bag and the stand for your skimmer to match your drain and return lines, but I don't know if you can paint the pipes that are in the water. In the second pic of your sump area, what is that sticker or what ever it is on the sump glass in front of your filter bag ??

 

[Gobie74]

strout,

I was unsure about painting the part of the piping that touches the water, that's why I left them white. I'd love to paint them if I can, not sure if its advisable tho.

The 'sticker' is actually a Seachem Ammonia detector that I had in the tank that I moved down to the sump. I had it in the display to monitor the cycle. It's not really useful at the moment as there is no ammonia, just haven't gotten rid of it yet. But if something should go wrong, it'll be a good indication.

 

[Marchingbandjs]

coool any updates picture wise on aquascape

 

[coraltastic]

nice build

 

[Gobie74]

coool any updates picture wise on aquascape

I think I'm getting closer to having the rock where I want it. Not finalized yet tho.

I'll try to take a few closer in shots when I do, and maybe some now of the various corals

 

[Bigjoe2531]

Can't wait to see this. You've got a great collection already for this new tank...

 

[Gobie74]

I didn't want to take a bunch of shots of the corals until I could figure out the lighting, so what do you guys think? I adjusted the blue output of the AIs while keeping the whites at 100%

100 %

75%

50%

25%

0%

I'm personally leaning toward something between 25 and 50 %.

On another note, my second EcoSmart driver was delivered today, a day ahead of schedule.

 

[Bigjoe2531]

Agreed. Between 25 and 50 % for viewing. Try 30 to 35%. I tell you what....that light can really blast the blue spectrum. Can't wait to see some explosive growth. Hey Gobie, Do you think those AI's would be good for a tank with a depth of 36". I'm still undecided. I think i'd be better off with a few 400 watt 20k radiums for a deeper tank. What do you think?

 

[Gobie74]

Agreed. Between 25 and 50 % for viewing. Try 30 to 35%. I tell you what....that light can really blast the blue spectrum. Can't wait to see some explosive growth. Hey Gobie, Do you think those AI's would be good for a tank with a depth of 36". I'm still undecided. I think i'd be better off with a few 400 watt 20k radiums for a deeper tank. What do you think?

I had a squamosa down at the bottom of the old tank, 29" tall with the lights about 5" above the water with the whites at only 70% and the clam had more than enough light to triple its size in a few years, you can see it in the pix above. It started about an inch and a half long. Its huge now, and HEAVY!

Oh also, the camera makes the blues pop so much more. For normal viewing, 100/100 is great. But you see what you get when you take a picture at 100/100. Too much blue.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Wow I have been out of the loop too long. The tank looks great. I really like the size and the spot you found in your home. Watching you in my tank room for the first time I could almost see the smoke rising from your head as the gears turned for this project! Continued success.

I do have one question. I noticed you had your kids pose in the tank...why wasn't I asked to pose in the tank? :0

Can you show some close ups of the hanging kit you used for the lights? I apologize if this has been covered before, but the part that bolts to the ceiling, was this your design, or did you find a kit? Did you just you a stud finder and screw them directly to a beam underneath the sheetrock?

 

[Gobie74]

Wow I have been out of the loop too long. The tank looks great. I really like the size and the spot you found in your home. Watching you in my tank room for the first time I could almost see the smoke rising from your head as the gears turned for this project! Continued success.

I do have one question. I noticed you had your kids pose in the tank...why wasn't I asked to pose in the tank? :0

Can you show some close ups of the hanging kit you used for the lights? I apologize if this has been covered before, but the part that bolts to the ceiling, was this your design, or did you find a kit? Did you just you a stud finder and screw them directly to a beam underneath the sheetrock?

Well as you said, you were out of the loop when I needed the model, so I couldn't get you, had to settle for the next best thing

I can post some pics of the hanging kit if you'd like. I got the kit directly from AquaIllumination. I used a studfinder to find the first stud, then just went in intervals of 16" to find the next ones and drilled directly into them to mount the kit. Unfortunately I can't show that part without taking the whole thing down.

 

[Gobie74]

Ok, so here are the 5% increments between 25 and 50.

50 %

45 %

40%

35%

30 %

25 %

Hard to tell the difference between some of them. Maybe I screwed up the shots, its known to happen

 

[Gobie74]

This weekends work was to get the doser online and continue tidying up the sump area. I build two suspended shelves for the profilux controller and for the doser. Mounting them up high keeps them out of the way. I think it came out pretty well, just a little crocked...

Also as you can see, I added the sand to the refugium, and not shown in the picture started filling it.

I put the Vortech battery backup in place in a temporary position. I'd like to mount it to the wall, but that sucker is heavy, not sure if thats going to happen. Also took some velcro and stuck the Vortech power supplies to the top of the cabinet area to get them out of the way.

And here's the doser all hooked up.

I've been monitoring calcium and alkalinity levels and so far they aren't noticeably dropping, so the dosage rate is minimal. But I'll keep an eye on it and adjust as necessary. Btw, its hard to find a Magnesium test kit locally

 

[Gobie74]

A quick picture of the kitchen side of the tank.

 

[Zuska]

nice tank and loving that lighting with those new leds

 

[cato]

C'mon more pics!!!!

 

[Mountain_Medic]

How are the tank walls doing? I was looking at the first pics and thinking to myself, "no bracing on that thing is going to me scary...."