Im finnaly completing my 400g setup

[master_wise]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7371869#post7371869 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by master_wise
I don't know if this link will pop up... but there is was an article by advanced aquarist that cmopare the content of the different salt mix... and oceanic tend to come with one of the higher or actually highest calcium level...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/aafeature1

the second link will give you abbreviation used for the graphs at the end of the article...

"O" Stands for oceanic..... There are other elements that measured... They are at the bottom of the page in the first link on my previous post... So with the Salt levels of you salt mix you should be ok.

How often do you do water changes and how much?

Calcium ppb Chart:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1_album/ca.gif

 

[bnlimit10]

Due to the fact that I am chemically exporting all my nutrients, I only do a small 5-10% water change, mainly to replenish the essensial elements, calcium, etc. I just purchased another piece of equipment that will even drop that down to a monthly water change.

 

[bnlimit10]

24 hr coundown has begun

24 hr coundown has begun

Well, after many months of planning, and many plans being scratched. In less than 24 hours the tank will be delivered and I will begin the assembly of dream tank. I will be traveling about 2 hours north to a truck stop to pick it up tomorrow at 10 am, I will try to document the delivery and setup for us to watch it come together. Heck I may even put a mermaid pic for you guys, I still have to convince the wife to do it though.

I will have to setup the closed loop with a temporary pump, since the dart has not arrived yet. Sometime this coming month I have to travel to Cali to pick up more Liverock and then aquascaping will be completed.

I hope that you guys enjoy this thread and the setup, Im sure I will enjoy it much more as the anticipation is killing me.

As always your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Pat

 

[bnlimit10]

The tank is running

The tank is running

Well, after a well deserved rest, here are some pictures of the tank, unfortunately right now you cant see much, cause after I added the sand, I had the bright idea of not turning off the closed loop when I was putting it in so needless to say the sand is all stired up and all over the water column, so right now I have turned off all pumps, expluding the filter to let the sand settle. later I imagine I will have to get some sand out of the wetdry.

a picture of the tank, still missing its cannopy.

side view of the tank

and the mess I got to clean up, or the wife will kill me. lol

The fish are now exploring their new digs, tomorrow hopefully I will do some aquascaping, I got about 10 frags I have to position, the others are already set in their prespecive rocks. and I hope by tomorrow I can finish the canopy, I am just too tired to do anything right now.

see you guys soon

 

[bnlimit10]

The water finally cleared up, tonight I will do some aquascaping, and post some new pics, and set the canopy up. The next step after that will be to rig some sort of pulley system to lift the canopy for easy access to the tank, unfortunately there is no attic above the tank, so I have no to figure out a way to do this first.

 

[jetaero]

Very nice setup! As for the pulley system... Use some toggle bolts into the ceiling, and connect the wires to that to make the pully system.

Have pics of it clear yet?

 

[bnlimit10]

my next post will happen around 10:30 az time, I am just waiting for the daylights to come on. Also before all you guys start asking what is that blob on the overflow, well when I started filling the tank, I realized that the overflow as it was built would not allow me to fill the tank all the way, so I rushed to lowes got some plexiglass and silicone to exetend the overflow height. In my rush to do this I failed to pay attention to the color of the silicone. but I know that 2 years from now that overflow will be covered in calcareous alga so no one will ever see it.

Pics coming sooooooon.

 

[bnlimit10]

well, I cant get you macro shots, cause my camera doesnt have that feature, so here are some pics, first I can see that some of the corals attacked each other while in the holding tank, cause as you will see some of them have bleached spots, but I am confident they will be fine in the long haul.

The rock at the back of this pic has several frags that I still need to relocate to their final destination.

A look at the depth accomplished by the length of the tank.

A look at the tank with actinics on

A pic with all the lights on, however it looks much bluer than in reality, dont know how to fix the white balance on the camera.

 

[bnlimit10]

 

[bnlimit10]

Temp swings

Temp swings

Ok fellow reefers, I am battling the temp swings in the tank. quite frankly I am a bit surprised due to the volume in the system, I would have expected for the temperature to fluctuate less. Nothing to really worry about as the chiller has managed to keep it under 81 degrees, but just wondering what you guys would recommend to stabilize the system.

would you think adding more fans to the canopy and stand?

should I upgrade to a bigger chiller with dual temp controls?

Or should I turn down the ac in the house to 75 and pay a fortune in electric bills?

 

[bnlimit10]

reflectors

reflectors

After 2 months of waiting on a back order, today I recieved my SLR reflectors, what a difference they make, Ill post pictures tonight.

 

[pyro383]

keep it coming

 

[bnlimit10]

well, its been a while since I posted anything to this thread, mainly because while I was trying to take some shots of the tank from above, I dropped the camera in the aquarium, lets just say camera and water didnt mix very well. After seeing how well all the other tanks that started at the same time mine did, I borrowed my daughters cell phone and finally took some shots. their not the best, but hey at least you guys can see an update.

Ill post in a few minutes.

 

[bnlimit10]

heres some updated pics, sorry for the bad quality, but again its a cell phone camera.

this was a frag from eds blue tort I got a few months ago.

well I ran out of memory and my daughter is chasing me around the house cause she wants to call her friends, so I guess this will have to do for now, hopefully soon I can replace my camera and update this more often

 

[bnlimit10]

tank update

tank update

just a quick update and some pics of new corals to the tank. I am trying to get rid of some pesky algae bloom, but should have that under control in the next week. Sorry for the poor picture quality but the camera I was using was not very good.