How to make Swiss Cheese - Krunchy's 275g Closed Loop monster!

[ekrunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13951476#post13951476 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by erics3000
It is a sweet FUGE for real.

Yes it is. His system is nuts. It's a 600g SPS display with a 300g fuge, 300g sump, 100g frag system, and 75g softie/LPS display with a HUGE carpet anemone in it... all displays powered by surge devices. The 600g has 2 75g surges (about 8' above the tank) and the 75g has 2 10g surges (or maybe they're 20g surges, I can't remember right now). Twin Hammerhead return pumps feeding the 4 surges, big PM beckett skimmer run by a Barracuda. And the list goes on ... pretty incredible setup.

On the QT note. You do have some nice fish. I just lost a impulse buy. I noticed it had ich s little after putting it in the display. I didn't QT and I have been saying I have been meaning to QT all new livestock. It hurt but I would have really been ****ed if all my other fish that have been rock solid would have caught something. I was going to try and get him out but it is hard to get fish out of a system and I didn't want to stress him. I am going to get a little QT together NOW.

Agreed on that one! I've officially put a halt on any more livestock purchases until the tank is up and running and I can get a QT set up. Nick is right, I can't take the chance. I've been lucky thus far, no sense in pushing it! I might just use my 150g stock tub for a QT once I get the other guys out of it and into the display. That way I can QT my tangs and such. It all depends on what's available and convenient at the time. It sure would be nice to get that 150g stock tank out of my kitchen so a 55g would probably work out a lot better.

 

[happy_valley]

what combo of t-5's did you use and why? your coral colors look amazing! gorgeous tank keep up the good work

oh and do you have any heat problems with that man bulbs?

 

[ekrunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13952890#post13952890 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by happy_valley
what combo of t-5's did you use and why? your coral colors look amazing! gorgeous tank keep up the good work

Unfortunately, none of those pictures were in my tank. For each coral there were two pictures, one was the parent colony in one tank, and the second was the resultant frag in another tank. I also just realized that I accidentally swapped two of them around.

As far as my bulb combination, it's on page two of this thread. Here is the link.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13668745#post13668745

This combination was chosen to attempt a light blue color. I'm hoping to get a crisp blue but still have it very bright. If I did my homework correctly, it should look like a Radium 20K halide bulb on an HQI ballast, except with less shadowing and wider tank coverage. I'll have more information and pictures as the tank progresses. For further reading on combining different bulbs to get the desired color, i'd recommend the following links.

The T5 Q&A Thread
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1527167

T5 Lighting Reviews
http://tfivetesting.googlepages.com/

oh and do you have any heat problems with that man bulbs?

I would hope not. I've never had a problem with T5 setups pushing too much heat into the water. The trick is to have adequate cooling blowing over the lights. In the case of this tank, i'll be using 4 fans, two per each set of 7 bulbs. If that's not enough i'll take it up to 6 fans, but I doubt that will be necessary. I'm also keeping the same ratio of bulbs to tank width as I have in the past, so it really shouldn't be an issue. I'm more concerned about pulling heat from the 3 Dart pumps than I am from the lighting.

 

[Roman Ogee]

Any updates?

 

[ekrunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13993609#post13993609 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Roman Ogee
Any updates?

Does "I finished my project in Dallas so hopefully I can devote more time to the tank" count as an update? :lmao:

 

[ekrunch]

Seeing as I had to redraw it anyway, here is an updated version of the bottom of the tank. Figuring out how to put cross braces on this thing is going to be a whole lot of no fun. Fortunately, my stand builder knows a lot more about this stuff than I do.

 

[ekrunch]

Time for my first update of 2009 ...

With the end of 2008 came good news and bad news. :eek2:

 

[ekrunch]

The good news ...

The good news ...

The stand is under construction! The framing is pretty much done. ( It'd probably go faster if I provide measurements to Matt in a timely fashion! )

Here are some pictures of the stand at Sho Tank Aquariums. There's a 55g and a 75g tank sitting on top of it which certainly gives you an idea of how massive this thing is. To be honest, I didn't expect it. You measure and measure but you don't really get a feel for it until you see it in person!

Front/Left

Front

Left

I don't have a mermaid shot yet, so how about a Krunchy shot? Actually, I think we can call this one a "proud owner" shot!

 

[ekrunch]

The bad news ...

The bad news ...

My Bellus Trio is dead. They apparently died sometime during vacation and I really have no idea why. I had a local reefkeeper coming over to check on things and when I got home everything was within spec. All of the water chemistry was good. Skimmer was up and running. Salinity, etc, etc, etc... the only thing was that I had 10ppm of nitrate and i've never had that before. Although i'd say it was due to the half eaten male Bellus Angel laying dead on the bottom of the tank. Well, good thing I had 200 lbs of live rock and a skimmer going to keep the bio-load under control. I'm not sure the system would have survived for a week without that.

Anyway, i'm done with expensive/finicky fish for a while. This is ridiculous. Healthy for over a month and then dead in less than a week. Oh well. Such is life I suppose but of course it had to be my favorite fish in the system. The others are doing great and look totally normal.

At least my Mitratus made it through!

 

[SaraB]

Nice Mermaid shot Ed!

Sorry to hear about the Bellus Trio, that's a bummer!

 

[maxxII]

Sorry to hear about the angels Ed.....

On the brightside, at least I wasnt forced into seeing you in a bikini in front of your tank.

Nick

 

[ekrunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14058817#post14058817 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SaraB
Nice Mermaid shot Ed!

Seeing as it's always the reefer's significant other (or kids) that does the mermaid shot, when are you going to get Jon to stretch out over your tank for your mermaid shot. Let me know when you do so I can unsubscribe from your thread before I accidentally see the picture. :lmao:

Sorry to hear about the Bellus Trio, that's a bummer!

Thanks. They'll definitely be missed. At least my Mitratus is okay though! He's still eating like mad and is a very friendly little guy.

 

[ekrunch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14065053#post14065053 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maxxII
On the brightside, at least I wasnt forced into seeing you in a bikini in front of your tank.

I wouldn't curse you like that. The one thing i've learned about the internet is that you have to be careful what you look at because you can't UN-see things!

 

[ekrunch]

When it rains, it pours!

When it rains, it pours!

Bad news strikes again...

My Mitratus apparently got the stuffing knocked out of him last night. I was looking into the tub and saw him limping around this afternoon. He was so weak I was able to reach in and grab him without the use of a net or other tactics. I pulled him out to a bucket of his own, added an air pump and heater and put him in a dark room. I then called a friend of mine that deals with sick fish on a daily basis to see if there was anything else I could do. (Thanks again Abbey!)

Long story short, he didn't make it. I'm not sure what changed since yesterday but one of the others really got a hold of the little guy and eventually did him in.

At this point i'm ready to be done with the whole thing for a while. I've only got a few fish left in the stock tub and i'm considering just selling them off for the time being and tearing down the tub. It probably makes more sense to wait until the tank is up and cycled anyway.

 

[SaraB]

Sorry Ed to hear about the Mitratus as well. Hang in there and just keep steady with what you have and wait for the tank to be online before adding more. It's really hard to monitor what's going on in a stock tub and I'm speaking from experience ;-)
I'm just praying my male Rhomboid is still in mine as I have not seen him since I put him in about 5 months ago.

 

[Poseidon]

Sorry to hear about your losses. I agree with above, wait until the tank is up, then add the fish. Maybe you just need to back off the throttle a little on this project?

 

[Helter Skilter]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14066936#post14066936 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ekrunch
The one thing i've learned about the internet is that you have to be careful what you look at because you can't UN-see things!

 

[ekrunch]

Oh dude, that was just wrong! :eek2:

For those of you who are uninitiated with our OT antics, this is my old avatar...

The picture that Helter Skilter posted above is the result of him tossing me some nun chucks at a party and then snapping a picture at just the right time. Crafty Tony did a little photo shop work and thus we have the atrocity above. :lol:

 

[mcliffy2]

Sorry to hear about the fish...fish are just tough IME. I had an outbreak of odynium last summer and lost 13 fish in 3 days. Some of them I'd had for a year and a half, and it was crushing on multiple levels. I went with the 2 fish that survived in my huge tank for 6 weeks after that, and I've been slowly introducing new fish. I have stopped buying expensive fish and am sticking with fish I can buy off locals because they are usually healthier and cheaper. I also set up a QT and use it if I have any doubt about a fish's health.

 

[Helter Skilter]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14089015#post14089015 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ekrunch
Oh dude, that was just wrong! :eek2:

For those of you who are uninitiated with our OT antics, this is my old avatar...

The picture that Helter Skilter posted above is the result of him tossing me some nun chucks at a party and then snapping a picture at just the right time. Crafty Tony did a little photo shop work and thus we have the atrocity above. :lol:

Sorry, but you were bumming me out. This thread needed comic relief. Don't lie about the pic being photoshopped though. Everyone knows you wear magenta polos, travel with a bottle of Wesson, and are followed around by your little pony, and a Beef-billed platypus.