imisky's 30G custom system
- Thread starter imisky
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imisky
New member
heres a quick update to my DIY MCE600 cup, so far its working great, this is what it skimmed in 3 days on a semi dry setting. I dont feed very much so i think its skimming pretty well for what im feeding.
I will be getting a new frag package soon, just waiting a but, but once i get it i will update everyone, I also rescaped my tank last week...it was HELL with all the corals encrusted but now it have much more space for corals.
I will be getting a new frag package soon, just waiting a but, but once i get it i will update everyone, I also rescaped my tank last week...it was HELL with all the corals encrusted but now it have much more space for corals.
imisky
New member
heres an update that maybe more interesting to look at then my DIYs. After using the new skimmer cup for a few weeks i found it much more efficient than the deltec one so i decided to stay with it.
So my tank has been up and running for a year and roughly 5 months now majority if not all the frags i had initially has turned into miniature colonies. here are some of them that i took with a under water box with my point and shoot...i need to get a DSLR soon for school and photos :lol: enjoy guys
unknown acro (tabling from what i can tell)
tenius sp.
ORA Borealis Acropora
granulosa sp: (seems to be purple tip)
bali tri color:
So my tank has been up and running for a year and roughly 5 months now majority if not all the frags i had initially has turned into miniature colonies. here are some of them that i took with a under water box with my point and shoot...i need to get a DSLR soon for school and photos :lol: enjoy guys
unknown acro (tabling from what i can tell)
tenius sp.
ORA Borealis Acropora
granulosa sp: (seems to be purple tip)
bali tri color:
143gadgets
New member
Awesome build! I really like the coloration your getting.
imisky
New member
i think its time for an update to the tank, the tank has been doing well lately i suppose other then the fact that i cracked my DIY calcium reactor and had to buy another one, i went ahead and got a BM reactor, the build quality on BMs surpassed what i had expected from a china product. works well and it keeping my kH at 8. during the period i had my DIY off my kH was dropping at 1.5 degrees per day, 2 part couldnt keep up. and soon it dropped to 4 and stayed there without me knowing for over a couple of weeks, and i got a few STN which are starting to fix itself now.
i also managed to remove all 5 of the domino damsels i had...omg where they hard to catch, i had to fish 3 of them out with a barbless size 2 hook and then drain the water for the last two as they got smart and wouldnt go for the PE mysis on hooks.. but now i only have 2 fish my coral colors are fading a bit, im assuming that this is because i now feed less and the corals are no longer getting enough nutrients so im getting zeo like colors which i dont particularly like, so i think im going to have to restock pretty soon, with either 3 lyre tail anthias or 3 blue eye cardinals....ive had bad luck with cardinals as they never do good in my system for some reason, what do you guys think? what fish would you add.
Heres a few update shots of the corals: you can see what i mean by faded colors like zeo.
skittles granulosa
borealis:
oregon tort:
rainbow milli
bad pick *blue tips, green polyps, red base*)
pokerstar monti ( you can really see the faded zeo colors from this one)
forest fire digita:
green slimer:
purple tabling acro:
i also managed to remove all 5 of the domino damsels i had...omg where they hard to catch, i had to fish 3 of them out with a barbless size 2 hook and then drain the water for the last two as they got smart and wouldnt go for the PE mysis on hooks.. but now i only have 2 fish my coral colors are fading a bit, im assuming that this is because i now feed less and the corals are no longer getting enough nutrients so im getting zeo like colors which i dont particularly like, so i think im going to have to restock pretty soon, with either 3 lyre tail anthias or 3 blue eye cardinals....ive had bad luck with cardinals as they never do good in my system for some reason, what do you guys think? what fish would you add.
Heres a few update shots of the corals: you can see what i mean by faded colors like zeo.
skittles granulosa
borealis:
oregon tort:
rainbow milli
bad pick *blue tips, green polyps, red base*)
pokerstar monti ( you can really see the faded zeo colors from this one)
forest fire digita:
green slimer:
purple tabling acro:
kretzkiller
New member
at least the colors are coming back.
kretzkiller
New member
I had a recent scare myself. I top off through a kalk rx and it was mixing at the time of top off. I have an osmolator so the level stay pretty consistent. It spiked up to 9.34 and luckily I caught it before my lights went out otherwise it would have been bye bye to my sps collection. The polyps retracted and started to slime. I got light headed from trying to get it down by myself (breathing through a tube into the water, but only could get it down to 9.12) so I ran to hyvee, luckily a block away, and got some seltzer water. It was down to 8.4 in about 45 minutes and all seems well...
imisky
New member
i had almost the exact same scare myself a few weeks back, i woke up to a cloudy tank from my kalk rx top off but everything seemed fine for me, no sliming, polyps were out so i left it and nothing went wrong until the Ca rx broke lol..then it went down hill for a bit
has anyone tried koral color from brightwells? I havent tried it but it almost sounds like it is just AA
has anyone tried koral color from brightwells? I havent tried it but it almost sounds like it is just AA
imisky
New member
so last week after i had gotten rid of all my damsels i started looking around for more peaceful fish. and the 2 i had on the top of my list were:
lyretail anthias
blue eye cardinals
a couple of days ago i messaged ocean aquatics (LFS) owner let me know they just got some blue eyes in. so yesterday i went and picked up 4 blue eye cardinals and a spotted dragonette (spelling?) heres a picture of the blue eye cardinals i got 10mins afther they were in the tank..the blue eyes on the cardinals made the camera go nuts but thats actually pretty close to what they look like in peron, the eyes are almost as saturated in blue as the picture is in real life.
These fish has always amazed me, most people see them in stores as pale and silver, but once they get settled they have awesome colors.
lyretail anthias
blue eye cardinals
a couple of days ago i messaged ocean aquatics (LFS) owner let me know they just got some blue eyes in. so yesterday i went and picked up 4 blue eye cardinals and a spotted dragonette (spelling?) heres a picture of the blue eye cardinals i got 10mins afther they were in the tank..the blue eyes on the cardinals made the camera go nuts but thats actually pretty close to what they look like in peron, the eyes are almost as saturated in blue as the picture is in real life.
These fish has always amazed me, most people see them in stores as pale and silver, but once they get settled they have awesome colors.
imisky
New member
heres a small update,
i recently changed out my T5 supps, Gman pure actinic and KZ figi purple for the URI actinic white because i found my pinks were turning purple. I am liking the color much better now as its a whiter shade instead of the pheonix blue hue which i grew out of. For my next set of bulbs ill probably get the coralvue 12K for a more natural look to the tank, will post a picture of the setup with the new lights soon.
I also went out and grabbed a small amount of carbisea seafloor special grade sand to add to my tank as i heard people say that which sand beds make the tank look much brighter and wow i have to say it does a good job fooling the human eye of a brighter tank ( or does it actually happen?) none the less i had to mod my tunze 6055 face covers to the super flow mod so that the sand doesnt get blown around but as a result my flow is now much wider and the corals are liking the new flow much better from the looks of it. ( i have a monti 4cm in front of 1 and the skin isnt getting blown off
)
although its not really related to things ive changed for the tank. I had always wanted a macro lens for my hobby and nature photography, so last week i bought one and finally got to play with it a little since friday.
im still trying to get used to a macro lens as i have been shooting mostly with zoom lenses. But i think some of the photos turned out well. heres some of them:
i recently changed out my T5 supps, Gman pure actinic and KZ figi purple for the URI actinic white because i found my pinks were turning purple. I am liking the color much better now as its a whiter shade instead of the pheonix blue hue which i grew out of. For my next set of bulbs ill probably get the coralvue 12K for a more natural look to the tank, will post a picture of the setup with the new lights soon.
I also went out and grabbed a small amount of carbisea seafloor special grade sand to add to my tank as i heard people say that which sand beds make the tank look much brighter and wow i have to say it does a good job fooling the human eye of a brighter tank ( or does it actually happen?) none the less i had to mod my tunze 6055 face covers to the super flow mod so that the sand doesnt get blown around but as a result my flow is now much wider and the corals are liking the new flow much better from the looks of it. ( i have a monti 4cm in front of 1 and the skin isnt getting blown off
)although its not really related to things ive changed for the tank. I had always wanted a macro lens for my hobby and nature photography, so last week i bought one and finally got to play with it a little since friday.
im still trying to get used to a macro lens as i have been shooting mostly with zoom lenses. But i think some of the photos turned out well. heres some of them:
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imisky
New member
a little update with a lighting question for everyone,
its time to get new bulbs and i am planning to get ushio 10Ks for the white color as i am starting to like it more than the blues, i'll still be using suppliment actinics for the colors but i was wondering what everyones thought on MH + T5HO combo would be for a 10K bulb. I only have access to UVI,Giesemann,Aqua Science, and Korallen-Zucht bulbs as not many stores sell ATI ups here and those that do charge a premium for them.
i was thinking about going with this combo:
2x 150 ushio 10K + 2x 24w UVI super actinic blue (PAR is much better than Giesemann pure actinic)
or
2x 150 ushio 10K + 2x 24w UVI 75.25s
i cant really decide which one i want to go with yet or if you guys have any combos which doesnt end up producing a super blue hue like the phoenix im open to suggestions. im looking for something with a very little amount of blue yet it gives off the florescence of the sps.
now that that question is out there a little update, i recently moved my bali tri color and in the attempt to do so fraged it into chunks as it was just not wanting to move, and now its all bleached from that but hopefully it'll do a full recovery. i'll try and photo journal the recovery to see how long it takes for it to get back to its prime.
but for now i got a picture i took a few days ago by luck of my female fairy wrasse before the pink birdsnest that i thought was fairly good . enjoy
its time to get new bulbs and i am planning to get ushio 10Ks for the white color as i am starting to like it more than the blues, i'll still be using suppliment actinics for the colors but i was wondering what everyones thought on MH + T5HO combo would be for a 10K bulb. I only have access to UVI,Giesemann,Aqua Science, and Korallen-Zucht bulbs as not many stores sell ATI ups here and those that do charge a premium for them.
i was thinking about going with this combo:
2x 150 ushio 10K + 2x 24w UVI super actinic blue (PAR is much better than Giesemann pure actinic)
or
2x 150 ushio 10K + 2x 24w UVI 75.25s
i cant really decide which one i want to go with yet or if you guys have any combos which doesnt end up producing a super blue hue like the phoenix im open to suggestions. im looking for something with a very little amount of blue yet it gives off the florescence of the sps.
now that that question is out there a little update, i recently moved my bali tri color and in the attempt to do so fraged it into chunks as it was just not wanting to move, and now its all bleached from that but hopefully it'll do a full recovery. i'll try and photo journal the recovery to see how long it takes for it to get back to its prime.
but for now i got a picture i took a few days ago by luck of my female fairy wrasse before the pink birdsnest that i thought was fairly good . enjoy
imisky
New member
thanks 
it seems like a the cardinals are pairing off and acting like normal cardinals for me, there is 2 pairs now always in the same places while 1 that is a free swimmer but the 1 free swimmer stays close to one of the pairs, They dont really shoal like i thought they would but then again i think fish we can keep in our tanks cant really shoals of fish at least my 30g cant :lmao:
it seems like a the cardinals are pairing off and acting like normal cardinals for me, there is 2 pairs now always in the same places while 1 that is a free swimmer but the 1 free swimmer stays close to one of the pairs, They dont really shoal like i thought they would but then again i think fish we can keep in our tanks cant really shoals of fish at least my 30g cant :lmao:Hello! Couldn't help but notice your thread hasn't popped up in my subscriptions list lately.
Im sure Im not the only one wondering where you've been and how your tank is doing!
Do you have anything you would like to share with the class?
With a tank as inspiring as this, I would hate to watch it just slip into obscurity...
Im sure Im not the only one wondering where you've been and how your tank is doing!
Do you have anything you would like to share with the class?
With a tank as inspiring as this, I would hate to watch it just slip into obscurity...
imisky
New member
Thanks for bring some life back into this thread, the tank has been doing very well, im constantly moving things around trying to find place to put that "one last coral" but i think now its just all about the waiting game.
I recently found that there was stray voltage in my tank that was stressing the inhabitants out, after adding a grounding probe to the tank, my pair of blue eye cardinals which was hiding 24/7 before the addition of the probe is now out in the open 24/7! While i havent found which piece of equipment is leaking the voltage i should get around to looking for it soon.
in terms of livestock, i believe blue eye cardinals are sensitive to stray voltage in our aquariums and because of that i lost quite of few of them. so now im down to
2x blue eye cardinal (pair)
1x fairy wrasse
and a new addition of a candy yellow hogfish
Im debating whether i should get more blue eye cardinals as i really like them, or try and get my LFS to bring in some Lori's anthias, even though i know they are hard to keep.
Rodrigo_BG
New member
great looking tank!
imisky
New member
thank you!
just wanted to add another photo to the update, not the best picture but after adding 2 more T5HO suppliments to the lighting i cant get the white balance correct again so i'll have to fiddle with it again, but this should give you guys an idea of the coral placement and roughly what the color temp looks like.
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